A Comparative Study Of Birch’s And Wang’s English Versions Of The Peony Pavilion Under The Manipulation Framework

Both of Birch’s and Wang’s English versions of The Peony Pavilion are regardedas classic rewrittern works of the play. However, these two English versions of theplay display great differences in many aspects. For example,the language of Birch’sEnglish version is figurative and exotic, but the language of Wang’s version istransparent and concise. Besides, Birch adopts free verse to translate the arias, butWang uses rhymed verse in his translation. Therefore, it is worthwhile to conduct acomparative study of these two English versions of the play with a view to findingout the indepth reasons for these differences.As a representative of cultural turn in translation studies, Belgian scholar AndreLefevere regards translation as rewriting in a given literary system and translator ismanipulated by ideology, poetics and patronage in his rewriting process. Ideologymanipulate the translator in his choice of the source text, his translation strategiesand his solution to specific problems. Poetics focuses on the ways how thetranslators try to incorporate what he rewrites into the dominant poetics at a giventime, and patronage manipulate the translators to make sure their translations do notgo far from the dominant ideology and poetics. These three manipulative factorswork interactively and restrictively to shape the translation process. Based on thisunderstanding of manipulation theory, the author of the thesis makes a comparativecase study of these two English versions of the play to find out how these twotranslators are manipulated in their rewriting process of the play and what translatingmethods they adopt with regard to different manipulation.Through comparative analysis and study of examples, the author of the thesisfinds that manipulation displays distinguishing characteristics in these twotranslators’ rewriting processes. Ideologically, Birch’s translation aims at elitereaders and the translator assumes that humanity embodied in the original willbenefit humanity in his target social system, while Wang aims at a general readershipand he presupposes his translation will stimulate the cultural communication between China and the target society. That is why they adopt different translatingstrategies in their rewriting processes. Besides, these two translators are manipulatedby the social norms in their translation of the sexual expressions of the original.Birch is ideologically opposed to domesticating these provocative expressions intohis target social norms, and Wang is ideologically less constrained by the targetsocial norms than translator Birch. Poetologically, Birch tries to make his translatedversions more exotic and heterogeneous by imitating the lexicons, and the syntacticstructures of the original play. Different from Birch, Wang is more spirited to changethe archaic liguistic forms into native-like ones under manipulation of his poetics.Comparatively speaking, Birch’s translation is more exotic than Wang’s translation,but Wang’s translation is more native-like. Moreover, the style of Birch’s translationis more figurative and it is richer in literay images with his adoption of free verse,but the style of Wang’s translation is more concise and with more musical beautythrough his use of rhymed verse. Thirdly, out of the consideration for the maximizedacceptance of the translated works of the play in the target culture, the patronsmanipulate the translation process by exerting ideological and poetologicalmanipulation on them. These two translators under manipulation of their patrons willconsciously or unconsiously conforms to the dominant ideologies or poetics in theirrewriting process of the play.Judged by manipulation framework, the thesis comes to the conclusion that thetwo English versions of The Peony Pavilion are rewritings under manipulation, andthe manipulated translators adopt different translating methods in their rewritingprocesses. Birch mainly adopts the methods of amplification, and division to makehis translated work more faithful to the original in language and in style, and moreexotic in sense. Wang mostly uses the methods of omission and combination to makehis language more fluent and smooth, and more native-like in sense. Therefore,manipulation theory offers persuasive explanations to how the translators aremanipulated in their rewriting processes of The Peony Pavilion and to why these twotranslators adopt different translating methods.