A Study Of Chinese Contemporary Literature Translating Works Abroad From Perspective Of Rewriting Theory

Since the foundation of P.R.C, there were two kinds of translations. One was the policy-oriented translation on behalf of Chinese Literature and Panda Books Series. Those works’ goal was "propagandize" China and Chinese literature to outside. Another one was market-oriented translation which referred to some foreign publishing houses, including Penguin Group and Arcade Publishing House which have published the works by Mo Yan and Jiang Rong successfully. Those two kinds of oriented translation have exported a big amount of Chinese contemporary works and made outstanding contributions to promote Chinese literature abroad. However, different orientation leaded to different degree reception of readers. The unofficial translation works have developed rapidly, meanwhile, the official works have been in dilemma.Based on the Andre Lefevere’s Rewriting Theory, this article intends to put the study of the English vision of Big Breasts&Wide Hips, which was translated by Howard Goldblatt. Rewriting Theory involves three factors, namely, ideology, poetics and patronage. Ideology rewriting mainly involves politics factors and religious beliefs. Goldblatt weakens the political element and applies domestication strategy when translates religious problems. He rewrites the source text for the consideration of acceptation of foreign readers. Poetics refers to the norms of literature in a certain country. In the process of translating Big Breasts&Wide Hips, Goldblatt rearranges some chapters to cater to the foreign readers’ reading habit. Facing the cultural-loaded words, he exerts domestication as a main method and foreignization as a compensatory method to make the English version more readable to the target readers. The patronage is another critical factor influencing translation work. Much has been done to ensure the popularity of the publishing works by the Penguin Group and the Arcade Publishing House. They make more reader know their books by media and reward.Combining with Lefevere’s Rewriting Theory, this study analyses the reasons that cause the official works’ frustration and the "market-oriented" works’ success. Obviously, the target countries’ ideology, poetics as well as patronage play a significant role in the transmitting of those works. As to ideology, the "policy-oriented" work is always a government-produced propaganda work which always neglects the readers’acceptability and readability. The foreign readers are opposed to these kinds of works which involves too much political propaganda. Ignoring of diversity of religious beliefs, the "policy-oriented" works make some misunderstanding in the foreign readers’ reading. Poetics refers to the foreign readers’ reading habits. Some common narrative techniques in Chinese novel like "flashback" are unfamiliar in western literature works. The average foreign readers are unfamiliar with it. As the patronage of state-leading works, the government’s Propaganda Department takes charge of selecting, translating and promoting the works, paying too much attention to "outputting" instead of "acceptable", thus those kinds of works end up with failure. The state sponsored works failed to take those factors into consideration, which leaded to a bad acceptation.Therefore, taking the market as the orientation, the author proposes some methods such as weakening the ideology influence of government, strengthening the literariness of translation works, making use of "domestication" as a main strategy and "foreignazation" as a compensatory strategy, enhancing cooperation between foreign and domestic translators and publishing houses. All those measures can improve the uneven situation in the translation of Chinese contemporary works translating abroad step by step and promote more outstanding work’s "Going out".