A Study On The Tansiation Of Wolf Totem From The Perspective Of Translation Variation Theory

Wolf Totem is a novel written by a Chinese writer Jiang Rong. The story consists of dozens of successive "wolf stories". Since its publication, it becomes a great bestseller and has attracted many scholars’attention both at home and abroad. And then it is translated into English by a renowned American translator, Howard Goldblatt. After its English version was launched in2008, it is soon popular with the western readers.As a newly emerged theory, translation variation theory was first put forward by Professor Huang Zhonglian in the late1990s, which aroused many scholars’attention. The theory provides scholars with a new angle for researches on the literary translation. According to this theory, there are seven translation strategies-supplement, deletion, edition, reduction, summarization, combination and adaptation. The theory emphasizes translator and target readers. Readers’acceptance is the decisive factor in translation process. Through reading the literature, the author finds out that researchers mainly focuses on the feasibility of translation variation theory rather than the value of this theory. Therefore, the thesis takes the translation of Wolf Totem as the research material, discussing the value of translation variation theory through analyzing five of the seven translation variation strategies and study the value of variation theory.First, the thesis introduces the background, objectives and significance of the research. In the background and objectives of the research, the thesis presents the issues that the thesis is going to deal with and how to solve them. Meanwhile, the research material-translation of Wolf Totem and its translator Howard Goldblatt are also reviewed here. Second, the thesis reviews the comments and current study of translation of Wolf Totem in translation field, finding that there is a lack of researches on translation theory at home, most of which are based on western theories. Third, the theoretical core (translation variation theory) of the thesis considers translator and readers as the subject of translation, the source text and the target text the object of translation, which brings translator’s subjectivity into full play, and enhances the status of translator in translation process. At the same time, the needs of the target readers are regarded as the source of expanding the demand of translation variation and the motivity of translation activity. In theory, it largely enriches the content of translation theory. Readers’needs for the information decide the direction, approach, method, content and quantity of translation variation. Translation variation theory suggests that reader-oriented be the core of the theory to develop the theory itself. The application of translation variation strategies in the translation of Wolf Totem provides translator with proper opportunity to make full use of translator’s subjectivity, which can make the information of translated text largely accepted by the target readers. At last, the thesis shows the effect and the value of translation variation through specific examples in the translation of Wolf Totem.