Adaption And Selection: Study On The Translation Of Qingyi

Qingyi is a work of milestone significance in Bi Feiyu’s writing career. In thisnovel, Bi’s description of female mental activity is so incisive that he is hailed as “thebest male writer on female psychology”. As another pain-themed novel of Bi Feiyu,Qingyi is radiant with the glamour of art: the rich rhetoric narration helps create aneffect of humor and irony, and numerous Peking Opera terms grant the novel withdistinct Chinese flavor.The translator of Qingyi is Howard Goldblatt, chief translator of Chinesecontemporary literature, who has been dedicating to the English translation of Chinesecontemporary novels for decades, making tremendous contribution to the culturalcommunication between China and the rest of the world. Since its publication in thewest, The Moon Opera (English version of Qingyi) has been favorably received. Itwas the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize Nominee for Longlist in2008, and washighly praised by foreign mainstream media. In fact, the good adaption and survivalof The Moon Opera has a lot to do with Goldblatt’s adaption and selection in thetranslation process.Under the perspective of Translation as Adaption and Selection, this thesis triesto study Howard Goldblatt’s activity during the translation of Qingyi. As pointed outby Professor Hu Gengshen, translation is “a translator’s adaption and selectionactivities in a translational eco-environment”. Before the translation of Qingyi,Goldblatt’s bilingualism and biculturalism, together with his passion for translation,made him adapt to the “translational eco-environment” with Qingyi and Chineseculture as its main components. During the translation process, Goldblatt made someadaptive selections in order to make the English novel survive as the “fittest”. Hegave a faithful reproduction of the original rhetoric, applied foreignization to dealwith cultural terms, and employed techniques like alteration, omission, and addition tohelp readers better understand the novel. Through study on these three dimensions,this thesis attempts to prove that the translator has struck a balance between readability and cultural otherness. Meanwhile, the author has done some research onthe survival of the translation in the target culture, which other similar papers onTranslation as Adaption and Selection have failed to do.The approach of Translation as Adaption and Selection has opened up a newperspective for translation studies. Clearly, as a novel with distinctive Peking Operaflavor and artistic value, the English version of Qingyi hasn’t gotten its due attention.This thesis intends to supplement study on translator’s activity and draw someattention to the English translation of Peking Opera. Hopefully, this thesis can makesome modest contribution to study on Qingyi.