Translation Of Culture And Its Retranslation Into Source Culture

Since the1960s, Chinese American Literature (CAL hereafter), an indispensable embranchment of American Literature, has been transformed. Once inhibited and marginalized, it has joined the rank of mainstream American culture and is today a focus of academic studies in contemporary world literature. One influential work, The Woman Warrior:Memoirs of A Childhood Among Ghosts(The Woman Warrior hereafter) by Maxine Hong Kingston, is regarded as one of its typical landmarks. Its argumentative narration manner and creative adaptation of Chinese cultural elements make Kingston and her opus a hotly discussed topic both in China and abroad. Many researchers analyzed this work from numerous perspectives, including feminism, post-colonialism, postmodernism, and cultural studies. However, it is found that although a particular concern of Kingston that arises from her unique diasporic experience and intermediate status, the construction of cultural identity in The Woman Warrior, has rarely been studied from the translational point of view. Furthermore, like many other CAL works that have countless ties with Chinese culture, The Woman Warrior is not diffusely read in China and is less all-pervading here than in Euro-American society, which is felt to be a deplorable fact largely resulting from its ineffective translation.This paper therefore aims to explore the construction of cultural identity in Kingston’s The Woman Warrior and its Chinese version translated by Li Jianbo and Lu Chengyi and published by Lijiang Press in1998, and put forward some applicable translation tactics applicable to the translation of CAL. Thus, taking The Woman Warrior as the object of study and defining Kingston’s transcultural writing as cultural translation in a broad sense, this paper adopts post-colonial translation theory as its theoretical framework, from which to analyze severally the establishment of cultural identity in The Woman Warrior and its Chinese version. Based on a comprehensive and objective interpretation of Kingston’s creative writing, the difficulties that the Chinese translators might have faced and the problems arising from them, this paper offers some appropriate translating strategies which will not only be applicable to the translation of this particular work, but also to Chinese ethnic minority literature in general.Kingston along with many other Chinese American writers participates in construction of cultural identity consciously or unconsciously by means of cultural translation. By employing foreignization and even hybridity, a weak "Chinese" culture is represented, a more dominant American culture is formed, and a new cultural identity of Chinese Americans distinctive from both sides is naturally constructed.On the other hand, because of the strong influence of political, ideological factors, and constrained by their insufficient knowledge base, the translators, Li Jianbo and Lu Chengyi, of The Woman Warrior generally fail to represent the original author’s intention. Through domestication, omission and amplification, they produce a stronger American culture instead of a Chinese American culture. In addition, their role or identity as translators has not been well established.This paper draws the conclusion that when translating literary works by Chinese American writers, of which The Woman Warrior is a fine representative, translators might benefit greatly by using a flexible strategy that incorporates domestication and foreignization for the purpose of mediating between the different cultures involved in the original texts, and keeping the purposeful distortion or even mutation of Chinese culture as they are. By doing this, it is assumed that the translators through their work might be able to contribute to the communication and integration among Chinese culture, American culture, and Chinese American culture.