A Study Of Translator’s Interference In Literary Self-translation In Light Of Rewriting Theory

Eileen Chang is acknowledged as one of the most prominent and prestigious female writer in the history of Chinese modern literature,and she is also one of the writers who can write and translate bilingually skillfully in the 20 th century of Chinese literature history.Since she publishes her works,there are constant criticism and studies with her writing which gives rise to more discussion and studies.These studies mainly focus on her novels,essays and other types of works.There is in lack of sufficient studies on her self-translation.This paper will make a case study of Eileen Chang’s self-translation of The Rice-Sprout Song.Based on Lefevere’s rewriting theory,the author studies translator’s interference in literary translation.The Rice-Sprout Song is Eileen Chang’s first English novel patronized by United States Information Agency based in Hong Kong(USIA-Hong Kong).According to Lefevere’s rewriting theory,the rewriting is influenced by ideology,poetics and patronage.In Eileen Chang’s translation practice,she interferes with translation activity to a certain degree and the influencing elements are translator’s intrinsic factors,which include her writing thoughts,writing accomplishment,gender consciousness and her diaspora experience of exile abroad,all of these have a direct and important impact on her translation activity.The interaction of intrinsic and external elements contributes to Eileen Chang’s interference in her self-translation,and translator’s subjectivity has been exerted to the full in her translation practice.This paper makes a detailed text analysis on Eileen Chang’s self-translation of The Rice-Sprout Song to study her interference shown in her translation.