A Study On The English Translation Of The Last Lover From The Perspective Of Bourdieu’s Sociology

The Last Lover is one of the most remarkable novels written by the Chinese female writer,Can Xue.It takes“the Long March of love”of three couples as the main thread,revealing the metamorphosis process of the characters’spiritual world.It is translated by the American translator,Annelise Finegan Wasmoen.The translation has won the“Best Translated Books Award”,the only prize for translation literature in America.It is the first Chinese literary work that wins this award and has attracted extensive attention in the target society,which is in sharp contrast with the situation of other Chinese literature translation in western society.This research discusses the causes of the success of the translation of The Last Lover from the perspective of Bourdieu’s sociology,attempting to provide inspiration for future Chinese literary translation activities.In Bourdieu’s sociology,there are three key concepts--“field”,“capital”and“habitus”.They can provide adequate explanations for translation phenomena and have been widely applied in translation studies.This research attempts to adopt the“field”,“capital”and“habitus”to analyze the translation of The Last Lover.It mainly studies the following three questions:1.What are the“field”,“capital”and“habitus”influencing the translation of The Last Lover?2.What are the influences that the“field”,“capital”and“habitus”have exerted on the translation of The Last Lover?3.What inspiration can the experience of the translation of The Last Lover provide for future Chinese literary translation activities?This research finds that the theme,content,and style of the original text of The Last Lover cater to the anticipations of American literary field,academic field,and political field in the21^st century,providing it an inherent advantage in the dissemination in American society.Besides,the symbolic capital and cultural capital possessed by the author,the cultural capital owned by the translator,and the economic capital,social capital,symbolic capital and cultural capital maintained by the translation patronage,unblock the channel of the dissemination of the translation of The Last Lover in the target society and extend its influences.Meanwhile,the translator’s translation habitus of“translation being faithful to the original text and being acceptable for the target readers”embodied in the translation of metaphors and images in The Last Lover helps in producing the translation that values the source text as well as the readability of the translation,of which the target readers approve,making the translation widely accepted by the target language society.The successful translation of The Last Lover shows that it’s necessary to take the three factors namely the field,capital and habitus into consideration when translating Chinese literature,and make reasonable choices in the selection of original texts,translators,translation modes and publishers.By doing so,Chinese literature is expected not only to“go global”,but also to“go into”the world smoothly.