A Comparative Study Of Three English Versions Of Shan Hai Jing

Shan Hai Jing, a unique and invaluable encyclopedic record of various beliefs held by the ancient Chinese about the world, remains one of the least understood and most difficult books in China so far. Since the nineteenth century, however, it has caused the increasing attention from scholars both at home and abroad with its increasing charms. Unfortunately, there are only several related theoretical papers on English versions of this book. Therefore, the author hopes that this thesis can fill in a blank in the study of translated Shan Hai Jing.Since the 1990s, the focus of translation studies has turned away from the traditional linguistic studies to the cultural studies. During that period, AndréLefevere stated that"Translation is rewriting. Translation is manipulation."and put forward three factors of manipulation, which are, ideology, poetics and patronage. But through further study of the Manipulation Theory, we find that it tends to overemphasize the manipulation of the translator during the translation and neglects the translator's subjectivity. To find out the role of the translators in translation, the author of this thesis tries her best to work out whether the translators themselves are also involved in the manipulation of the translation.This thesis takes the Manipulation Theory as a basic method, both the target culture and the translators themselves acting as the two main starting points. Comparison is made among the three versions of Shan Hai Jing, which is a 1999 version of Anne Birrell, a 1985 version of Cheng Hsiao-Chieh and a 2010 version of Wang Hong. The thesis mainly studies the translation manipulation theory in terms of cultural elements, such as aesthetic imagery defaults, ideological differences from the perspective of the target culture; the times when he /she lives in, the attitude and the motive, poetics and translation purposes from the angle of translators. The result reveals that the translator is not only manipulated but also manipulating in the course of translation. That means translation process is inevitably influenced by three factors in a given society. At the same time, translators'life experiences, educational backgrounds, the individual poetics, ideology, the specific times he or she lives in as well as the different translation purposes etc all play a key role in the choices of translation strategies.