A Contrastive Study On The Yangs’ And Kinkley’s English Versions Of Border Town Guided By Manipulation Theory

Border Town is a representative novella of the famous writer Shen Congwen,which was first published in 1934.Since its publication,this novella has exerted a profound influence on Chinese literary circles,thus being known as “an unfading jewel through the ages”.Later,it was translated into various versions in more than 40 languages,among which the English versions are the most popular among readers at home and abroad.At present,there are four English versions,but two of them are studied mostly,that is,the Yangs’ version(translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang)and Kinkley’s version(translated by American sinologist Jeffrey C.Kinkley).The Yangs were prominent translators in China,who have made great contributions to translating Chinese literary works.After their English version of this novella was published in the Journal of Chinese Literary in 1962,it has been deeply loved and admired by readers.Kinkley’s English version of this novella was jointly published by two major Chinese and American publishing houses in 2009(namely,Chinese People’s Literature Publishing House and Harper Collins Publisher).Once published,it has been recognized and appreciated by experts in the translation field.In view of the popularity and authority of these two versions,the author selects them as the research objects to conduct a contrastive study.Manipulation Theory was put forward by André Lefevere in his monograph in 1992.It holds the opinion that the three factors,ideology,poetics and patronage,to a certain extent,can influence and manipulate translators,making them rewrite the original text by means of amplification,deletion,rewriting,etc.Due to the gap of nearly 50 years between the Yangs’ and Kinkley’s versions of this novella,there are certainly some differences in ideology,poetics and patronage of their respective times.Therefore,the author argues that making a contrastive study on these two versions guided by Manipulation Theory is of great feasibility and research significance.With the guidance of Manipulation Theory,this thesis contrasts the Yangs’ and Kinkley’s versions of Border Town from three aspects: ideology,poetics and patronage.After a detailed study,the thesis comes to the following conclusions.Firstly,manipulated by the factor of ideology,there are two main differences between the Yangs’ and Kinkley’s versions: first,the Yangs’ version adopting omission to translate politically sensitive expressions VS Kinkley’s version adopting literal translation to translate politically sensitive expressions;second,the Yangs’ version adopting domestication to translate Chinese common sayings VS Kinkley’s version adopting foreignization to translate Chinese common sayings.Secondly,manipulated by the factor of poetics,there are two main differences between the Yangs’and Kinkley’s versions:first,some translations in the Yangs’version not retaining the original rhetorical device of simile VS translations in Kinkley’s version retaining the original rhetorical device of simile;second,some translations in the Yangs’version abandoning the beauty of the original language style VS translations in Kinkley’s version retaining the beauty of the original language style.Thirdly,manipulated by the factor of patronage,there are two main differences between the Yangs’and Kinkley’s versions:first,the Yangs’version using oral words mostly with good readability VS Kinkley’s version using written words mostly with high literariness;second,the Yangs’version occasionally lacking accuracy VS Kinkley’s version being accurate.Through the contrastive study on the Yangs’ and Kinkley’s versions of Border Town,the thesis can deepen readers’ understanding of these two English versions,and arouse domestic researchers’ interests in the studies of the two English versions to some degree,so that the research perspective can be further enriched.In addition,the author hopes that this thesis can,to a certain extent,provide reasonable supporting examples for translation practice guided by Manipulation Theory,further broadening its research scopes and providing some references for later researchers to study the English versions of this novella.The thesis even attempts to contribute a little to the external spread of classic Chinese literary works.