Rickshaw Boy VS.Camel Xiangzi

Translation criticism develops with translation activities. Literary translation criticism has developed from the text-text unitary model to the poly-system model. Power discourse theory is advocated by Michel Foucault, a French post-structuralistic philosopher. Foucault assumes that social science is the manipulation of power and discourse of a certain time. Since knowledge is a form of power, there is not any social science without being restricted. Power discourse theory brings a revolution to translation studies. It changes traditional translation theories and brings a new research method to translation studies. Power discourse theory reveals the social character of translation studies.Lao She wrote a novel named Luotuo Xiangzi, in which he criticized the old society severely. The novel describes Xiangzi's degradation from a human to a beast, which shows civic culture corroding the human's life. Through Xiangzi's tragedy, the author accused the old society indignantly. The novel won great success at home and abroad. Until now there are almost 38 translated versions in the world.This paper mainly compares two English versions of Luotuo Xiangzi: one version is Rickshaw Boy translated by an American, Evan King in 1945 and the other is Camel Xiangzi translated by a Chinese, Shi Xiaoqing in 1981.The two English versions were produced in different countries and in different times.There are some differences in translation strategies: rewriting the ending, adding and deleting some plots. This paper adopts power discourse theory to analyze how the translators of different times and different countries use different translation strategies in translating the same novel under the influence of power and...