A Study Of Howard Goldblatt’s Rewriting As A Translator Of Contemporary Chinese Fictions

In recent years,"Chinese literature going global" has been a hot topic. With Mo Yan’s winning of the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature in2012, Chinese literature is now officially on the global rise. And the translation of Chinese literature is attracting more and more attention. As a famous sinologist and translator, Howard Goldblatt has made a great contribution to the English translation of Chinese literature. Yet the criticism against his rewriting of the contemporary Chinese fictions has never stopped and there are some misunderstandings need to be corrected.Based on the information from his interviews, articles and translator’s notes, this thesis aims to provide a descriptive and explanatory study on Howard Goldblatt’s rewriting, focusing on his interpretation of rewriting, specific categories of rewriting, and the various influencing agents involved in the rewriting. The concepts of agent, patron, and commissioner are employed in the analysis.The study indicates that Goldblatt views rewriting as the nature of translation, and he adopts addition, deletion and alteration as his typical rewriting technique; his rewriting could be turned into three classifications, the rewriting of the linguistic differences, the rewriting of the cultural differences and the rewriting of the errors; the rewriting is motivated by various agents, Goldblatt is not the sole rewriter, the co-translator, original writer and publisher all could be the actual rewriter, and in certain situations, Goldblatt even falls victim of their rewriting.It is expected that this thesis could make up for deficiencies in the study of Howard Goldblatt’s rewriting, and present a relatively full picture of his rewriting as a translator of contemporary Chinese fictions.