A Study On Reader Awareness In English Versions Of Shan Hai Jing From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Under the strategy of Chinese culture “going global”,the translation of Chinese classics has received great attention.As an encyclopedia in ancient times,Shan Hai Jing involves geography,mythology,history,animals,plants,etc.The study on it is of great importance to learn all aspects of ancient Chinese society.Since the 1930 s,Western scholars have paid attention to Shan Hai Jing.For more than a century,only sporadic fragments were translated into French and English because the classic is so obscure and difficult to understand.Anne Birrell’s version,published in 1999,is the first complete English version finished by Western scholar.Wang Hong’s version,published in 2010,is a complete Chinese-English version based on the book project,Library of Chinese Classics.Scholars have researched into the English translation of Shan Hai Jing from the perspective of functional equivalence,relevance theory and manipulation theory.However,few scholars have comparatively explored the reader awareness in translation from the perspective of reception aesthetics.Reception aesthetics is a literary theory rising in the 1960 s.Different from traditional literature research,reception aesthetics makes readers get rid of marginalization and establishes the center of readers.The reader center of reception aesthetics shed light on translation practice and research.It is a creative aesthetic behavior for readers to read and accept the version.Therefore,translators’ concern about reader awareness in translation is of significance to realize the ultimate purpose of the version.Based on the two core concepts of reception aesthetics,“horizon of expectation” and“appeal structure”,this thesis makes a comparative study of the complete English versions of Shan Hai Jing translated by Anne Birrell and Wang Hong by applying the research methods of literature review,exemplification and comparison.The thesis aims to discuss reader awareness in two versions and translation strategies for concerning about reader awareness.From the aspect of horizon of expectation,Wang Hong’s version tends to use transliteration to deal with proper nouns and compound sentences to adapt to the language habits of Western readers.The paratexts are relatively monotonous.Birrell’s version carries out free translation to almost all names and represents the sentence features of source text by short sentence.Rich paratexts are fully employed to help readers deeply understanding the relevant background.From the aspect of appeal structure,both of them specifically reconstruct the language indeterminacy caused by polysemy and ellipsis.For facilitating readers to know about relevant cultures such as ideology,myth,sacrifice and geography,Wang Hong’s version mainly adopts interpretative translation to concretize the appeal structure in the text but causes a large number of blanks due to transliteration of names.Birrell’s version maintains the appeal structure by free translation of names and fills the blanks by amplification and notes.The comparative study of reader awareness between two English versions of Shan Hai Jing indicates that the reader orientation of the two versions is different.Birrell’s version is more beneficial to research-type readers in terms of expanding horizon of expectation,reconstructing language indeterminacy and cultural blanks.Wang Hong’s version gives priority to general readers and fits their horizon with plain language.Translators’ correct application of reader awareness is conducive to promote the comprehension and acceptance of versions,which provides some references for the practice of foreign translation of Chinese classics.Although their attention to readers’ awareness has made contributions to the successful translation of Shan Hai Jing,there are also some limitations.The two translators respectively insist on free translation or transliteration,which will inevitably lead to some lack of meaning and aesthetics.There are mistranslations or omissions in two versions.In addition,the too simple paratexts in Wang Hong’s version can be partly said that he discounts reader awareness.Therefore,in translation activities,translators are supposed to consider the readers’ horizon of expectation and reconstruct the appeal structure of the text by flexibly using various translation strategies and paratexts.It is essential to concern about readers,and ensure the accuracy of meaning as well as aesthetic value of the works as much as possible,so as to create a highly acceptive version to the greatest extent.