A Study On Goldblatt’s Translation Of The Garlic Ballads From The Perspective Of Translator Behavior Criticism

Mo Yan is the first Chinese winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature,and The Garlic Ballads,a masterpiece of him is one of the most well-known and best-selling novels among his many works.This novel reflects the conscience of Chinese writers and the living state of vulnerable groups.It is full of collisions in emotion and ups and downs in plot,showing the contradictions and entanglements that Chinese rural areas experienced in the process of economic reform at that time.As a renowned sinologist in the United States,Howard Goldblatt has translated more than 60 works of more than 30 Chinese writers,making him the most productive translator in history of Chinese novel translation.Moreover,he is the primary English translator of Mo Yan’s works.The Garlic Ballads was the first Mo Yan’s work that Howard Goldblatt had access to.Although many domestic scholars have studied Goldblatt and his English translation of The Garlic Ballads from linguistic level and the perspective of the translator’s subjectivity in recent years,all these studies are carried out from the critical perspective of text or the critical perspective of culture,which do not take translators and translator behaviors as the breakthrough point.Therefore,based on Translator Behavior Criticism,this thesis intends to take Goldblatt’s translation of The Garlic Ballads as the research object.And after introducing the development process of translation criticism and the theoretical framework of Translator Behavior Criticism,the author makes a comprehensive analysis of Goldblatt’s translator behavior as far as possible from both intra-translation behavior and extra-translation behavior and combining with the “Truth-seeking-Utility-attaining” evaluative model in Translator Behavior Criticism.And the author not only explores the translator’s intra-translation behavior and extra-translation behavior but also makes a relatively objective analysis of the rationality of the translator’s behavior to find out the trajectory of Goldblatt’s translator behavior.It is the first time to study the English version of The Garlic Ballads from the perspective of Translator Behavior Criticism.Through the analysis,the author draws the following conclusion: first of all,Goldblatt’s intra-translation behavior include the behavior of truth-seeking and the behavior of utility-attaining.He properly made the translation be truth-seeking or utility-attaining.Secondly,Goldblatt’s extra-translation behavior is mainly influenced by his social roles.With different social roles,the translator behavior will be different,and the translated text will also change accordingly.Finally,based on the previous analysis,the author makes a comprehensive evaluation of Goldblatt’s translator behavior in his version of The Garlic Ballads,and holds that Goldblatt’s translator behavior is at a high level of rationality.