A Comparative Study Of The Translation Of Liaozhaizhiyi From The Approaches Of Eco-translatology

The history of Chinese classical novel can be dated back from the legend of Tang dynasty to script of story-telling of Song dynasty and the novels of Ming and Qing dynasty.Liaozhaizhiyi is the peak of Chinese classical novel.The author Pu Songling devoted his whole life to writing this novel and conveyed his emotion in the writing.This novel is well-accepted in the whole world for its complicated plots and colorful characters.Researchers both in and out of China have great interest in translating it and have made great achievements in this area.There are many translated versions of Liaozhaizhiyi.Since it was firstly translated into Japanese in 1784,Liaozhaizhiyi has been translated into more than 20 languages,surpassing other Chinese classical works.As one of the most translated versions of Chinese classics,Liaozaizhiyi is a valuable research material to the translation study.Professor Hu Gengshen firstly introduces Darwin's evolution theory “adaptation and selection” into translation study.He proposes “adaptation and selection” as aspects of translational activities.In the process of translating,the translators make a series of circulatory adaptation and selection to fit the translational eco-environment.Alike the activity in the ecology system,the activity of translation also involves the material circulation and the energy exchange in the eco-translatology(Yue & Yu,2016).There are three dimensional transformations,namely the linguistic,cultural and communicative dimensions in the process of translating.The theory also holds the view that translators should put the source language in a macro translational eco-environment rather than focus only on the linguistic or aesthetic aspects to produce better translated texts for readers.As an innovative and interdisciplinary translation theory,eco-translatology provides a new dimension for translation research.The previous researches of the English translation versions of Liaozhaizhiyi are not sufficient for such a great work.What's more,the focuses are mainly on the linguistic or the cultural levels in previous researches.This thesis is a comparative study of two English versions of Liaozhaizhiyi from the perspective of eco-translatology.The versions chosen are the Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio translated by Minford and Selected Tales ofLiaozhai translated by Yang Xianyi.Chosen by the translational environment,Minford and Yang Xianyi made their own adaption and selection in translating.However,because of different social environments and different cultural backgrounds,they are different to each other.Minford tended to adopt the domestication strategy while Yang Xianyi preferred the foreignization.Minford added much additional information in his translation to adapt to the reading habits of the western readers.Yang Xianyi inclined to rigidly keep loyalty to the original text both in form and in content.Minford's version is more popular because of its natural language and westernized narrative way.Eco-translatology is a new theoretical tool for the translation study of Liaozhaizhiyi.Through the comparison and analysis,we can conclude that translating a text into another language is similar to transplanting a plant to another place.The adaptions and selections in three dimensions have to be made in translating.Only through the transformations,can the translated versions adapt to the new environment.They choose the translation strategies and make adjustment in translating according to the translational environment.