A Comparative Study On The Translation Strategy Of The Two English Versions Of Jin Ping Mei From The Perspective Of Manipulation Theory

Jin Ping Mei is one of the four remarkable novels in the Ming Dynasty. It portrays many wealthypeople and ordinary citizen’s everyday life for its object of description. The source materials of the novelcome from the contemporary life, rather than from historical stories, religious legends or folklore. Thebirth of the Jin Ping Mei remarks the maturity of the classical novel, both in form and in content. For itsimportance in the World’s literature, Jin Ping Mei has been translated into English, French, German,Russian and Japanese. The content of the novel refers to almost every aspect of the society, includingpolitics, economy, culture, religion and ethics. It provides many a material for the translation study.Traditionally, the translation scholars believe that translation is the transformation on the level of thelinguistics, ignoring other factors which also have influence on the translation. But translation can not begoing on in a vacuum situation. It is impossible to do the translation without the influences of right, timeor the varied cultures. In1970s, the culture turning of literary translation widened the translationscholars’ field of vision. They began to pay attention to the influence of politics, economy, culture, religion,ideology, poetics and ethics. Such a change drew out the essence of translation better.This paper adopts the manipulation theory of Andre Lefevere to analyze the roles of its three factorsplay in the translation process. Firstly, the paper takes two translated versions belong to Clement· Egertonand David Tod Roy as the research objects. Though comparative description and analysis of the differenceof the two translated versions, the paper decides to choose social ethics, custom practices and religiouspractices as the perspectives of the study to analyze the manipulation of the social ideology on thetranslation. The research finds out that Clement· Egerton is liable to adopt the translation strategy ofdomestication, while David Tod Roy is liable to adopt the translation strategy of foreignization. Secondly,the paper analyzes the factors influencing on the personal ideology and analyzes the two translators’translation strategies. Thirdly, influenced by the different poetics of the target language situation, thetranslators choose different methods to deal with the language, style and literary technique in thetranslation process. At last, the paper shows the influence degree of the patronage factor on thetranslation.The paper consists of six chapters. Chapter one is a brief introduction to the research background,aims, significance and the structure. The second chapter is the literature review. It is the review on theactuality of the translation study on Jin Ping Mei and the manipulation theory. Chapter three is the theoretical framework. Firstly, it introduces the background of the birth of manipulation theory. Secondly,it introduces the brief history of manipulation theory and some viewpoints of the representatives. Lastly, itgives the main content of the three factors of manipulation theory. The fourth chapter is the researchdesign, including research questions, object, methodologies, data collection and analysis. The fifth chapteris the core part, which analyzes the influences of the three factors of manipulation theory on translation.The last chapter draws the conclusion.Based on the above study, the paper draws the conclusions: firstly, the three factors of themanipulation theory have influence on the translation. An individual lives in the social system andinevitably influenced by politics, economy, culture and the educational background. In the translationprocess, translators play an important role in translation. If the translators’ ideology unifies that of theoriginal work, the translators will choose foreignization translation strategy. Conversely the translator willchoose domestication translation strategy. Poetics also has a great influence on the translation, includingthe language, style and literary technique. The social function will determines choice of the translationstrategy. The translator will delete the poem and verse for the social function, but if the translator pursuesthe technicality, the translator will choose the foreignization translation strategy to keep the original work.Influenced by different patronage factors, the translators will hold different attitudes toward thetranslated versions for they fund translators. Secondly, the translator is one of the most active factors inthe translation process. With the influence of the three factors of the manipulation theory, the translatorwill change different translation methods to deal with the original text. The two translation strategies areunified. A translated version with high quality will adopt the two translation strategies together.