The Production And Translation Of Contemporary Chinese Literature In The Target-language Dominant Model

Written by the well-known contemporary Chinese writer Yan Lianke, Dream of DingVillage and Lenin’s Kisses enjoy a great reputation both home and abroad. The two bookswere translated into the English speaking countries through a target-language-dominantmodel, in which course the books were chosen, translated and circulated by the agenciesand translators from the target language. Wherever there is cross-cultural communication,there is collision, thus culture filter is inevitable in translation. Previous studies have putemphasis on the production section, while this thesis attempts to expand its subject to thewhole production and circulation process of Dream of Ding Village and Lenin’s Kissesthrough a descriptive research, trying to find out what is lost and added in the course oftranslation process and how it influences the reception of the two books.The thesis first discusses the selection and publication of books and the translatorstranslating strategies, analyzing why and how these two books are translated into Englishand how culture filter works in this course. The reception of translated books in fourEnglish-speaking countries, namely, the US,UK, Australia and New Zealand are thendiscussed through statistics and reports. The result shows that, in thetarget-language-dominant model, although Dream of Ding Village and Lenin·s Kisses aremade a great success in the English-speaking countries, compared to some othercontemporary fictions in China, there are still some aspects that fail to meet the expectedvision of English readers.