On The Translations Of The Good Earth:from The Perspective Of Manipulation Theory

Pearl S. Buck is the first female American writer who won the Noble Literature prize. With the rich life experiences in China, her magnum opus, The Good Earth has attracted great attention from readers and critics all over the world. This work made westerners know the real life of Chinese farmer as well as their traditional culture.Translation plays an integral part in the success of The Good Earth. The translations of The Good Earth have gone through two climaxes in China:one is in the1930s; the other one is in the1980s right after the reform and opening up. It is nearly50years between the two translation climaxes. Translations of different periods present a series of different features of The Good Earth.Since1980, scholars have shifted their focus on culture approach instead of the linguistic approach in translation studies. For them translation is not simply regarded as a matter of seeking words to express the original, but of finding appropriate ways of rending the original in another language in a given socio-cultural context. This change in translation studies was known as "Culture Turn". The manipulation school has been rising with the rapid development of culture translation. As a pioneer of manipulation school^Andre Lefevere came up with a new translation theory which studies translation in the perspective of culture. According to him, the target text is the rewriting of the source text. In other words, the source text was manipulated by translators under certain constrains. Some constrains come from the translators themselves, such as personality, life experiences, education background and so on. Others are caused by certain of socio-cultural context. Therefore, Lefevere concludes that constrains can fall into three categories:ideology,’ poetics and patronage. Manipulation Theory has made a great attempt in translation study, which takes culture elements into consideration for the first time.This thesis intends to explore culture constrains by comparing the features of the two translation periods of The Good Earth. Under the guidance of Manipulation Theory, this thesis illustrates the influences of individual ideology, social ideology, poetics, patronage and readers’response to translation works in different periods of time. This thesis contains six chapters:Chapter One is an introduction to the thesis, which includes the research background, aim, significance, methodology and the structure of the thesis.Chapter Two gives a literature review of Manipulation Theory and the research about the translations of The Good Earth.Chapter Three conducts a survey of Andre Lefevere and his Manipulation Theory including the origin and development of Manipulation Theory and focus on the three constraint factors:ideology, poetics, and patronage. A feasibility study about whether Manipulation Theory can be applied to the study on the translation of The Good Earth will be discussed at the end of this chapter.Chapter Four gives detail information about Pearl S. Buck and her novel The Good Earth as well as the translators and their translations in each period.Chapter Five is a comparative study of translations in different periods from the three constraints of Manipulation Theory. Three constraints will be illustrated with examples according to Manipulation Theory. Readers’ response will be explained from the perspective of Manipulation Theory at the end of this chapter.Chapter six is the conclusion part of the thesis which gives a comprehensive review and conclusion.By comparing and analyzing the features and styles of translations, this thesis tries to explore the applicability of Manipulation Theory in literature translation. Translators under different ideology, poetics and patronage affect the choice of source text, translation strategies as well as the coming effects of the whole target text.