A Study On The English Translation Of The Garlic Ballads From The Perspective Of Anthony Pym's Translation Ethics Theory

Chinese literature is gradually shining on the international stage now.Mo Yan,as one of the top leaders in Chinese contemporary literary world,is the first Chinese that won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2012.Several novels of Mo Yan have been translated into English,and all of them were translated by Howard Goldblatt,a well-known sinologist abroad and at home.Thanks to the English versions translated by Goldblatt,Mo Yan has won high reputation in the English-speaking world.The Garlic Ballads was written by Mo Yan in 1998,and enjoys popularity with overseas readers after being published among America.According to the literature review of this thesis,though the case studies on Howard Goldblatt and Mo Yan increase gradually,few of them study the deep reason of Mo Yan's success under the help of Howard Goldblatt— that is,the translator's bilingual background.This thesis,inspired by the transaction cost and risk management theory proposed by Anthony Pym,intends to explore how the translator with bilingual background helps Chinese literature go out.The major findings indicate that as an expert in both language,Howard Goldblatt can better find and fix the differences of two cultures than the normal translators do.His bilingual background would help him estimate and control the transaction costs and risks clearly not only in pretranslating but in translating,which finally achieved double wins— the author and his book popularized worldwide;the translator and his translation got praises.Through this case study,the author expects that the research can make up for deficiencies in the study of this theory,deepen the understanding of the success of the English version of The Garlic Ballads and may throw some light on the translation of other contemporary Chinese literary works.