A Study Of The Chinese Version Of A Song Of Ice And Fire From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

A Song of Ice and Fire is a masterpiece of epic fantasy novels written by George R. R. Martin, American novelist and screenwriter, and has been translated into more than 30 languages. The series of novels brings together the best the genre has to offer, like magic, mystery, intrigues, romance and adventures. Qu Chang, together with other translators, translated the five volumes into Chinese. He made a sensation among the Chinese reader by rendering the book in a particular way so the reader finds the Chinese version easy to understand and accept.Previous studies on the translation of literary works found it hard to get the real response of the reader because of lack of a platform for communication. But the Internet provides the reader a platform to express and exchange their different viewpoints about the same literary works. With the publication of the Chinese version of A Song of Ice and Fire, the Chinese reader has been discussing the book through a variety of channels such as Baidu Tieba, Sina Weibo, Douban Reading and BBS. They comment on the translator’s work, even communicate with the translator. That means the reader’s response and feedback are well documented on the Internet, waiting for researchers to collect and analyze. This thesis takes advantage of the online feedback and analyzes them from the perspective of Reception Aesthetics, focusing on the implied reader, horizon of expectations, and some most-discussed aspects on the Internet in order to understand the reader’s acceptance of the translation.It concludes that one of the reasons for the success of A Song of Ice and Fire in China is both the author and the translator give sufficient consideration of the reader so that different readers can accept the work in an easy way. With the analysis of Qu’s translation from the perspective of reception aesthetics and the Chinese reader’s response to it, it can be seen that the translator and the target reader exert mutual influence on each other. Qu’s translation helps the reader with a better understanding and appreciation of the work. On the other hand, the reader’s feedback can provide some useful suggestions to the translator.