Descriptive Study On Literary Retranslation From The Perspective Of Manipulation: A Case Study Of The Great Gatsby Revisited

Literary retranslation gains increasing popularity among both translators and researchers in recent years. With the development of translation study as an independent disciplinary, professionals both at home and abroad show their great concerns. Retranslation-related studies at present, however, are prescriptive. Researchers often make subjective judgments on the versions, ignoring objective theoretical explanations. Such traditional paradigm of prescription is mainly confined to the specific transition in linguistic level, with emphasis on comparison between different versions. The shortcoming of this approach lies in the fact that researchers evaluate translations in a certain translation criterion consciously or unconsciously, unable to explain the phenomenon of retranslation objectively and thoroughly.To observe literary retranslation, a new descriptive paradigm is introduced in the paper, which is quite different from the traditional prescriptive approach. Descriptive translation study breaks out the limit of pure text and regards translation as a cultural and historical phenomenon; thus translation is treated in target-oriented social and cultural environment, involving the relationship between translation and target culture. The focus is not to make prescriptions or assessment, but to describe the practical translation objectively. In order to study retranslations systematically and thoroughly, it is a good way to take the method of contextualization, namely, we put them back into the historical, social and cultural context in which they are produced to research various factors related to translating activity. This approach is descriptive and helpful to evaluate translations ever produced. The descriptive study on retranslation aims to explore all possible factors, linguistic or non-linguistic, which influence the decision-making and strategies of translators.The thesis develops from the perspective of descriptive approach; while in exploring the phenomenon of literary retranslation, the author especially resorts to the theory of the manipulation as the main theoretical basis. By manipulation, translations are produced under a number of constraints, of which ideology and poetics are the most visible. Translators adapt and manipulate the originals they work with to some extent, usually to make them fit in with the dominant ideological and poetical currents of their time. The author devotes to the analysis of how these constraints influence translator's strategies. In the analysis of these versions, the author mainly focuses on the diachronic analysis to explore the factors determining translator's decision-making.As a case study, the author chooses The Great Gatsby written by American famous novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. Its Chinese version firstly appeared in 1970s in Taiwan area at the name of Da Heng Xiao Zhuan by famous translator George Kao and it was followed by Wu Ningkun's Liao Bu Qi De Gai Ci Bi ten years later in the mainland. By analyzing their different contexts in different times, we can see how ideology, patronage and poetics influence translators' decision and strategies of literary translation in given social and historical backgrounds from source text selection to the adoption of actual strategies, gaining some insights into the time-bound socio-cultural conditions. Such comparison well illustrates how the two famous translators almost in the same age produced two distinguished versions, both of which gain great popularity with quite different features. In addition, more versions of The Great Gatsby sprang out especially in recent years. The author also goes further to analyze these contemporary versions based on synchronic study to reveal its potential elements. Consequently, the descriptive approach to retranslation by synchronic analysis indicates possible constraints translators are faced with, which, to a great degree, influence their decisions and strategies. Translators' manipulation of the original and power relations working in translation activity can be seen clearly, helpful for our understanding of retranslations in the same age. Finally, the author puts forth one important issue about how to look at the relationship among so many versions. Looking back some Chinese scholars' views, the author discusses about the interrelation, with emphasis on tentative surpass of later translation over existential ones. Translators should be encouraged to learn from their precedents and exhibit their own creative thoughts on that basis, supplying readers with alternative versions with different features in good quality. It is necessary to advocate that retranslation should be based on the original version and surpass it by learning from its strong points to offset its weakness, instead of being the simple repetition or waste of time, force and wealth. In this way, Gu Zhengkun's theory of retranslation filtered translational accumulation and recreation filtered cultural accumulation are really positive. Positive interrelation between retranslations is beneficial to the prosperity of translation market and translation cause, so literary retranslation should be attached much importance to, with potential factors taken into consideration. Translation planning is necessary for both administrative agents and individual translators, demolishing negative effects of ideology, patronage and poetics.Undoubtedly, no perfect paradigm explains the complicated retranslation in absolutely proper way. Descriptive approach to translation also reveals researchers' subjectivity more or less even though they claim to be objective. Still, further study on literary retranslation is necessary.