On Translator's Subjectivity In Rewriting Theory

Since Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2012, much attention has been paid to Chinese modern and contemporary literary works. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out translated by Goldblatt has not only won high praise from Western readers, but also won many rewards in the world, such as Hongloumeng Award and Newman Prize for Chinese literature. The reasons why Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out can achieve such fruitful results are both for its particular charm and Goldblatt's excellent translation. However, studies on the English versions of Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out are very limited both at home and abroad. Besides, most of the studies are mainly made on the level of literature and few studies have been made on its translations.Traditional translation studies pay much attention to the source text and regard translation as faithfulness and equivalence of language, which greatly ignored translator's subjectivity. It was not until “cultural turn” in the 1970 s did translator's subjectivity begin to get more attention. Lefevere proposed that “translation is rewriting”, which changed people's traditional conception of translation, transformed the studying focus of translation transform from language level to non-language factors and enriched the connotations of translator's subjectivity.This thesis is based on three factors of Lefevere's rewriting theory. Through detailed analysis of Goldblatt's selection of the source text and a great number of rewriting phenomena in the English version of Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, this thesis aims to find out how Goldblatt gives full play of his subjectivity under the manipulation of ideology, poetics and patronage in the process of text selection and text translation to make sure that his translation can be widely accepted by Western readers.This thesis finally comes to the conclusion that the translator is not completely conforming to the source text in the process of translation. The translator, as a subject in the process of translation, can give certain play of his or her subjectivity in the process of text selection and text translation. But in the meanwhile, his or her subjectivity is influenced by certain social and cultural environment. So the author attempts to present some implications for the further “going-out” of Chinese literature through plenty of case studies.