A Study Of The Republic Of Wine:from The Perspective Of Manipulation Theory

The focus of translation studies has shifted from transition between languages to the level of cultural and social fields since the 1970s.Translation has been studied in the context of culture.Translation scholars emphasize much on the relationship between translation and politics,culture,ideology of target society,and give much concern to the influence and effect exerted by translation as an intercultural communication.As a leading figure of culture studies,Andre Lefevere proposed manipulation theory.He believes that translation activities are limited and manipulated by a series of factors,such as ideology,poetics and patronage,etc.These factors exert both direct and indirect influence on translation strategies and translation techniques.Mo Yan is the first winner of Nobel Prize in Literature in The People’s Republic of China.His full-length satirical novel Jiu Guo(《酒国》)first edition in 1993 by Hunan Literature and Art Press,was accomplished in 1992 which explores the relationship in corrupt official circles set in an imaginary Chinese province called Liquorland,based on food and wine drinking in China,and lies in disclosing such absurd life of the group.So far,Jiu Guo has been translated into five languages with only one English version—The Republic of Wine,which was translated by Howard Goldblatt,a literary translator from America of numerous works of contemporary Chinese(mainland China&Taiwan)fiction,and came to the world in 2000 by Arcade Publishing.Under the framework of manipulation theory,this thesis develops a research of The Republic of Wine.Analyzing the typical examples from the translated version and the strategies of the translator under the influence of ideology,poetics and patronage,this thesis aims to prove the feasibility of manipulation for the translation of fictions and sums up the limitations of manipulation theory in translation practice.This thesis is divided into six chapters:Chapter One introduces the research background,significance,hypothesis and layout.Chapter Two brings a literature review of manipulation itself and its application in translation practice as well as the studies of The Republic of Wine.Chapter Three discusses the origin and the development of manipulation theory.Ideology,poetics and patronage,as the basic theoretical terms,are particularly introduced.Chapter Four presents the detailed information of Jiu Guo and The Republic of Wine,as well as Mo Yan and Howard Goldblatt.Chapter Five is the highlight of this thesis,which conducts a study of The Republic of Wine from the perspective of ideology,poetics and patronage.Selected examples and detailed analysis will be offered to illustrate the influence of individual ideology,social ideology,and poetics on the translation.Chapter Six draws a conclusion of this thesis.This thesis has been accomplished in a qualitative way supported by some typical examples(and a small scale of simple statistics collection)proving the feasibility of manipulation theory in fiction translation.It attempts to demonstrate the influences exerted by ideology,poetics and patronage on the selection of both the translated works and the translation strategies.