A Contrastive Exploration Into Four Retranslations Of Luotuo Xiangzi

Lao she's Luotuo Xiangzi is not only a piece of classic works in Chinese modern literature,but also has a certain influence in the English world.During the 65 years from 1945 to 2010,there has been four English translations of Luotuo Xiangzi consecutively,i.e.,Evan King's translation(1945),Jean James' s translation(1979),Shi Xiaojing's translation(1981)and Howard Goldblatt's translation(2010).Through literature review and text contrast of the four translations,this thesis explores the fundamental reason for repeatedly retranslations of Luotuo Xiangzi at different historical stages in America,and analyzes the textual changes from culture-loaded terms translating and character image reconstructing in order to present the influences of different translation purposes on the four English translations.By examining each historical background of the four English translations of Luotuo Xiangzi,the thesis finds out that the purpose of translating Luotuo Xiangzi in America has experienced a change from knowing into the current status in China to doing academic researches on it,and to political translation,and finally to translating it as a piece of literary works.Different translation purpose is the main reason for the striking differences among the four English translations.As the result of different translation purposes,the differences among the four versions are mainly reflected in the following aspects: 1)In terms of culture-loaded terms translating,the translation by Evan King and that by Jean James are much similar to each other in the use of identical words and expressions,and literal translation method is mainly adopted by the two translators focusing on literal correspondence.Hence,the similarities of Evan King's and Jean James' s translation are relatively high.However,Shi Xiaojing's translation and Howard Goldblatt's translation are similar to each other in being less restricted by original language pattern and focusing on reproducing the language style of the original by means of liberal translation.2)In terms of reconstructing the image translation of Xiangzi,the four versions present different characteristics.Evan King's translation omits and modifies a lot to enhance an innocent and simple image of Xiangzi.In addition,Evan King rewrites the original tragedy ending into a happy reunion ending,thus the hopeless Xiangzi in the original turns into a free and alive Xiangzi;Jean James' s translation focuses on presenting a calm and objective image of Xiangzi,and the ending image of the translation follows the original tragic image of Xiangzi;Shi Xiaojing's translation reproduces the original image of Xiangzi better,but her translation is translated based on Lao She's revised version of Luotuo Xiangzi,so the hopeless and tragic Xiangzi in the original text turns into a hopeful one in her translation;in Howard Goldblatt's translation,Xiangzi,who is reticent in the original,frequently speaks out his own tone.The image of Xiangzi in Howard Goldblatt's translation is more straightforward,corresponding to the original tragic one.