On Eileen Chang’s Self-translation Of Gui Hua Zheng A Xiao Bei Qiu From The Approach To Translation As Adaptation And Selection

Eileen Chang (1920-1995) was a legendary figure in the Chinese modernhistory. As the most important one of the most talented women writers in thehistory of modern Chinese literature, Eileen chang’s unique creativeachievements win fondness of the majority of readers and critics. Eileenchang’s identity as a translator came into being, and is getting more and moreattention from the academic circles. She not only had a number of literatureworks, but also translated both her own works and other writers’ works, andthe style of her self-translation is distinctive.Gui Hua Zheng A Xiao Bei Qiu is a short novel, it gets less attention fromthe ordinary readers, but it’s acknowledged as Eileen Chang’s best worksexcept for “The Golden Cangue” and “Love of City” by the researchers.So the author tries to do research on Eileen Chang’s self-translation ofGui Hua Zheng A Xiao Bei Qiu, this research is based on Hu Gengshen’stheory of translation as adaptation and selection. Hu brings forth this approachfrom the angle of the translator’s“adaptation”and“selection”.By Hu Gengshen, translation is a constant process of adaptation andselection. This thesis focuses on Eileen Chang’s self-translation of Gui HuaZheng A Xiao Bei Qiu from the perspective of adaptation and selection，itdiscusses how she did adaptation and selection in the process of translationand what kind of translating strategies she used in her self-translation. In order to make the source text adapt to the eco-environment, Eileen Chang adoptedthe translating strategies of rewriting and deletion in her self-translation. Theauthor believes that there could be strong explaination to Eileen Chang’s self-translation of Gui Hua Zheng A Xiao Bei Qiu in the light of the approach totranslation as adaptation and selection. As a result, this paper attempts to makean analysis of it. On one hand, this thesis tries to present the influence ofadaptation to translational ecological environment on translation methods. Onthe other hand, the thesis also discusses how Eileen Chang changed some partsof the original text to adapt to the Eco-environment from the the linguistic,cultural and communicative dimensions of the language. Adescriptive-explanatory method along with case study is adopted in thisresearch. At the same time, the prescriptive approach will also be employed toevaluate translational viewpoints and translation strategies and causes. Thesemethods can be helpful for me to dig out the deep reasons behind thetranslation process. The research is also helpful for researchers to deeplyunderstand the translation process, the role of translator, the translator’ssubjectivity and the factors which influence the translation behavior, ect.Based on the predecessors’ research, this thesis studies the reasons whyEileen Chang deleted and rewrote the original text. It tries to answer thefollowing questions:1) What’s the purpose of Eileen Chang’s self-translation of Gui HuaZheng A Xiao Bei Qiu？ 2）In which aspects are adaptation and selection made by Eileen Chang inher Translation process?3) What tactics does Eileen Chang apply in her translation of Gui HuaZheng A Xiao Bei Qiu？Through the application of the approach to translation as adaptation andselection in translation studies, this thesis aims that more scholars may payclose attention to and actively push for the development of ChineseTranslation Theory. I also hope that this thesis can provide useful informationfor researchers in the future to do further study on Eileen Chang’s translationworks and her translation activities, so people can have a comprehensiveunderstanding of Eileen Chang, the excellent translator.