Cultural Losses In Evan King's Translation Of Luotuo Xiangzi From The Perspective Of The Postcolonial Theory

Traditional translation studies view translation as a language transfer, relishing the comparison between the translation and the source text to test the fidelity of the translation. But translation, especially literary translation, is not simply a code switching, owing to the fact that cultural elements always exist in literary texts and linguistics cannot solve the problem brought out by cultural difference. Therefore, culture-oriented schools of translation theory study stand in great numbers.After examining translation activities in various historical conditions and the structures between powers hidden behind target texts, theorists of postcolonial translation studies argue that there does exist difference between"strong cultures"and"weak cultures"and translation activities rarely involve a relationship of equality between texts, authors or cultures. Power differentials is the central intersection of translation studies and postcolonial theories, for one thing, it exposes the difference in positions and powers among various cultures as well as the influence of difference in positions between"strong cultures"and the"weak cultures"on translation activities, for another, it criticizes the exclusive attitudes towards differentials in other cultures for the sake of culturalcentrism.In translation, there are two strategies almost opposite to each other: foreignization and domestication. Foreignization is an approach by which the foreignness of the source language will be kept to the greatest possible extent and the translated version will certainly read like a translation. Domestication means removing all strangeness and foreignness of the source text and making the translation read like the original. Comparatively speaking, the strategy of domestication fails to promote cultural exchanges but causes cultural losses.Lao She is an outstanding figure in the modern Chinese literature. His works are best featured by its lively humor and scorching satire. The writing style wins him universal praise for its vivid description and strong local color. As Lao She enjoys an especially high status in Chinese literature, researches on him and his works have been on the rise ever since China adopted reform and open-door policy. However, researches on the translations of his works are regrettably rare. The present thesis is to analyze Evan King's translation of Luotuo Xiangzi by employing postcolonial translation theories as its theoretical basis and domesticating translation as its practical instrument. The thesis is divided into five chapters.The first chapter serves as an introduction to the theoretical development of translation studies, the background and essence of the postcolonial (translation) theory and the representative theorists. The second chapter discusses power differentials from a postcolonial translation perspective, pointing out that translation and power coexist, disproportionate translation, the choice of source texts and translation strategies all reflect the power. Chapter Three explains domestication from postcolonial perspective, introduces some major methods applied in domesticating translation and takes their shortcomings in cultural communications into account, and then reveals that translators in a"strong culture"mainly adopt the strategy of domestication. The fourth chapter is the major part of this thesis. First, it presents a profile of Lao She and his Luotuo Xiangzi, Evan King and his Rickshaw Boy, pointing out that Lao She's Luotuo Xiangzi is embedded with unique source style and cultural features. Then, from the postcolonial perspective, based on power differentials, this chapter discusses the phenomenon of cultural losses from degrees (total losses and partial losses) and types (losses in material culture, mental culture and institutional culture). Due to adopting the strategy of domestication, some cultural connotations are missing. The last comes to the conclusion part, criticizing the phenomenon of hegemony and proposing that translation activities be conducted on an equal basis so as to retain cultural connotations and promote cultural communications.