A Study Of The English Versions Of Luotuo XiangZi From The Perspective Of Medio-Translatology

Lao She who has the reputation of "People's Artist" is a popular novelist and playwright in modern China. He wrote many prominent works during his life, out of which Luotuo Xiangzi is widely known in China. It tells a story of a rickshaw man who had suffered a lot in Beijing in the late 1920s. The novel discloses the hard time that lowly labors suffered under the control of warlords. The description in the novel is the first work to vividly describe the life of the urban poor, and this takes up an important position in the history of Chinese literature. This fabulous novel is translated into Japanese, English, German and French, etc., and was really popular in the western countries. There are four English versions of Luotuo Xiangzi:Howard Goldblatt, Jean M. James, Shi Xiaojing and Evan King translated this novel in the years 2010,1979,1981 and 1945 respectively. More and more researches on these translations appeared, but most of them are about Evan King's, Jean M. James's and Shi Xiaojing's English version. These researches examine English versions on the basis of linguistic theories, translation theories and cultural theories. However, studies about the comparison of Howard Goldblatt's, Shi Xiaojing's and Jean M. James's English versions from the perspective of medio-Translatology are rarely found.Medio-Translatology is a branch of Mesology in comparative literature. Research in medio-Translatology concerns more about the comparison of culture in translated literature and literary translation. The foundation of medio-Translatology lies in the notion of "creative treason", which determines that translated literature is not foreign literature; rather, it needs to find its position in the context of the language used for translation on "creative treason", which can reflect the significance of translator's skill and cultural diversities.This thesis studies three English versions of Luotuo Xiangzi from the perspective of medio-Translatology. It shows that translators'personalities and their different cultural backgrounds are reflected in the use of "creative treason". The "creative treason" is found both in their linguistic style and cultural images. It's clear that translation is not a simple process of transmitting words but changing the form of the source text by placing it in an unfamiliar situation. Based on differences in cultural background and understanding to the original text which then impact their translation of "creative treason":an adjustment of the text according to the translator's unique translation characteristics. In addition, this confirms that feasibility of the creative treason in the study of translated literature is testified in translation practice.