On Howard Goldblatt’s Translation Of Tales Of Hulan River From The Approach To Translation As Adaption And Selection

Howard Goldblatt is a famous American scholar and translator of modern and contemporary Chinese literature. With more than30years’hard work, he is renowned as the chief translator of modern and contemporary Chinese literature. He has been engaged in learning and teaching Chinese language and culture for almost half a century and has cultivated deep feeling and profound insights on it. For a long time, he is committed to translating Chinese literature, especially modern and contemporary novels. Outstanding bilingual ability and the bicultural background make his translation popular among readers, and it also brings influential award for him. His works, besides winning him international acclaim, has made great contribution to the overseas publicity for Chinese literature. However, in China, academic papers related to him didn’t flourish until recent years, and they are, on the whole, limited to such translation version as "Red Sorghum","Wolf Totem","Turbulence", etc. Few scholars concentrate on his translation of Xiao Hong’s work. In fact, Goldblatt is so much attracted by Xiao Hong that he regards her as his "lover in previous life". His doctoral dissertation concentrates on Xiao Hong’s life and writings. The book is published in1976and has become a precious reference book which triggers a deep interest in Xiao Hong among domestic scholars.Translation has experienced diversified development after the "cultural turn". As a result, translators are not invisible. Instead, their subjectivity is highlighted by many scholars. Under this circumstance, Hu Gengshen puts forward the approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection. This theory is "translator-centered", deeming the essence of translation as "the translator’s adaptation and selection activities in the translational eco-environment". This article attempts to study the English version of Xiao Hong’s Hulanhe Zhuan from the perspective of the approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection, analyzing Goldblatt’s adaptation and selection to the translational eco-environment in his translation. This paper believes that the translational eco-environment in this case constitutes of two parts:first, the world presented by the source text/source language including factors like the original style, the original writing techniques, folk culture of China, especially that of northeast China, etc.; second, the world presented by the target language/target text, mainly including factors like the target reader, the target culture, the definition and expectancy of a "novel" of the western society, as well as the absence of translation and study of modern and contemporary Chinese novels then in the west.This paper aims to solve two problems. One is how the translator adapts to the translational eco-environment and becomes the most qualified translator of Xiao Hong’s Tales of Hulan River; the other goal is to appreciate the translator’s adaptive selection and transformation in linguistic, cultural and communication dimensions in the process of translation. This study discovers that, in the pre-translation stage, he is responding to such elements as his strong interests in modern and contemporary Chinese novels, his deep affection for Xiao Hong, his life experience in China and the bilingual and bicultural competence, as well as his desire to fill in the great vacancy of the research on modern Chinese novels in America in the1970s. Therefore, he is strongly willing to do and competent for the translating of this novel. In translating, on the basis of studying and comprehending the source text/source language world, Goldblatt is adapting to the environment presented by the target text/target language. He tends to use domestication to meet the target readers’habits and expectations of the mainstream western world. The selection he makes during translation is an intentional strategy to improve the possibility of its "survival" among the readers.The author hopes that this paper will be helpful not only to the translation of Xiao Hong’s works abroad but also to the "going out" of modern and contemporary Chinese literature. This study is also a reference for the study of Goldblatt’s translation views in early stage. Theoretically, the author also hopes to prove the feasibility and the explanatory capability of the approach of Translation as Adaptation and Selection and make contribution to its development.