Reserach On Lawrence Venuti's Translation Theory

As an important figure among translation theorists, Lawrence Venuti has criticized and challenged the traditional domesticating translation, and has come to the conclusion that the objective of translation is to try to reserve the"foreignness"instead of seeking similarity. Venuti has advocated the foreignization strategy with an aim to make the translator visible in the translation practice. His translation theory has exerted giant influence on translation and on the discussion of domestication and foreignization at home and abroad.Venuti's translation theory is built up under the background of cultural hegemony and postcolonialism, and is established on the basis of deconstruction. It aims to challenge the cultural hegemony. In his theory, Venuti claims that the translator should not be invisible to the target readers. He advocates the foreignization strategy to make the translator visible in translation activities. He has put forward foreignization translation is a practical way against ethnocentrism and cultural imperialism. He advocates the foreignization strategy goal is to develop a theoretical and practical translation which can resist the dominant target language and cultural values, to symbolize the linguistic and cultural differences of the target text.The intention of this study is to explore Lawrence Venuti's translation theory, including his contributions and limitations in translation field, and with a further discussion of the application of his theory in practical translation—taking the translation of The Peony Pavilion as a case study. Through the study of Wang Rongpei's translation of The Peony Pavilion, the thesis tries to find a broader field to what extent Venuti's translation theory can be applied, especially the translation with great cultural background.Tang Xianzu is regarded as the Shakespeare of China and his dramas as the representative of Chinese classical literature. The Peony Pavilion has significant Chinese traditional culture elements in itself. However, compared with the dominant cultural elements, dramas like The Peony Pavilion is in a marginal position in the world literature system for a long time in the history.Hence, in one sense, Wang Rongpei's translation of The Peony Pavilion to the west is a minoritizing translation and also the voice of the weak culture to resist the hegemony of the strong ones. This thesis takes the cultural background part as the main examples to illustrate to what extent Venuti's translation theory can fulfill its role."Foreignizaiton"is an ideal strategy to attract readers while at the same time to enrich the culture of the target culture. Seen from the point of foreignization, Wang Rongpei mainly adopted transliteration, literal translation and literal translation added with annotation. At the same time, to ensure the target reader's acceptance and understanding, Wang Rongpei used domestication as the supplement strategy in dealing with the common language in the drama. He adopted free translation, simplification and paraphrase. This thesis bases itself on Venuti's translation theory and the analysis of Wang Rongpei's English version of The Peony Pavilion in hope of broadening the way to the cultural-oriented translation.