A Study On English Translations Of Biancheng In The Light Of Translation Rewriting By Lefevere

Traditional translation studies treat translation as the transformation between the source text (ST) and target text (TT) from a purely linguistic aspect, forgetting to take notice of the interference of cultural factors in the translation process. After the 1970s, the translation studies realized "cultural turn", the cultural school views that translation should not be the transformation between the texts, but a unique political behavior, cultural behavior and literary behavior in target language culture. With the development of cultural criticism and cultural research in translation studies, translation studies from the perspective of cultural aspects have recently been gaining weight in academic circles of translation theory nowadays. In Andre Lefevere's books, Translation/History/Culture:A Source Book and Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literature Fame, in which he points out that translation is, of course, a rewriting of the original text. All rewritings, whatever their intention, reflect a certain ideology and poetics and as such manipulate literature to function in a given society in a given way. (Bassnett & Lefevere,1990:Ⅶ)This thesis tries to explore translation activities from Andre Lefevere's translation rewriting concept and aims at testifying how publishers rewrite the image of Shen Congwen in the publication of Biancheng from the perspective of outside translation activity; and also from the perspective of inside translation activity, with the combination of text analysis, how translators rewrite Shen Congwen's Biancheng and his image in the translating process. In this thesis, the translated version of Biancheng, which was written by Shen Congwen, is selected as the case for study. It falls into five chapters as the following:Chapter One is an introduction to the thesis, in which the author concisely points out research significance, research questions, research methodology, as well as the contents of the thesis.Chapter Two is a review of literature on the development of "cultural turn" in translation studies. The author holds that translation is a kind of rewriting of the original text, and further reviews the previous research on translation rewriting in question.Chapter Three is Andre Lefevere's rewriting concept which mainly concerns three aspects—ideology, patronage and poetics.Chapter Four is a comparative analysis of four English translations of Biancheng. Firstly, a brief introduction is given to Shen Congwen, Biancheng and its four English translations, following then with a detailed comparative analysis of the four English translations of Biancheng in the light of translation rewriting concept from the perspective of ideology, patronage and poetics.Chapter Five is the conclusion, which summarizes the whole thesis, first supplying a summary of the study and then pointing out the limitations and some suggestions for improvement.