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

Translation, as the activity of cross-cultural communication, is viewed as a bridge linking two cultures. Andre Lefevere, the representative of Manipulation school, puts translation into the cultural system. He proposes that translation is not only the change of language, but also the rewriting by translators in the cultural level. All rewritings, to some extent, reflect a certain ideology and poetics in a particular period of times. Translator manipulates the source text and target text in order to be in accordance with the ideology and poetics of the target language readers. Lefevere focuses on the role of translator and translated text play in the target language culture and pays special attention to the concrete factors, such as ideology, poetics and patronage of the target language culture, which provides a new angle for translation studies.Published in 2004 by Changjiang Literature and Arts press, Lang Tuteng became a big hit in China. As the bestseller in China, the book also attracted overseas publishing. Penguin Books purchased the book's global English copyright in 2005 and chose Howard Goldblatt to do the translation work. Howard Goldblatt's outstanding translation helped Jiang Rong win the first Man Asian Literary Prize with the English version in 2007, which aims to promote Asian works of literature. However, since the English version Wolf Totem has been introduced to the world for only two years, no research has been done on analyzing the translated work from social and cultural perspectives. In addition, few researches have been done on Howard Goldblatt, except for some articles concerning about his translation thoughts from a macro angle. Enlightened by this idea, this thesis intends to put the study of translation of Jiang Rong's Lang Tuteng into a larger and broader context. Based on Lefevere's rewriting theory, the author explores the influences and manipulations of ideology, poetics and patronage of target language culture on Howard Goldblatt's selection and translation of Lang Tutang.This thesis is a descriptive study. Compared the English version with the Chinese version, the author aims to prove that the translation of Lang Tuteng is a form of rewriting which is reflected in two aspects: the selection of the original text's theme and the translating process. The reason for rewriting is the restraint of ideology, poetics and patronage in the target language culture upon translator and the display of initiative of translator. As the rewriter, translator's subjectivity is of great significance. However, there are few researches focusing on Howard Goldblatt and his translated works. Therefore, the paper is an additional study on Howard Goldblatt. Meanwhile, as a case study, it can be used to testify the feasibility of Lefevere's rewriting theory which can be also applied to analyze Chinese contemporary and modern literary works. The study is of certain innovation.