Literary Self-translation In Light Of Rewriting Theory

Eileen Chang has enjoyed a high reputation in the field of literature due to herexcellent and unique creations. People attach too much importance to her creativewritings but neglect her great talents and achievements in literary translation, let aloneher efforts and results in translating her own work. In fact a writer-cum-translator hasmore advantages than other translators in keeping the coherence of original thoughtsand the unity of writing styles, and the phenomenon of self-translating should begiven more attention.This paper takes the self-translated rendition of Jinsuoji as a case study, trying tobring self-translating activities into researches in a cultural system. Based onLefevere’s rewriting theory, the author probes into Chang’s strategies in dealing withher own work under the influence of ideology, poetics and patronage. Firstly, thepaper summarizes and comments on the general situation of studies on Chang as atranslator especially a writer-cum-translator in order to emphasizes the necessity ofthis very research. Then the author briefly states Lefevere’s rewriting theory andexplains its application in the research of self-translation. The third part gives ageneral view of Jinsuoji and The Golden Cangue, and then puts the emphasis on theideological, poetical and patronage influence on Chang’s writing and translating athome and abroad. The fourth chapter first points out the strategy of foreignization asthe main means under the decisive influence of patronage, then probes into theconsistency of content and writing skills by a combined study of the factor ofideology and poetic together. Such detailed study of The Golden Cangue leads to theconclusion that Chang is an excellent translator and she enjoys the unique advantageon being a translator of her own work. The phenomenon of self-translation should notbe marginalized in the studies of translation and further researches in this field will beenlightening and constructive to literary translation.