Culture Filtration In Goldblatt‘s English Version Of Playing For Thrills

Culture filtration is indispensable in cross-cultural translation.The source text has to go through the “filters”of the target culture if it is to enter into the target literary system.André Lefevere put forward the rewriting theory,believing that translation is the rewriting of culture.Based on this,Lefevere concluded three controlling factors that influence translation activities,namely ideology,poetics and patronage.Through case study and a comparison between Chinese and English version,the thesis explores the causes,manifestations and influences of culture filtration in the English version of Playing for Thrills from the perspective of ideology,poetics and patronage.The thesis finds that the culture filtration under the influence of ideology is reflected in translator’s filtration of novel’s themes and the rewriting of ideology-related terms.The themes of seeking identity,heroism and humor are filtered into the target culture while political terms are partly or totally filtered out.The culture filtration under the influence of poetics is reflected in the filtration of novel’s narration structure,syntax,Beijing dialects and culture-loaded terms by the mainstream poetics of target culture.The translator changes the original narrative point of view,rewrites the Chinese syntax and filters out the culture implications carried by Beijing dialects and culture-loaded terms.The culture filtration under the influence of patrons is embodied in the influences of publishing houses,editors and media on the selection and translation of the source text out of economic and status reasons.Publishing houses’ pursuit of interests,editors’ meeting of target readers’ expectations and media’s book reviews and reports combined to influence translation activities.In the process of translating Playing for Thrills,the translator filters the themes and cultural contents of the novel under the influence of ideology,poetics and patronage of target culture.This enables the translated version to strike a chord with target readers.This thesis serves as a reference for future studies on culture filtration in translation activities from the perspective of rewriting theory,and contributes to the further translation of Chinese contemporary literature.