A Perfect Match

Yang Xianyi and his wife Gladys Yang rank among the best translators in China. They are remembered by the readers for their most well-known translation of the Chinese classical literature-A Dream of Red Mansions. They are a perfect match in life as well as in work. In half a century, they devoted themselves to China’s translation cause and translated over two hundred books totaling about ten million words. They struggled to survive at war in early years, suffered a lot in the political movements at middle age and lost the only son at old age, but they never complained about the unfair fate. They were always optimistic; they always believed in Chinese Communist Party and never give up their beloved translation career. It is not only their brilliant translation works but also their outlook on life and spirits that deserve our honors.This paper is going to make a comprehensive study of the Yangs’translation, which covers all types of translated works and associates them with the special historical environment. The author tries to explore their life experience, translation career, translation achievements, translation strategies and their translation thoughts. The Yangs’translated works of high quality are highly commended by scholars and critics. They are active translators but not theorists. The author analyzes abundant examples and makes a conclusion of their translation strategies and thoughts. The author hopes that such an analysis may offer certain reflections for both theoretical study and practice of translation of Chinese literature works into English.The thesis consists of four chapters:Chapter1is an introduction.Chapter2is a literature review.Chapter3studies on the main characteristics of the Yangs’translation and Yangs’ translation thoughts.Chapter4is a brief summary of the whole thesis, which sketches what has been discussed in previous chapters and points out the limitations of this thesis.