A Study Of Howard Goldblatt's Translation Of Lang Tu Teng From The Perspective Of Lefevere's Manipulation Theory

Lefevere adopted the mode of cultural studies and introduced social, political and cultural factors outside literary system into translation studies. He deems that translation can not be done in a vacuum and all translation problems can not be solved simply by linguistic means. Besides linguistic factors, translation is also influenced and manipulated by the target mainstream ideology and poetics in specific social, historical and cultural contexts. It is the violent manipulation and rewriting of the original. Lefevere's manipulation theory has gained wide attention from translation researchers in China. It has been used to explain translation phenomena like retranslation and mistranslation, for people to understand that the "unfaithful" phenomena are actually a result of all these manipulative factors.Lang Tu Teng takes its author Jiang Rong (Lu Jiamin), a publicity-shy first-time author who writes under a pen name,30 years to complete. Since its publication in 2004, it has attracted considerable interests; however, little attention and study has been given to the English version of Lang Tu Teng, translated by the famous American sinologist Professor Howard Goldblatt and published in 2008. Lang Tu Teng is a book that shows great concerns about humanity and people's homeland and echoes in people's soul, so both its Chinese and English versions deserve studying.Based upon Lefevere's manipulation theory and illustrated with the case study of Howard Goldblatt's Wolf Totem, the thesis intends to probe into linguistic and non-linguistic manipulative factors constraining Howard Goldblatt's choice of the source text and his translation strategies. Meanwhile, it analyses how Howard Goldblatt got his translation accepted by the target receptors through manipulation and rewriting.The author tends to analyse Howard Goldblatt's impact on people's minds and on society. The author also takes a descriptive method for the evaluation and social impact of the English version of Lang Tu Teng, expecting to reappraise Howard Goldblatt and his translation objectively and dialectically.The conclusion the author has come to is that only when all the poetic, patron and ideological factors are taken into consideration, can translation or exchange of culture be performed successfully. In addition, the manipulation theory can not only offer a persuasive explanation to the translation strategies of Lang Tu Teng and deepen our understanding of the Chinese translated canons but also guide us in our future translation practice.