A Study Of Cultural Unconsciousness In Howard Goldblatt's English Translation Of Mi From The Perspective Of Sinologism

The translation of Chinese literature is one of the important ways for Chinese culture's “going out”.As the main force in translating and introducing Chinese literature,Western sinologists have made a big contribution to the overseas spread of Chinese literature.But at the same time,due to a large number of misunderstandings and mistranslations of Chinese culture in their translations,their translation has also been questioned by many scholars.Compared with the study on the phenomenon of mistranslation at the text level,the cultural unconsciousness behind it deserves more attention.Sinologism is a new theory in cross-cultural studies,which to some extent makes up for the shortcomings of Orientalism and Postcolonialism in solving the problems of China-West studies.As the main constructor of it,Gu Mingdong believes that Sinologism is an alienated form of Sinology and knowledge production,which is controlled by the internal logic of cultural unconsciousness.In fact,cultural unconsciousness is a collection of ideology,epistemology,and methodology centered on the West.It affects all aspects of Chinese knowledge production in various forms and will lead to alienation of Chinese knowledge.Based on the two core concepts of alienation of knowledge and cultural unconsciousness in the theory of Sinologism,this thesis takes the cultural unconsciousness in Howard Goldblatt's English translation of Mi as the study object and mainly uses a qualitative approach.It first analyzes Howard Goldblatt's cultural identity and its influence on the English translation of Mi.Then,according to the mistranslations of Chinese culture in Mi,combined with Nida's classification of culture involved in translation,the cultural unconsciousness behind these mistranslations can be classified into five categories,namely,ecological unconsciousness,materialunconsciousness,social unconsciousness,religious unconsciousness,and linguistic unconsciousness.Finally,from the perspective of Sinologism,this thesis respectively analyzes how these five kinds of cultural unconsciousness influence Howard Goldblatt's understanding of the text and his choice of translation strategies,thus giving rise to alienated Chinese knowledge.This study finds that as a sinologist with a Chinese culture complex,Howard Goldblatt's English translation of Mi generally shows a tendency of foreignization and most of the translation is faithful to the original text.At the same time,as an American immersed in the Western cultural tradition,Howard Goldblatt's cultural unconsciousness also results in many mistranslations of Chinese culture in his translation.To be specific,when translating cultures with Chinese characteristics in Mi,influenced by his ecological,material,religious,social and linguistic unconsciousness,Howard Goldblatt intends to use free translation method,omission,shift and other translation techniques to dilute the heterogeneity of Chinese culture.This kind of domestication translation essentially reflects his inherent sense of superiority in Western culture.Translations influenced by cultural unconsciousness eventually produce alienated Chinese knowledge and hinder the spread of Chinese culture with its true nature in the Western world.Howard Goldblatt's profound knowledge of Chinese literature and professional translation literacy are commendable.But at the same time,as a sinologist,Howard Goldblatt's intentional or unintentional mistranslations of Chinese culture caused by his own imperceptible cultural unconsciousness are also worth pondering.This thesis studies cultural unconsciousness in Howard Goldblatt's English translation of Mi and points out its negative influence on the spread of other culture,so as to dialectically view the contribution of Western sinologists to Chinese culture's “going out” and promote the production of Chinese knowledge objectively and fairly.