A Study Into The Translations Of Su Shi's Ci-poems From The Perspective Of Manipulation Theory

Song ci-poems, one of the greatest achievements of Chinese poetry, enjoyed nearly the same high prestige as Tang poetry. Su Shi, the most famous poet-essayist-calligrapher-statesman, initiated a bold and unconstrained school of ci-poems and composed numerous famous ci-poems to go down in history. In Chinese people's consciousness, both Song ci-poems and Su Shi were important cultural heritage. However, translating and introducing Su Shi's ci-poems to the west started in the early 20th century. It developed very fast. In more than 100 years, translators both at home and abroad have produced numerous versions of translations of Su Shi's ci-poems. New versions of translations are still being published. There is even a phenomenon that a translator may have offered different English versions for a given piece of Su Shi's works.Compared with the copious translations of Su Shi's ci-poems, the studies of the translations are few and far between. In China, the study of the translations of Su Shi's ci-poems is mingling with the study of the translation of the classical Chinese poetry, which primarily focuses on the subject whether the poems should be translated into rhymed lines or free verse. No scholar is exclusively dedicated to the study of the translations of Su Shi's ci-poems. In the west, the research on the translations of Su Shi's ci-poems, focusing only on the most prominent translation books, is mostly presented in the form of book review scattering in the academic journals. This thesis tries to give a systematic study of the translations of Su Shi's ci-poems with a view to shedding some light on the future translations.Translation studies started a Cultural Turn in the 1980s and since then translation studies has not been confined to the sphere of language. Rather, it has been put in a macroscopical context of culture, society and history, and thus the scope of translation studies has been extended, and new perspectives have been explored. During this process, multiple theories, including polysystem theory, Skopostheorie and so on have emerged, among which Lefevere's manipulation theory come to the front.One of Lefevere's insights is that all translation is rewriting, and is manipulated by poetics, ideology and patronage. This proposition gives great prominence to cultural elements and translator's subjectivity in translation, thus promoting the Cultural Turn of translation studies.Under the guidance of Lefevere's manipulation theory, the author tries to examine the influences and constraints of ideology, patronage and poetics on the translations of Su Shi's ci-poems. By adopting the descriptive approach, the author intends to avoid the limitation of the traditional approaches to translation studies-laying too much emphasis on the linguistic aspect, while ignoring the features of times and cultures that affecting the translations. Lefevere's manipulation theory enjoys an advantage when we consider translations in terms of ideology, patronage and poetics.Three chapters comprise the body of this thesis. Chapter Two is a review of the polysystem theory and the manipulation theory, constituting the theoretical foundation of the thesis. Chapter Three is a study of the influences and constraints of ideology, patronage and poetics on four translators. The author argues that the manipulations exerted by poetics, ideology and patronage are different in degree for different translators or in different eras. Chapter Four is a detailed study of the four scholars' translations from the perspective of manipulation theory.