A Study Of Ye Junjian’s Self-translation Of The Mountain Village

Self-translation studies have not attracted the same attention as translation studies, and some theorists and translators even believe that self-translation cannot be regarded as translation. As a special phenomenon in translation activities, self-translation has long been neglected. With the appearance of the self-translating works of famous bilingual writers abroad, the study of self-translation has risen up. Compared with self-translation studies abroad, the self-translation studies at home started late, and scholars in our countries began to carry out researches on self-translation in the early20th century. What’s more, there are not as many studies of self-translation at home as those abroad. There are a few self-translators in China, such as Lin Yutang, Zhang Ailing, Bai Xianyong, and Ye Junjian.Compared with other self-translators in China, Ye Junjian has not been paid the same attention to as them. His status as a self-translator has not been given proper concern. Although the studies of Ye Junjian and self-translation are not rare, the study on Ye as a self-translator is limited. Accordingly it will be a topic worthy of study.This thesis attempts to conduct a study of Ye Junjian’s self-translation of The Mountain Village, which was written in English, attracted great interest in the English literary circle and English literary criticism and has been translated into different languages, with a hope of throwing some light on the studies of both Ye Junjian and self-translation.Whether there will be some differences between self-translated version and conventional translated version? Will there be significant differences? If there are any differences, what are the reasons for them? Is self-translated version more faithful than a conventional one? What’s more, will they adopt different translation strategies? Dose Ye Junjian’s self-translation possess some uniqueness? These are the questions that should be taken into consideration. Therefore, in this thesis unique concern will be given to Ye Junjian’s self-translation of The Mountain Village. The objectives of the thesis are as follows.First, the thesis will compare Ye Junjian’s self-translated version and He Jin’s Chinese version in order to find the different treatments of the two Chinese versions of The Mountain Village, in the perspective of language and culture.Second, the thesis will find the reasons why Ye’s self-translated version is diverse from He Jin’s version through analysis of specific examples and some other factors, such as the different experiences and status, different translation ideas and so on, which makes the thesis highly original.Third, the thesis will identify the uniqueness of Ye’s self-translation, and shed some light on future study of Ye Junjian and self-translation.Through comparisons, several major findings have been obtained. First, in the linguistic perspective, Ye Junjian’s version is more faithful to the original text in meaning and style, while his version is less faithful to the original text in form. In the cultural perspective, Ye Junjian’s version adheres to foreignization. Second, many external factors and internal factors have an influence on Ye’s translations. Third, self-translation belongs to translation and it should be encouraged.