Literary Retranslation In Socio-cultural Context

This dissertation, with Fu Donghua’s translations of Jennie Gerhardt published in1935and1959respectively as a case study, discusses how the changes in socio-cultural context, the translator and their mutual relationship influence the motivation, aim and process of translation, in an attempt to criticize the translation and retranslation historically, to trace the development of Fu Donghua’s translation style and thoughts, and to probe the core nature of retranslation and a model for criticism and case study.Taking the translated texts as the starting point, the writer compares and contrasts them both synchronically and diachronically through close reading with a purpose to find out the changes in translation strategy and style between the two versions and the translator’s unique style and changes over time. Then the study follows the trace of the translator’s development in the socio-cultural context to reveal how changes in the context, the translator and their relationship can influence the whole process of translating. This is carried out on the basis of abundant first-hand evidence, including Fu’s literary and academic works, prefaces to and postscripts of his translations, advertisements, policies and documents and so on, to help reconstruct the historical scene of Fu’s translating activities and the trace of his translational development. The writer can thus examine the translated text, the translator, the translating process and the two historical periods in a comprehensive and objective way, and then to criticize Fu Donghua and his two Chinese translations of Jennie Gerhard’s historically, and to find out the unique nature of retranslation and a tentative research model.The main findings of this dissertation boil down to the following three points:Firstly, the retranslated Jennie Gerhardt, close to the background of mass readers in new China, is bestowed with the character of people, not only in content and meaning, but also in form and language. The rebirth of Jennie Gerhardt and its survival and prosperity after1959is not just a matter of adaptation or textual renewal, but a means to construct national ideology. Patronized by the government, it was in accordance with its policies and prepositions to help construct national ideology and literature, to standardize the Chinese language in the new age and to popularize literature and art. As Fu Donghua’s literary position was marginalized, he was more inclined to accept and adapt to national will. His unswerving pursuit of translation ideal was translated into reality through principled compromise. Therefore, the changes in the socio-cultural context, the translator and their mutual relationship together forged the character of the people in retranslation, which endowed it with existential rationality and cultural-historical significance.Secondly, the translations of Jennie Gerhardt reveal Fu Donghua’s shifts in his whole translation career, yet that also shows his unchanged great expectation and seriousness for translation, a strong sense of mission, a great concern with readers and an ultimate pursuit of faithfulness in correspondence with varied reality. He was unfaithful both in form and spirit in the early stage, and he sought for formal resemblance at the expense of readability in the1920s and1930s, while deviated from the source text to accomplish spiritual resemblance in the1940s, and finally tried to attain both after1949.Thirdly, this case study reveals the core nature of retranslation, that is, retranslation sets out for difference, and creates it through unavoidable overlapping, and gives rise to its complexity and cultural-historical significance. That in turn refutes the ideal of retranslating for surpassing older versions and the popular "retranslation hypothesis" that later translations tend to be closer to the source text. Hence in retranslation criticism, a fair and contextualized evaluation should be made in the dynamic history with a thorough examination of textual changes, contextual differences and the translator’s development under the framework of "the translated text-translation process-the translator-translation history".