A Study Of Ray Huang’s Chinese Self-translation Of The Ming Dynasty In Decline

Ray Huang is a historian who has an unusual position in the historian circle.Huang is also a translator and translates his own English work 1587,A Year of No Significance:The Ming Dynasty in Decline into Chinese.There are quite a lot of remarkable researches on Huang’s historical points of view and influence of the Book.However,scholars have paid little attention to his translation practice so far.This thesis takes Huang,s English work 1587,A Year of No Significance:The Ming Dynasty in Decline and four Chinese translations(1981,1982,1985 and 1997)as a case study.It focuses on the translation purposes,process,value and acceptance in different contexts.The thesis starts with an introduction to the educational and academic background of Huang,and investigates the characteristics of paratext,the translation and publication processes of four Chinese versions.The thesis then compares The Ming Dynasty in Decline(1981)with its Chinese version(1982)in details.The research methodology of the paper mainly is a descriptive study.The research argues that a self-translator has more decision-making power in his translation,and the publishing houses also influence the translator by giving some guidance and advice.Deeply affected by the ideological,historical and cultural constraints of the context,the publishing houses may choose different forms of paratexts.This thesis believes that ideology,to some extent,decides the selection of the translation work,the spread of ideas and acceptance,and Huang’s "self-translation as kind of trans-writing practice" holds its acceptability.