A Study On Translation Of Wolf Totem From The Perspective Of Rewriting Theory

Lang Tuteng is a semi-autobiographical novel. Set against thebackground of the Cultural Revolution, the novel not only depicts thecomplicated interrelationship between wolf and human, but alsoexpresses the author’s view on history, culture, national character,ecological balance, modernization, etc. Lang Tuteng quickly became a hiton its first publication in2004. Its English version Wolf Totem waspublished in2008and has enjoyed widely acclaim, too.Andre Lefevere is a representative of Manipulation School and hisrewriting theory is developed out of his strong links with polysystemtheory. He thinks that translation studies has been moved from thetraditional emphasis on the word or the text level to the emphasis on thecultural level by taking such factors as patronage, social impact,economic manipulation into consideration. In his view, translation servesa special purpose or many purposes at the same time, therefore,translation is not simply the production of a text equivalent to another textbut a rewriting of an original text. On the positive side, rewriting ishelpful to the evolution of literary and social system, however, on thenegative side, rewriting could restrain innovation, twist and curb themanipulation processes of literature.By citing concrete examples, the author of this thesis intends to studythe rewriting strategy by combining data analysis and analysis ofrewriting constraints, in the hope of drawing a clearer picture about thepercentage of different rewriting methods as well as its impact on thetransmission of the original work. The statistic results show that there are1360cases of rewriting and they are divided into six types: cancellation, division, combination, addition, transposition and abstraction. Of thethree constraints of rewriting strategy, poetics accounts for the largestproportion. Patronage and Ideology occupy the second and third positionrespectively. In the course of translation cancellations are used whenHoward Goldblatt deals with controversial political and historical views.Meanwhile, he cancels some personal views in order to make the novelstorytelling. Besides, only a few additions are employed in order tofacilitate western readers’ understanding of Chinese culture. In addition,division, combination, transposition and abstraction are adopted so as tomake the English version conform to the way of expression and stylisticstructure in the target culture. All in all, the translator has tried his best tokeep the quintessence of the original work with little recreation byhimself.The success of Wolf Totem is closely related to the cooperationbetween Chinese and American publishers and the translator’scompetence, etc. At the end of this thesis, the author reflects on fivepoints that need taking into consideration in the transmission of Chineseliterature in the future and provides suggestions accordingly.