Conditions To The Success Of Foreignization Strategy Enlightened From The Failure Of Eileen Chang’s Translation The Golden Cangue

This thesis expounds, guided by Itamar Even-Zohar’s poly system theory, how to apply foreignization strategy effectively to the external translation of literary works based on the failure of Eileen Chang’s foreignization translation of The Golden Cangue. Itamar Even-Zohar, a world-known translation theorist, put forward polysystem theory in the1970s which expands the research scope of translation studies by attaching importance to economy, politics, culture, history etc., thus developing a new translation study school based on a trans-boundary approach. According to polysystem theory, cultural status of a nation determines the status of its translated literature and would influence the translation strategies taken by translators. Therefore, polysystem theory provides guidance useful to translators’adaptation of translation strategies, showing clearly that translation tends to acceptability when it is at the periphery and towards adequacy when it is at the centre. For this reason, translators are prone to taking domestication strategy when translated literature is in the marginal position while foreignization strategy is taken when translated literature is in the central position.Eileen Chang is a famous writer whose works are considered by massive scholars to be among the best Chinese literature of her time. She is not only a Chinese legendist, but also an excellent translator and bilingual writer. Jin Suo Ji, praised as one of the most successful novels in her time in China, was translated into English by herself-The Golden Cangue. She strove to preserve as much as possible the linguistic and cultural features of the Chinese work by translating it with a foreignization strategy. To Chang’s surprise, The Golden Cangue got a cold shoulder in western countries.Foreignization, the dominant translation strategy in The Golden Cangue, is mainly embodied in the following three aspects:cultural level, text themes and linguistic level. However, foreignization in these three aspects leads to Chang’s failure of The Golden Cangue. This thesis analyzes such a failure based on polysystem theory. In the first chapter, it makes an overview about foreignization embodied in The Golden Cangue from three levels:cultural level, text themes and linguistic level. In the second chapter, the causes of such a failure are discussed in terms of polysystem theory. And in Chapter three, some tentative suggestions to the success of foreignization are made by the author:i.e. upgrading cultural status, promoting comprehensive national strength and meeting readers’reception by cultural diversity.Foreignization plays a vital role against Anglo-American cultural hegemony and creates some conditions favorable for the promotion of Chinese culture abroad, which, therefore, is worth a further discussion in our translation studies.