A Self-translation Study Of Eileen Chang’s The Golden Cangue: A Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Eileen Chang is not only an excellent bilingual writer but a skillful translator, whowins a high reputation in the20thcentury Chinese literature. Chang starts her translationcareer from the1950s until the1990s. Although few translation theories are left by her,her translation opinions can be concluded from her speeches and prefaces of thetranslated works. Translating is an activity of communicating cultures. The differentlanguage families lead to large cultural gap. In dealing with these cultural diversities,Chang has her unique insights and understandings. She emphasizes using foreignizitionstrategy to render the cultural factors in order to spread the Chinese culture. Takingreaders’ reception dimensions and horizon expectations into full account, she alsoadopts various translation strategies to satisfy the target readers’ aesthetic demand.Jinsuo Ji is one of the most outstanding novels of Eileen Chang, which is praised as“the greatest novelette in the history of Chinese literature” and “one of the mostbeautiful work harvested in literary circle”. It is entitled The Golden Cangue whentranslated into English, which is collected in Twentieth-century Chinese Stories by C.T.Hsia published in1971.Apart from Introduction and Conclusion, the thesis contains mainly four parts. Thefirst part is the Literature Review. The second part is about the theoretical foundation ofReception Aesthetics. The third part briefly introduces Eileen Chang and hermasterpiece Jinsuo Ji. In the fourth part, a detailed analysis of The Golden Cangue ismade. Three key concepts of reception aesthetics are adopted, including horizonexpectation, aesthetic distance and implied reader. On the aspect of horizon expectation,it puts emphasis on exploring how Eileen Chang caters to the target readers’ horizonexpectation mainly from the point of cultural diversities. Different cultures shapedifferent horizons. Only when the readers’ horizon expectation is fused with the literarytext can the text be received and understood. On the aspect of aesthetic distance, the thesis focuses on discussing how the translator attempts to keep a proper aestheticdistance from the linguistic level and how she adjusts the aesthetic characteristics of thework so as to make her translation entertaining and enlightening. On the aspect of theimplied reader, the readers’ initiative and creativity are stressed. The typical identity ofEileen Chang--author, self-translator and reader--makes her adopt various translationmethods, such as compensating strategy, paraphrasing and foreignization, to embody theimplied readers and place them at the center of literature.Through the analyses, it can be concluded that The Golden Cangue, handled with aseries of self-translating methods, not only satisfies the readers’ horizon expectation butalso helps them establish a new horizon expectation. Readers are most interested in theworks that are beyond the readers’ horizon expectation, because these works can renderthe readers aesthetic freshness. Thus, the aesthetic distance should be controlledproperly. If the aesthetic distance is too narrow, the text lacks novelty and makes thereaders lose interest in it. If the aesthetic distance is too broad, the text may be difficultto read and is far from comprehension. As a result, they may give up reading at last. Thebalance between readers’ reception and the artistic value plays an important role incultivating a new horizon expectation. The analysis of The Golden Cangue from theperspective of reception aesthetics reduces the negative comments which are madebased on the traditional translating norms and highlights its contribution to the literaryhistory.