A Study Of Howard Goldblatt’s Bifurcated Cultural Attitudes In The Translation Of Tales Of Hulan River

For a long time, translation activity has been taken as an ordinary language transformation. However, translation in essence is a cross-cultural activity. In order to avoid of analyzing translation on the translation skills level, the paper analyzes translators’ cultural attitudes and thus puts translation in category of cultural study.From the non-adequacy of Polysystem, Wang Dongfeng proposes that the translator’s cultural attitudes towards two cultures may influence the selection of translation strategies. Wang Xiulu further puts forward the bifurcation of translators’ cultural attitudes, which argues that facing two different cultures translators may adopt a neutral attitude towards two cultures.Translator as the coordinator between two different cultures, their attitudes are usually not absolutely negative or affirmative. And thus in different contexts, translators may hold different attitudes towards these two cultures and select different translation strategies.Howard Goldblatt’s special life experience, education background and over thirty years’ study and translation of Chinese literature make him an unique sinologist and translator compared with other translators and also prove a great possibility of his bifurcated cultural attitudes. Employing the notion of bifurcated cultural attitudes, the author analyzes Howard Goldblatt’s cultural attitudes bifurcationand further studies its influences on the source text selection and translation strategies in The Tales of Hulan River, including the text and paratext. The study finds that due to Howard Goldblatt’s bifurcated cultural attitudes he employs both domestication and foreignization in the translation of Tales of Hulan River, which not only reserves the original beauty of the Chinese literature but also ensures the fluency of the text and promotes the cultural communication and transmission.