On The Construction Of Cultural Identity In The Woman Warrior And Its Chinese Translation

Since the 1960s, Chinese American Literature (CAL hereafter), an indispensable branch of American Literature, especially Asian American Literature, has been transformed. Once suppressed and marginalized, it has joined the ranks of mainstream American culture and is, today, a hotly debated issue worldwide. Maxine Hong Kingston's debut work, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of A Childhood Among Ghosts, is regarded as one of its representative landmarks. Its argumentative narration style and creative adoption of Chinese elements make Kingston and her work a focus of academic study both at home and abroad. It has been analyzed or discussed from many perspectives: feminism, post-colonialism, postmodernism, cultural studies, and others as well. Although cultural identity is a particular concern, due to Kingston's unique diasporic experience and in-between status, the construction of identity in The Woman Warrior has rarely been studied from the perspective of translation. Moreover, like many other Chinese American literary works that have countless ties with Chinese culture, The Woman Warrior is not widely read in China and is less popular here than in Euro-American society, which largely resulted from its English-Chinese translation (E-C translation hereafter). This thesis aims to explore the construction of cultural identity in Kingston's The Woman Warrior and its Chinese translation.Taking The Woman Warrior as the studying object and defining Kingston's cross-cultural writing as cultural translation in a broad sense, this thesis adopts post-colonial translation as a foundation from which to analyze respectively the construction of cultural identity in The Woman Warrior and its E-C translation. Following on a comprehensive and objective interpretation of Kingston's creation and a thorough analysis of the dilemma and problems Chinese translators face today, the author suggests appropriate translating strategies for, not just one work, but for all Chinese ethnic minority literature under more frequent cultural communication around the world. The methods of qualitative analysis, descriptive approach and compassion are mainly adopted. It has been shown that Kingston, along with many other Chinese American writers participates in construction of cultural identity consciously or unconsciously, as necessitated by the demands of cultural translation. By employing foreignization and even hybridity, a weak"Chinese"culture is represented domestically, a more dominant American culture is formed, and a new cultural identity of Chinese Americans distinguishing from both sides is naturally constructed. On the other hand, because of political, ideological and personal factors, Chinese translators of The Woman Warrior fail to represent the original author's intention. Through domestication, omission and amplification, they produce a stronger American culture instead of a Chinese American culture. Consequently, both American and Chinese American culture have been able to overlook the weaker Chinese culture. In addition, their role or identity as translators has not been well finished. Finally, translation ethics, especially ethics of difference, is found to be an effective way to explore appropriate solutions to E-C translations of The Woman Warrior and many other Chinese American literary works. Chinese translators are being required to mediate different cultures and preserve difference by adopting domestication, foreignization and even hybrid translation strategies appropriately. This avenue offer Chinese translators a pathway to achieve cross-cultural communication among Chinese culture, American culture, and Chinese American culture under the context of cultural globalization.This thesis is of some significance in providing a new, comprehensive and objective perspective to the study of Kingston's The Woman Warrior. Further more, What's more, it is the author's wish to make some small contribution to the study of translation in the filed of CAL.