On Determinants Of Publishers And Translators' Text Selection In Contemporary Mainland Chinese Fiction For English Translation

This thesis examines the translating of the representative works of two important literary schools in Mainland China since the 1980s—root-seeking and avant-garde fiction. It aims to explore the highly selective and manipulative nature in the choice of intended translations, and to demonstrate how the image of Chinese fictional literature and culture is presented and constructed respectively by Chinese and Anglophone publishers and translators. Explicit demonstration of the literary schools, authors and types of texts that are preferably selected for translation unfolds along the investigation, mainly involving such authors as Wang Zengqi, Ah Cheng, Han Shaogong, Mo Yan, Yu Hua, Su Tong, Can Xue and Liu Suola. Using both quantitative data of their representative works translated to English and cross-disciplinary approaches of translation studies, cultural studies and comparative literary criticism, this thesis will offer an account of the English productions of Chinese fictional literature in the Anglophone world. The polysystem theory of Even-Zohar, Gideon Toury's Descriptive Translation Studies, and the studies of Andre Lefevere, Susan Bassnett and Lawrence Venuti in the "cultural school" of Translation Studies will be examined in light of their significance and limitations, as well as their relevance to the current study.This thesis has arrived at such a conclusion: two major factors influence the selection of the works to translate, i.e., the publishers and translators' ideology and their literary poetics. Due to the respective ideology and literary poetics of Chinese and Anglophone publishers and translators, the relative prestige of Chinese and Anglophone cultures and the different goals of translation (e.g. cultural importation vs. exportation), diverse images of Chinese fictional literature and culture are shaped and presented. In the process of cultural importation, Anglophone publishers and translators show their somewhat stereotyped impression of a mystical, backward and barbaric China, their unfavorable attitude toward China's politics (e.g. the Cultural Revolution), their interest in Chinese philosophical and religious thoughts and their perception of westernized thoughts (e.g. concern for power of discourse and gender relations, and pessimism toward the unpleasant world) in the works to translate, implicative of their ideological orientation. They are also inclined to choose works echoing Western literary traditions in terms of narrative techniques (e.g. achronological narration, first-person narrative, dramatic plot construction and metafiction), artistic skills (e.g. magical realism and symbolism) and language features (e.g. anti-traditional language), which accounts for their poetic inclination. In the process of importation, Anglophone publishers and translators tend to adopt the "domesticating" approach in text selection and translation due to what they believe is a prestigious position of their culture.In the process of cultural exportation, Chinese publishers and translators demonstrate an adherence to orthodox cultural tradition (e.g. Confucian and Taoist thoughts, and concern for leisurely, trivial aspects of life) and traditional literary canons (e.g. bijiti xiaoshuo –note-form story, plain and natural narration, moderate and light language, and amiable ambience). Consciously or unconsciously, they adopt the "foreignising" approach that alienates themselves from target language readers in their insistence on their unique ideology and poetics.