On The C-E Translation Of Martial Arts Novels In The Light Of Reception Aesthetics

With the increasing upgrading of the reform and opening-up,China has made great efforts to carry out cultural exchanges with foreign countries.However,so far projects concerning “Chinese Literature Going-Global” have not achieved satisfactory results;one of the reasons lies in the lack of sufficient concern about target readers’ aesthetic expectation.The success of the English version of A Hero Born: Legends of the Condor Heroes Vol.1,written by Jin Yong,the representative figure in Chinese martial arts novels,and translated by British translator Anna Holmwood,proves that the “Chinese Literature Going-Global” project can be successful if good translations are ensured.As this translated work became a hit the moment it was published,especially popular among the Westerners,it is worthwhile to make a detailed analysis and study of how this translation could act like that.Currently,the existing studies of the English rendition of A Hero Born: Legends of the Condor Heroes Vol.1 mainly focus on the translator’s specific translation methods.Yet there is scarcely any detailed discussion on the influences of target readers that affect the selection of the translator’s strategies.Under such circumstances,Reception Aesthetics,a target-reader-centered theory can serve as a good theoretical basis for the present thesis.Meanwhile,the adaptation of this theory can also gain further improvement through the analysis of this translated version.The present thesis adopted three main concepts from the theory of Reception Aesthetics: “Readers’ active role”,“Horizon of expectations”,and “Fusion of horizons”to explore the target reader’s participation and the translator’s subjectivity in the translation activity of Jin Yong’s novel.The first two concepts of “Readers’ active role”and “Horizon of expectations” were used to discuss the reader’s participation in the interpretation of the target text and their feedback as well.The concept of “Horizon of expectations” was also used with “Fusion of horizons” to cope with the translator’s subjectivity.All the elaborations were done on both the macro and micro levels,or they were dealt with paratextually,all with the intention to examine what translation strategies and methods the translator employed when Anna Holmwood was translating this novel into English and the reasons behind those choices.Before the end of the dissertation,a conclusion was made that with efforts made in the fusion of all the horizons in the translation activity,the translator skillfully combined domestication and foreignization to improve the acceptance of this version.