An Intertextuality Approach To The English Translation Of Jiemi

The concept of intertextuality was introduced in the 1960’s by Julia Kristeva,a French Post-Structuralism critic.Kristeva explains that “every text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations;every text is the absorption and transportation of other texts.”(Kristeva,1980: 66)This subverted the idea of structuralism,which states that text is closed and independent,conducting the study of texts under the context of culture and further introducing a new chapter in exploring the relationship between culture and texts.Subsequent to the Intertextuality Theory being created,the theory has been widely used in the fields of philosophy,linguistics and psychology.The inclusiveness and diversity nature specific to this theory has also injected new social,historical and cultural meanings into textual theories.New insight is also provided in exploring issues in Translation Studies.The Intertextuality Theory will be used in this thesis as the guiding theoretical tool to discuss and reveal the pattern and regulation in the English translation of the modern novel Jiemi.As the most successful magnum opus of Mai Jia,Jiemi enjoys great reputation both at home and abroad.It has been translated into more than 33 languages,including English,French,Italian and Serbian,possessing the highest status among other Chinese literary works collected by world libraries.In this novel,Mai Jia applies multiple narrative techniques,strong reasoning ability,and neat and well-written brushwork to depict a story about how two top-level military codes,PURPLR and BLACK,turn into a blasting fuse between Rong Jinzhen and his teacher Jan Liseiwicz.This decipher is willing to sacrifice himself for the safety of his country.In the contest of accidence and necessity,strength and fragility,hope and desperation,his legendary life,secret family history,intelligence in mathematics,uncanny imagination,unknown fate,and absurd reality are intertwined in this novel,bringing us enhanced artistic impact and reflection.The author uses story to express his life values,adopts lots of quotations,and reminds people of the history.In this novel,we can find rich intertextual signs interspersed through the text,such as resources derived from Chinese and Western cultures and literary works.All these contribute to the uniqueness of Jiemi,but also making it a great challenge for translators to overcome obstacles caused by the sheer distinctiveness of this text.Hence,an analysis of Jiemi and its English translation under the guidance of the Intertextuality Theory is necessary.Such a study will be helpful in the furthering of Chinese literary works globally.Decoded,the English version of Jiemi,is translated by Olivia Milburn and Christopher Payne and was cooperatively published by Penguin Random House in Britain and FSG in America in March,2014.Since its publication,Decoded has gained a lot of attention from overseas media and scholars,achieving great success in the western market.The Economist nominated Decoded as one of the best novels in 2014.At the same time,Jiemi has aroused a lot of attention in the academic circle and many studies on the book has taken place.However,researches from the angle of intertextuality and based on a quantitative and qualitative method are scarce.This thesis will use the Intertextuality Theory as a theoretical tool to study the translation strategies adopted by translators in dealing with intertextual signs in Jiemi quantitatively and qualitatively.This thesis adopts two main theoretical methods: Intertextuality Theory and Translation Studies.Firstly,based on the classification of Intertextuality which was introduced by Norman Fairclough,the present author will analyze translation strategies in the English version of Jiemi from the perspectives of Manifesto Intertextuality and Constituent Intertextuality.Secondly,with the assistance of the computer software Word Smith 6.0 and AntConc 3.2.4,a corpus-based case study will be carried out to further support the assumption out of a qualitative analysis.The quantitative analysis can effectively and intuitively present the frequency of all translation methods,reflecting the translation pattern of translators in their translating preference.The thesis is made up of six parts.The introduction contains research background,research questions,research significance,research methodology and the structure of the thesis.The first chapter includes a literature view which mainly concerns previous studies on Jiemi and its English version Decoded.The second chapter introduces the thesis’ s theoretical framework,including the origin and development of the Intertextuality Theory,the classification of intertextuality,and its application into the Translation Studies.The third chapter briefly reviews Jiemi and its author--Mai Jia,and the English version--Decoded and its translators--Olivia Milburn and Christopher Payne.The fourth chapter includes the analysis of translation strategies in Decoded under the guidance of the Intertextuality Theory.The last part is a conclusion of this thesis.The present author believes that in translation activity and criticism,the Intertextuality Theory can provide a new perspective,with both methodology and epistemology nature,to review problems confronting translators and translation critics.The English version of Jiemi has presented us an excellent example in showing how the appropriate translation of both manifesto and constituent intertextuality can help translators achieve an equivalent version of the source text in the target culture,thus realizing their task as a messenger in communicating culture and literature values.Such an qualitative and quantitative research method has broadened the field of Translation Studies,and will provide more new thoughts in the research of this field.