On Howard Goldblatt’s Translation Of Big Breasts And Wide Hips From The Perspective Of Translation As Adaptation And Selection

The great international fame Mo Yan has achieved for his literary works is inseparably bound with Howard Goldblatt’s excellent translation, which, due to its high adaptation to the overall translational eco-environment, has won universal recognition from western readers. Based on the theory of Translation as Adaptation and Selection, this thesis carries out a systematically comparative analysis of Fengru Feitun written by Mo Yan and its English version Big Breasts and Wide Hips translated by Howard Goldblatt. The theory of Translation as Adaptation and Selection was put forward on the basis of Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest” by Hu Gengshen. The theory indicates that the essence of translation is translator’s “selection activity of the translator’s adaptation to fit the translational eco-environment”. The process of translation is the “cyclical alterations of the translator’s adaptation and selection”. The method of translation emphasizes three-dimensional transformation, that is, the transformation of adaptive selection in linguistic dimension, cultural dimension and communicative dimension.Based on the translation method of this theory—three-dimensional transformation, this thesis comparatively analyzes Fengru Feitun and its English version from linguistic dimension, cultural dimension and communicative dimension, and tries to explore the effective translation strategies Howard Goldblatt adopts to make continuous adaptation and selection to fit the translational eco-environment. This thesis believes that the translational eco-environment Howard Goldblatt confronts in this work contains two parts:(1) the eco-environment formed by the source text or source language, including the original style, writing technique and folk customs;(2) the worlds constructed by target language and target text, including the target readers, target culture and the expectation of the novel in western world. It is found that the translator should, taking linguistic dimension, cultural dimension and communicative dimension into consideration in the process of translating, select domestication or foreignization strategies appropriately which lead to specific translation methods, such as, addition, omission and substitution to better adapt to translational eco-environment so that the best version can be produced. It is proved that the research is helpful to the theory’s feasibility and instructions to translation practice. It is hoped that the thesis could provide some help and broaden the viewpoint for the following study of Big Breasts and Wide Hips so as to promote Chinese literature going-out.