| China Men,written by Chinese American writer Maxine Hong Kingston,is a cross-cultural narrative book gathering fiction,myths,legends,and historical facts that help to shape the immigrant stories of how her Chinese ancestors have struggled and fought in America.Focusing on the image of the Other and its construction of China Men,this paper,from the perspective of postcolonial translation theories,is to analyze how the author constructs the image of the Other and to examine the effects of image construction of Chinese as the Other in Zhang Shi's translation Du Juan Xiu Xiang Er Bian Ti(Jin Shan Yong Shi),so as to explore the two conflicting cultures behind the variations of translation.Furthermore,what translation strategies he has employed in translation to achieve the representation of the Other as well as the relationship between the translator's awareness of construction and the corresponding effects of translation will be discussed in a detailed way.Postcolonial translation theories probe into and explain translators' conscious or unconscious translational behaviors and strategies in the context of power differentials.As for translating Chinese American literature into Chinese,the stances of the translators matter a lot,whether they would cast their eyes upon weak culture's representation of the Other or avoid the dominant culture's manipulation as possible as they could in order to minimally portray the Other and reduce the images of the Other on which are imposed.Homi Bhabha delves representation of the Other from three perspectives,respectively,stereotype,discrimination and the discourse of colonialism.This thesis tries to associate it with China Men and its translation Du Juan Xiu Xiang Er Bian Ti,to clarify how the writer portrays Chinese images as well as how the translator makes his construction of the Other.The stories in China Men unfold through two main lines,family stories and legends.This paper constructs the Other based on the stereotyped Chinese images in family stories and imaginary Chinese images in legends.Then,the translation strategies adopted succeed in achieving the effects of the construction in different layers by using foreignization,domestication,and hybridity,among which hybridity well preserves the heterogeneity of the source culture,reproduces the image of the Other and promotes the integration of cultures.However,that is not the whole picture.Domestication caters well to target language,while it also fails to construct the Other somehow and causes cultural loss.At last,the translator concerns about the construction of cultural identity and decolonization as well under the power differentials.In the process of translating some texts,he resists cultural colonialism and remolds the images of de-otherness,which causes the variations of the images in the original text. |
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