The Reconstructed Image Of China In The Chinese Translation Of The Joy Luck Club

Amy Tan,a very influential writer in Chinese American literature,is well-known for her first novel The Joy Luck Club published in late 1980s,which instantly enjoyed a wide popularity among readers and drew great attention from the academic circles.It has also drawn attention when translated into Chinese.Related studies focus on translation strategies and methods,back translation,translator's role and voice,and so forth.However,it's notable that the image of China depicted in the original novel has experienced certain changes during the process of translation.But among the various discussions about The Joy Luck Club and its translation,few comparative analyses and further explorations are done from this perspective.This thesis offers a comparative study of Cheng Naishan,He Peihua and Yan Yingwei's translation published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House in 2006 with the original novel.Based on textual and paratextual analyses,this thesis intends to employ imagological approaches to explore the reconstructed image of China in translation and its deep reasons,and reaches the following conclusions:The mysterious,gender-biased,backward and exotic image of China in the original novel has been weakened while an image of China as a mother for overseas Chinese has been constructed in translation.The negative image of China in the original novel is a hetero-image targeted at the American readers,sharing similarities with negative stereotypes based on social imagination in the western world.When the novel is translated into Chinese,the image of China turns into an auto-image in the Chinese context.The negative stereotypes and social imagination do not exist in the Chinese context anymore,which may serve as one of the explanations for the shifts in the image of China in translation.The construction of an image of China as a mother for overseas Chinese is also in line with Chinese people's auto-image and their imagination.As a result,the translation amplifies Chinese Americans' identification with China in the original novel and constructs an image of China as a mother,which does not exist in the original novel.