The Applicability Of Rewriting Theory In The Explanation Of Translation: A Case Study Of The Translation Of On The Road

Following the trend of cultural turn in translation studies from the last century, the rewriting theory grew out on the theoretical basis of polysystem theory. After several times of improvement and construction, it is now a well developed descriptive theory applied frequently in the field of translation study with its detailed explanation on the relations between translation and its social and cultural context. In order to exam whether the rewriting theory can hold on to the fast progressing of time, the thesis will carry out a case study of the four Chinese translations of American novel On the Road, to see whether the theory of translation as rewriting is still applicable.Being the American Beat's Bible, Jack Kerouac's On the Road has cast such great influence in the American context that it is regarded as one of the best 100 English novels from 1923 to 2005 by Time. While the Beat Generation as a literary genre represented by the novel is also of great importance with its typical spontaneous writing and the spirit of on the road being imitated and advocated for all time. The novel began its journey in China ever since the 1960s, and due to different ideological, poetical factors as well as the subjectivity of translators, nine versions of On the Road produced between 1962 and 2008 bear great differences.Therefore, this thesis strives to use the theory of translation as rewriting to carry out a case study on the four Chinese versions of On the Road available at hand (1990, 1998, 2007, 2008), finding out various factors hiding behind that manipulated the translation to rewrite the image of the novel. Then a fact is found that the translation is totally controlled by ideology when the ideological factors of a certain time (1960s) is rather strong; and when the ideology of Chinese system is in a steady state, poetical factors turn to govern the rewriting, under which circumstances, the subjectivity of translator plays more part (after 1996). On the one hand, the thesis uses the rewriting theory to explain the introduction, acceptation and image change of On the Road and the Beat Generation it depicted; on the other hand, it carries out another examination on the applicability of the theory and suggest that, under the new era of Internet, the time of information has provided readers a stage for readers of the target language. The ever closer communication and interaction between the readers and translators granted readers a new role as patronage and professional which are actually two rewriting factors. In the high tide of Internet, such fact is particularly obvious in the later translation versions of On the Road.