A Study On Howard Goldblatt’s Translation Of Big Breastss And Wide Hips From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

For a long time,western media and readers have focused their attention on Chinese literature mainly in political and social aspects,ignoring the literary value.Therefore,a breakthrough should be realized to change western readers’ attitude towards Chinese literature.It has been proved that readers’ reception is the main factor for the effective dissemination of literary works.Besides,it is another important channel for Chinese literature to go out by exploring the literary works that have been widely recognized and accepted.Mo Yan is first Chinese writer granted the Nobel Prize for literature and his works have been recognized internationally,which help effectively spread Chinese culture all over the world.As one of his most famous novels,Big Breasts and Wide Hips is also one of the most controversial work.However,after more than 20 years of ups and downs,it is still one of Mo Yan’s most popular novels.The reason for the fact that it is widely accepted deserves the continuous attention and exploration of many experts and scholars.A lot of researches on this work have been conducted at different levels,but researches from the perspective of reception aesthetics and readers’ reception are relatively limited.Different from the traditional translation studies that focus on the source text and the author or translator,studies from perspective of reception aesthetics take readers’ receptive ability into consideration and emphasizes readers’ participation and understanding of the text.The translator’s choice of translation strategies and methods is directly affected by the target reader’s horizon of expectation.At the same time,appealing structure consisting of blanks and indeterminacies in literary works is crucial for readers to actively participate in process of comprehension of the literary text.Based on the two key words of reception aesthetics,the horizon of expectation and appealing structure,this thesis explores how the reception aesthetics help to analyze the English translation of Fengru Feitun and the translation strategies and methods adopted to better realize the reception of the target readers.The study shows that in the process of analysis,the literal translation,free translation,and amplification come first and the omission and transliteration come later.The choice of the target text and the quality of translation hinge entirely on the translator’ horizon of expectation,such as life experience,personal preference,language and learning ability as well as translation thoughts,while the aesthetic experience,cultural belief,knowledge reserve and the pursuit of foreign culture of the target readers are crucial to the acceptance of the work.From the perspective of the horizon of expectation,Howard Goldblatt adopts domestication and foreignization respectively to meet with the readers’ directional expectation and innovative expectation so that the readers have a fusion of horizons with the translation,which will facilitate the readers’ understanding and reception of the translated text.From the perspective of appealing structure of text,this thesis analyzes from five aspects: the construction of meaning,the phonetics,the Rhetoric,the artistic concept and images and the emotions.It is found that in the process of translation,considering that the target readers’ ability to accept Chinese culture is limited,the translator adopts specific translation methods,such as literal translation plus amplification,structure change and other methods to guide the readers to exert their imagination and fill the blanks.In addition,the context plays an important role in the selection of translation strategies.On the basis of the target readers’ understanding of the context,Goldblatt adopted the appropriate strategies accordingly to achieve horizon of expectation better.At last,the reception of the English translation of Big Breasts and Wide Hips in the western world is discussed based on survey of world library collections and reader reviews in amazon.In the process of reading,the appreciation and exploration of Chinese culture and history changes the attitudes and impressions of the target readers to Chinese literature to a large extent.It can be said that Goldblatt’s translation model provides valuable experience for Chinese literature to go abroad.