A Study On The C-E Version Of Da Yu Nv From An Eco-Translatological Perspective

Da Yu Nv is a representative novel written by Tie Ning,chairman of the Chinese Federation of Literary and Art Circles,and chairman of the Chinese Writers Association.In Tie Ning’s literary works,she is always full of deep humanistic care for the ups and downs of Chinese women in the river of modern history.Da Yu Nv was first published in China in 2006,and immediately became her first novel to be translated into English.The Chinese-to-English version(hereinafter referred to as C-E version),named The Bathing Women was published by Scribner’s in 2012,completed by the joint effort of Zhang Hongling and Jason Sommer.According to the Eco-translatology theory proposed by Professor Hu Gengshen,Eco-translatology is the adaptive selection made by the translator to adapt to the translational eco-environment.Eco-translatology theory refers to translation methods as“three-dimensional” transformations,and uses the degree of three-dimensional transformations,readers’ feedback and translator’s quality to evaluate translated works.Under the theoretical guidance of eco-translatology,this thesis aims to analyze and evaluate the C-E version of Da Yu Nv based on the evaluation principles of Eco-translatology.Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in this study.First,under the guidance of the three-dimensional transformation principles of Eco-translatology,case analysis is conducted and it is found that in the eco-environment of the C-E version of Da Yu Nv,the integration of adaptation and selection in linguistic dimension is slightly higher than that in cultural and communicative dimension;second,through data collection and analysis,the author found that C-E version of Da Yu Nv has considerable collections in Western libraries,most of which are in UK and US.However,given the book reviews,and readers’ comments on Amazon and Goodreads,the readers’ feedback is mixed;afterwards,the author found that in the cooperation between two translators,while striving to be faithful to the original text,they made adjustment in translation based on factors such as cultural differences and market conditions.Finally,under the guidance of the evaluation principles of Eco-translatology,this thesis puts forward some suggestions on how to further improve the C-E translation of contemporary Chinese literary works,in order to better “go global”.