Howard Goldblatt's Translation Strategies On Folk Language

The overseas translation and introduction of Chinese folk literature is one of the hot topics in the field of translation studies.As a part of folk literature,the English translation of folk language has gradually attracted the attention of the field of translation studies and is of great significance to the external dissemination of Chinese culture.“Folk language” refers to all forms of language expression that have folk characteristics,and that are handed down by word of mouth,popular and refined,circulated among the people.To a certain extent,it reflects the folk customs and cultural traditions.Goldblatt has been engaged in the research and translation of modern and contemporary Chinese literature for a long time and has made great contributions to the overseas dissemination of Chinese literature.In the past four decades,more than 50 Chinese works have been translated by Goldblatt,including Jia Pingwa's Turbulence,Mo Yan's Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out,and Xue Mo's Desert Rites.It is of great value to do studies on Goldblatt's translation of Chinese folk language to make Chinese folk literature to walk out.Based on the research of scholar Han Bin,this thesis intends to divide the folk languages into five categories: folk terms with strong adhesion,folk verbs with dominant features,folk nouns with dominant features,folk adjectives with dominant features,and idioms with folk characteristics.Facing these five kinds of folk languages,Goldblatt has different approaches to treat translation either consciously or unconsciously.Based on Catford's translation shift theory and the analysis of three folk literatures translated by Goldblatt,the author summarizes the different translation strategies adopted by the translator for different kinds of local languages.1)Folk terms with strong adhesiveness are usually function words and have no practical meaning.Goldblatt uses unit shifts to express their meaning in the context,but they are mostly expressed in the form of exclamation marks,question marks,etc.,or even omitted.2)Due to the richness of Chinese folk verbs and the complexity of English verbs,most types of shifts are involved: the translator mainly uses unit shifts to supplement the connotation of the source text,and uses class shifts to make the translation more in line with English grammatical norms.3)The translation of folk nouns also mainly uses class shifts and unit shifts: class shifts help the translator to explain the meaning of the source text;unit shifts make the translation more authentic.4)The translation of folk adjectives mainly uses intra-system shifts and class shifts: intra-system shifts make it more smoothly for the target language readers to enjoy,but the translation expression cannot guarantee accuracy and comprehensiveness;class shifts make the translation more flexible and fluent.5)The translation of idioms with folk characteristics mainly uses structural shifts and unit shifts: Goldblatt changes the subject of the sentence by structural shifts,making the translation more in line with the logical habits of the target language readers;unit shifts eliminate rhetoric such as antithesis of the source text and make the translation more concise.The author intends to generalize the strategy mode of folk language translation,analyze the characteristics and effects of various translation strategies,and provide some processing modes that can be followed for folk language translation.