A Diachronic Study On Howard Goldblatt's Degrees Of Translator Behaviors In Translating Chinese "Folk Language"

Howard Goldblatt has been translating Chinese literature for nearly 40 years and his translation of Mo Yan's novels sets a successful example for Chinese literature going out.Mo Yan's novels belong to local literary works,but studies on the translation of "folk language" are mostly case studies or based on a static observation and little research has been done in a dynamic analysis or descriptive perspective,far from being systematic,comprehensive and diachronic.Folk language constitutes the soul of Mo Yan's novels,it is one of the manifestations of lasting charm of his literature works.Local novel is characterized by its specific language,custom and local color,among which,"folk language" is bound to be a recognized translation difficulty.Change takes place all the time,so do a translator's degrees of translator behaviors.This thesis defines degrees of translator behaviors as the combination of translators' degrees of truth-seeking,being true to the ST and utility-attaining,being pragmatic to readers and society.Goldblatt has been translating Mo Yan's novels for more than 20 years and many contributors have done lots of research work focusing on his translator behavior,but studies on the degrees of his translator behaviors are still in the blank.This thesis,taking Mo Yan's 10 works,Red Sorghum,Garlic Ballads,The Republic of Wine,Shifu,You'll Do Anything for a Laugh,Big Breasts&Wide Hips,Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out,Change,Sandalwood Death,Pow and Frog as the study object in the historical order,intends to conduct a descriptive and diachronic study,under the support of self-built translation corpus based on Goldblatt's translation of Mo Yan's 10 novels from the perspective of Truth-seeking-Utility-attaining Evaluative Model of Continuum towards Translator Behavior.Based on it,this thesis attempts to answer the following questions:(1)what are obvious and concrete periodical behavioral characteristics of Goldblatt when translating Mo Yan's works in different periods?(2)Whether Goldblatt's degrees of translator behaviors will perform a diachronic change or not?(3)If Goldblatt's degrees of translator behaviors change in a historical order,then what are underlying reasons behind it?(4)Are there general rules or enlightenments to be discovered in translating Chinese "folk language"?If yes,what are they?The thesis finds that the translator performed different behavioral characteristics when translating the ST,and these periodical characteristics are specifically embodied in different degrees of truth-seeking and utility-attaining towards the original.On top of that,Goldblatt's degrees of translator behaviors performed a diachronic change.There are mainly two reasons to explain this change,translator's double attributives as a linguistic being and social being as well as his views on the nature of translation.In the end,his general pattern of "'truth-seeking' being the basis while on a diachronic rise,but with 'utility-attaining' taking the priority" can be summarized.Each translator has a certain general pattern of his translator behaviors.Research on it could enhance the effectiveness of overseas dissemination of Chinese literary works.