A Comparative Study Of Two English Versions Of Mao Zedong’s Poems From The Perspective Of Translator Behavior Criticism

Mao Zedong is known as an outstanding modern and contemporary Chinese poet,whose poetry creation is unique,both artistic and political.Mao Zedong’s poetry is one of the important carriers of Mao Zedong Thought,and the artistic representation of the magnificent picture of the Chinese revolution and construction.Since the 1940 s,it has been translated overseas by some foreigners,such as Hua-ling Nieh,Willis Barnstone.Chinese scholars take carrying forward Chinese culture as their mission,and constantly retranslate Mao Zedong’s poems,such as the translations of Xu Yuanchong,Li Zhengshuan and others.In terms of the translations of Mao Zedong’s poems,domestic scholars have done a lot of research only on the language level,so it is necessary to further study these two translations from a new perspective.“Translator Behavior Criticism” is an original theoretical system put forward by Zhou Lingshun,a native Chinese scholar.Taking translator as the object,it explores the interaction between translator and the translated text from the intra-translation and extra-translation,and explores the internal and external causes of translator behavior at the linguistic level and social level,which helps us to have a deeper understanding of translation,a special cross-cultural communication phenomenon.Therefore,based on the theory of Translator Behavior Criticism,this paper contrasts and evaluates Li’s and Nieh’s translator behavior by taking the two translators’ translations of Mao Zedong’s poems as the research objects.Based on translator behavior of these two translators,this paper uses descriptive comparative method to evaluate the two translators’ rationality according to their intra-translation behavior and extra-translation behavior.Firstly,on the basis of the“Truth-Seeking-Utility-Attaining” Evaluative Model of Continuum,treating the two translators as “linguistic beings”,this paper makes a contrastive analysis of Li’s and Nieh’s intra-translation behavior by researching linguistic content and the translation strategies and methods adopted by the translators from the three aspects of translation of “form”,“meaning”and “rhetoric”.Then,the author makes an analysis of the two translators’ extra-translation behavior by regarding them as “social beings”,mainly focusing on the translators themselves,their social context and their reader awareness,which can have some influences on their translator behavior as well as their translations.Finally,according to the translator behavior rules,the degree of rationality of Li’s and Nieh’s translator behavior will be judged,combining the two translators’ intra-and extra-translation behaviors.Through the analysis,it is found that in terms of the translation of form,Li’s translator behavior is high degree of “truth-seeking”,but Nieh abandon to reproduce the rhyme and sentence form of the original,her translator behavior tending to “Utility-Attaining”.In terms of meaning,Li Zhengshuan’s translator behavior tends to be “Truth-Seeking” as a whole,while Hua-ling Nieh is “semi Truth-Seeking”.In terms of rhetoric,translator behaviors of the two translators are both “Truth-Seeking”.All their adjustments to their translations are closely related to their extra-translation behavior factors.On the whole,both the two translators’ behaviors are rational.By comparing the two translators’ behavior and their rationality,this paper attempts to test the practicality of Translator Behavior Criticism theory,and hopes to offer a useful reference for the future translation of Chinese classics through an objective evaluation of the two English versions.