A Study Of The Boat To Redemption From The Perspective Of Manipulation Theory

This thesis makes a detailed analysis of Goldblatt's The Boat to Redemption in the light of Andre Lefevere's manipulation theory, aiming to study the influence of constraints on translation process and the selection of translation strategies. It analyzes how those constraints manipulate the translator's disposal of the original text and his translating strategies adopted in the process of translation. Finally the thesis proves the feasibility of the manipulation theory in the translation of literary works with the special topic in a certain historic period in China, which will be constructive for the further relevant studies.From the 1970s, translation studies transferred to the cultural orientation from the linguistic one with the emerging of "culture turn" in translation study. Under this circumstance the manipulation theory came into being naturally. As one of the representative figures of the cultural school, Andre Lefevere proposed the manipulation theory systematically in his writing. He puts forward that translation is a form of manipulation and rewriting and there are three major factors that constrain the process of translation, that is, ideology, poetics and patronage, which provide a brand new perspective for translation studies.In 2009, Su Tong published his new work He AA (????)which portrays the main character's tragic fate and the journey of redemption in the Great Cultural Revolution. Soon its English version The Boat to Redemption translated by Goldblatt came to the world in 2010 and helped Su Tong win the third Man Asian Literary Prize. However, Su Tong's achievements are inseparable with the great efforts of his translator. With rich experience and unique translation thoughts, Goldblatt manipulates or rewrites the text at a proper degree on the basis of faithfulness to the original work, laying the foundation for its success.At the very beginning of the thesis, a brief introduction to the research background,significance,hypothesis and structure of the thesis will be provided. Then the thesis gives a general review of the previous studies on the manipulation theory, The Boat to Redemption,as well as Howard Goldblatt and relevant translation thoughts. Based on the theoretical framework,the thesis makes a detailed analysis of The Boat to Redemption by the combination of qualitative approach and basic statistics and draws conclusions finally. At last, the study confirms that it is feasible and innovative to analyze special literary work based on the manipulation theory. On the one hand,the translation process is indeed manipulated by the three constraints and the motives of translation and strategies adopted change with it; on the other hand, since there are few researches on the applicability of manipulation theory to literary translations with special political topic, the thesis provides creative significance for the research on the applicability of manipulation theory.Due to the limited length, the thesis mainly focuses on the ideological and poetical aspects on the translation process,however more studies on the role of patronage are expected to conduct in further studies, which will help to make the research more comprehensive and persuasive in the future.