A Study Of The English Version Of Big Breasts&Wide Hips From The Perspective Of Translation As Adaptation And Selection

Big Breasts&Wide Hips is the work of Mo Yan,the first Chinese Nobel Price winner for literature.Its English version is completed by Howard Goldblatt who is a celebrated American translator regarded as the most outstanding translator of contemporary and modern Chinese literature in the English-speaking countries.Howard Goldblatt has been engaged in translating Chinese literature,especially contemporary and modern Chinese literature for years,which has equipped him with bilingual competence and bicultural competence and makes his translation well accepted by the Western countries.His introducing Chinese culture to the Western world made contribution to Sino-Western cultural communication.However,in China,academic papers related to his translation have flourished only in recent years,and they are,on the whole,limited.His translation of Big Breasts&Wide Hips hasn't attracted much attention.The Approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection put forward by Hu Gengshen is defined as a selection activity of the translator's adaptation to fit the translational eco-environment.Hu Gengshen was affected by the international trend of ecological wave of "return to nature" and inspired by the "natural selection"principle of Darwinian biological evolution.In this approach,translation means a selection activity.On the whole,translation refers to two stages including adaptation and selection.The former refers to the translator's selective adaptation and the latter refers to the translator's adaptive selection.This approach emphasizes the translator-centeredness which provides a new perspective for translation studies.The thesis is conducted from the perspective of the Approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection.With the intention of finding how Howard Goldblatt translates the source text with high degree of holistic adaptation and selection,the thesis first describes the translational eco-environment of Howard Goldblatt' s English Version of Big Breasts&Wide Hips,then analyzes Howard Goldblatt's adaptive selection and transformation from linguistic,cultural,and communicative dimensions.The findings of the study show that Howard Goldblatt's constant adaptation and selection ultimately produces a good translation work and proves his excellent translation ability and style of keeping the flavor of the original text.The thesis is supposed to deliver the inspirations and make certain contribution to both study of Translation as Adaptation and Selection and more of Howard Goldblatt's translation works.At the same time,proving the feasibility and the explanatory capability of the Approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection and offering some reference to the studies of Howard Goldblatt and his translations is the other aim of the thesis.