A Study On Howard Goldblatt's Translation Of Lang Tuteng From The Perspective Of Rewriting Theory

Translation studies have witnessed a rapid development for the past three decades, which is being approached from a more diversified perspective. On the one hand, a group of scholars realized the translation studies could not be conducted within the framework of the linguistic approach any longer, and the source-oriented model led traditional translation studies into a deadlock. On the other hand, the manipulation school, represented by Andre Lefevere, began to examine translation studies from the cultural angle. In Lefevere's view, translation is a rewriting of the original text. All rewritings, whatever their intentions, reflect a certain ideology and a poetics and manipulate literature to function in a given society in a given way. Lefevere puts forward three constraints under which translators operate. They are ideology, poetics and patronage. Lefevere's approach to translation study is target-oriented and descriptive. And this approach views translation as a cultural activity against the background of its social environment, thus fundamentally renewing our concept of translation. With its contribution to the great expansion in this field, the descriptive paradigm has become the mainstream in Western translation studies.Lang Tuteng, written by Jiang Rong, is a semi-autobiographical and epic novel, which records its author's personal experience of the grasslands of China's border region. As an ecological fiction concerning the harmonious relations between human and nature, it created a sensation in China and became a best seller since 2004. So far, its overseas copyright has almost covered all major languages, and twenty-six versions with different languages have been published, including English, French, Italian and so on. Meanwhile, the royalties and the advance paid by the Penguin Press for its copyright transfer set a record in the Chinese book copyright trade (刘斯斯, 2008: 106). Undoubtedly, it is a noteworthy phenomenon against the current background of the great deficit of the Chinese book copyright trade. Furthermore, this book was awarded the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize, which is very significant for the Chinese culture export. Therefore, the present thesis, with Andre Lefevere's rewriting theory as its theoretical basis and Goldblatt's English version of Lang Tuteng as its object of study, attempts to examine the manipulation exerted by poetics, ideology and patronage on Goldblatt's translation of this work.The thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter gives a brief introduction to the research background, the significance of the study, and the structure of the thesis. Chapter Two gives an account of Jiang Rong (the author), the Chinese version of Lang Tuteng, Howard Goldblatt (the translator), and his translation of Lang Tuteng. Chapter Three expounds the manipulation school and Lefevere's rewriting theory, laying the theoretical basis of the thesis. Chapter Four is the body of the present thesis, which carries out a systematical and in-depth analysis of Goldblatt's translation in terms of rewriting theory. Through the research, the present author finds out that, firstly, in order to promote the text, An Boshun, the editor with the Changjiang Literature and Arts Press, made use of the media to enlarge the book's popularity and helped to export its copyright. Meanwhile, the Man Asian Literary Prize that Lang Tuteng won not only made the text more influential but also popularized the translation to some extent. Secondly, in terms of choosing the text for translation, the Penguin Press tried to look for a Chinese novel with distinctive characteristics and wonderful stories, and this novel reveals superb stories of Mongolian wolves and harmonious relationship between man and nature. As a fiction with strong consciousness of environmental protection, Lang Tuteng meets the needs of ecocriticism trend. Moreover, the rapid development of Chinese economy helps Chinese culture to become popular worldwide. Thirdly, in the process of text-production, the editorial department of the Penguin Press demanded that deletions should be made with the purpose of giving prominence to the stories. And the translator, allowed by the author, omitted parts of argument and non-fictional words in the original. Lastly, meticulousness of the translator and his viewpoints on translation made great contributions to the publication and popularity of the novel in the English-speaking countries. Chapter Five, the concluding part, makes a summary of the thesis and draws the conclusion that Goldblatt's translation of Wolf Totem is largely a form of rewriting which is undertaken under the manipulation of poetics, ideology and patronage. The successful publication of the translation in the English world sets a good example and provides a new enlightenment for the export of Chinese literature and culture in the future.