An Ecological Analysis Of The Subjects' Relationship In Contemporary Chinese Translated Literature System

Translated literature, as a special kind of literature and an integral part of the target literature, has been playing a significant role in promoting the cultural exchange and local literary modernity, which has been proved repeatedly in both western and Chinese translation history. Generally speaking, research paradigms on translated literature in China so far have undergone several phases: the recognition of its status and significance; the description and compiling of its history; the discussion about how some specific social and cultural factors affect the selection, production, dissemination, acceptance of some translated works in new target contexts under the theoretical framework of Medio-translatology and cultural translation studies.This dissertation tries to adopt the ecologically holistic and systemic paradigm to integrate the main research approaches to the translated literature. At a macroscopic level, it summarizes the historical and functional overview of the translated literature system in contemporary China; at a microscopic level, it mainly illustrates in the translated literature system the interplay between subjects'relationship and the particular contexts of the target culture. More importantly, based on the ecological analysis of the subjects'inter-relationship and in light of some ecological laws, this dissertation makes further reflections on how to construct a translated literature ecosystem with sustainable development in the future.Firstly, this paper borrows some implications from the Polysystem, the cultural translation studies (especially the Manipulation School), the translation ecology, considering the translated literature a small ecosystem under the larger literary Polysystem. The constraints of the external environment mainly include literary, social, political, ideological, poetical factors, such as the status of the local literature, mainstream ideology, discourse power, mainstream poetics and public aesthetic needs; while the internal of the translated literature system consists of different subjects, namely the authors as creating subjects, the translators translating subjects, the readers recipients, patrons as patronage subjects and professional critics as the criticizing subjects. The translated literature, the involved subjects, the external environment in different periods are mutually constrained and affected, interacting with each other.According to Zohar's Polysystem theory, the status of the target literature might decide the position of its translated literature, either central or peripheral within a certain cultural Polysystem. From Andre-Lefevere's manipulation theory, we know the whole translation process is manipulated by a lot of non-linguistic elements, and mainly dominated by the poetics, ideology and patronage, with the ideology as the core. During the Seventeen Years Period, in accordance with the formation and completion of the new literature in New China, the translated literature lay in the sub-center and then approached more and more towards the peripheral position with distinct political characteristics and selections, manipulated greatly by the mainstream political ideology. During the Cultural Revolution Period, the mainstream literature of socialist realism occupied the central position. The mainstream ideology had laid down harsh restrictions on literature and literary translation. The literary translation had been mostly prohibited and the senior-level patrons representing the mainstream political ideology dominated the control of poetic discourse power to the extreme degree. The translated literature was pushed to the edge of the literary Polysystem, finding itself very difficult to enter the target literature. During the Transformation Period in 1980s and 1990s, the Chinese society and literature had been experienced tremendous changes. The translated literature assumed the central position of the literary system, attaining more literary freedom and space to develop. The mainstream ideology released more discourse power to those professionals in the cultural and literary fields or other ideologies.Meanwhile, through historical description and a case study, the paper illustrates the forms, the subjects'roles, the subjects'relationship of the contemporary Chinese translated literature ecosystem during the Seventeen Years Period, the Cultural Revolution Period, the Transformation Period. To make it easier to sketch the whole picture of the contemporary Chinese translated literature, this dissertation adopts a well-reputed translated literature magazine the World Literature as an example, taking the empirical analysis of the World Literature publication history as a typical example to reflect the panorama of the translated literature in different periods through a glimpse. The paper finds that the particular existence of translated literature and the interrelationship between the subjects involved are affected and manipulated by the target culture, especially by such factors as politics, ideology and poetics. Under different effects of the external environments in different historical contexts, mainly the manipulation of mainstream ideologies, the internal subjects in the subjects'relationship network, with varied discourse power, may assume different roles in deciding the selections, strategies, motives, criticism modes and acceptance as well. Then accordingly, the translated literature system in different periods shall present distinctive intrinsic and social functions.During the Seventeen Years Period (1949-1966), the translated literature was often politically and ideologically oriented, which involved translated works from former Soviet Union or Russia, works from African, Asian, Latin American, east European socialist countries, the so-called revolutionary and progressive classics from western countries. The patrons on behalf of the mainstream ideology were given undue discourse power, sponsoring politically the translation strategies and translation sources, readers'acceptance and professionals'criticism. Patrons stood out as the center in the subjects'relationship network, determining the sources and topics for translated literature, steering the ideological interpretation, recommending relevant translation strategies and manipulating the political tendency to make comments. During the Cultural Revolution Period (1966-1976), the political utility of literary translation reached a new high and the translated literature became the forbidden zone, leaving some translated works published internally only for ideological combats. During the Cultural Revolution Period, due to the almost absolute manipulation of the mainstream ideology, the literary intrinsic aesthetic value had been denied and the translated literature, totally as the ideological combat weapon, could not find any overt subjectivity for all the subjects. The publishing houses, compliers and editors, once viewed as the low-level patrons, had been even deprived of the discourse power in the process of translated literature. With translators losing the social and cultural status, readers and professionals being more guided politically in their interpretation and criticism, most subjects'subjectivities were obscured in their roles and identities. When it comes to the 1980s and 1990s in the New Period, the translated literature, gradually detaching itself from the manipulation of political ideology, was created more for literary considerations and cultural exchange rather than political needs. During that Transformation Period, the translated literature saw great boom by introducing various schools of modern and contemporary world literature into China, because the cultural transformation created some cultural and literary space to absorb new heterogeneous elements for reconstructing the mainstream culture and mainstream poetics. In the subjects'relationship network, those translators and readers, once invisible or transparent, had been depicted clearly. The diversified readers'subjectivity in literary appreciation for more after-life differance of the original works, the translators'motives, aesthetic awareness, free selections of translation materials and translating strategies had been prominently paid much attention to.Based on the thorough ecological analyses of the subjects'relationship in contemporary Chinese translated literature system, the paper finally maintains that it is necessary to construct a translated literature ecosystem with sustainable development, which requires a rather well-balanced and steady external environment, and a harmonious subjects'relationship network as well. The well-balanced and steady environment may be achieved by great variety of translated literature forms, less interference from a certain social factor, more integration of diversified functions in the system; Harmonious intersubjectivity suggests that all the subjects in the subjects'relationship network make adaptive selections and initiate equal interactions, thus assuming more subjectivity and maintaining more vitality for the whole translated literature ecosystem.In summary, this paper tries to establish an ecological and systemic research paradigm, involving different translated literature approaches, which hopes to provide some new insights into the whole ontological study. Meanwhile, the ecological analysis of the subjects'relationship in contemporary Chinese translated literature offers an ethical reflection on the subjects'new roles and relationship for the future globalized and commercialized literary translation.