On Howard Goldblatt's Translation Of Four-character Chinese Idioms In Massage From The Perspective Of Translator Behavior Criticism

Since Bi Feiyu's novel Tui Na was published in 2008,it has won many literary awards owning to its unique theme on the blind people.The successive productions of its film and television series have also attracted widespread attention in the society,which provide the market base for its novel translation.In 2012,Goldblatt and his wife Sylvia Li-chun Lin decided to jointly translate Tui Na,and their finished work—Massage—was first published by Penguin Group in 2014.In studying Goldblatt's translation works of Bi Feiyu,it mainly focuses on two works:Three Sisters and Moon Opera;the study of Massage is slightly involved.Moreover,in the existing translation researches on Massage,there is no one to analyze from the perspective of Translator Behavior Criticism.Therefore,this thesis chooses Massage as the case text,from the perspective of Translator Behavior Criticism to research on Goldblatt's translator behavior when translating the four-character Chinese idioms in Massage.This study analyzes Goldblatt's translator behavior from the perspective of Professor Zhou Lingshun's Translator Behavior Criticism with the help of the"Truth-seeking-Utility-attaining" Evaluative Model of Continuum and descriptive research methods.There are six chapters in this study.In the first chapter,the author briefly introduces the translator Goldblatt and Bi Feiyu's Tui Na,the research background,significance and questions;in the second chapter,the study provides the related literature review;the third chapter clarifies the theoretical framework;the fourth chapter studies the behavioral tendencies of Goldblatt in translating the four-character Chinese idioms in Massage and his translator's roles played in different scales of behavioral tendencies;the fifth chapter analyzes main factors influencing Goldblatt's translator behavior;the last chapter is a summary of the research,stating the main findings,limitations of the present study and suggestions for the future study.The study finds that Goldblatt's translation of the four-character Chinese idioms in Massage shows Goldblatt's different behavioral tendencies,which can correspond to different and staged behavior features as "truth-seeking","semi-truth-seeking","semi-truth-seeking&semi-utility-attaining","semi-utility-attaining" and "utility-attaining"in the "Truth-seeking-Utility-attaining" Evaluative Model of Continuum based on translator behavior.In different scales of translator behavioral tendencies,the roles played by Goldblatt have also changed accordingly:in high degree of "truth-seeking",Goldblatt plays a role of"spokesman" and speaks for the original text or the writer;in the tendency of"semi-truth-seeking&semi-utility-attaining",he plays a role of "coordinator",mediating the contradiction between the writer or the SC and readers or the TC;in high degree of"utility-attaining",Goldblatt plays a role of "creator",in order to get closer to readers.When it comes to the factors that affect the Goldblatt's translator behavior,it finds that there are two aspects of factors:one is the main intra-linguistic factor-features of Chinese idioms;and the other is the extra-linguistic factors—Goldblatt's views on translation,the writer,readers and patrons,which can fully illustrate the complexity of translation activities and the impacts of internal and external environmental factors on the translator's behavior.