Creative Treason In Howard Goldblatt’s English Translation Of Gan Xiao Liu Ji From The Perspective Of The Translator’s Subjectivity

Owing to the globalization,Chinese culture is attracting more and more westerners’ attention.With carrying out the policy of exporting Chinese culture,Chinese literature is in the international spotlight.However,studies on the English translation of modern Chinese prose as well as prose collections started not long ago and lack of system and depth,mainly focusing on very famous ones.Since the translator’s subjectivity is accepted,different translations of the same literary works could be accepted and understandable.Besides,creative treason is discussed by scholars.Taking the translator’s subjectivity as a tool,the author of the thesis looks into creative treason appearing in the English version of Gan Xiao Liu Ji translated by Howard Goldblatt,trying to prove that there is real creative treason in his version and to find out the roots of his creation.Gan Xiao Liu Ji is a prose collection written by famous Chinese writer Yang Jiang in1980.The prose collection details six major chapters of her daily life at the cadre school in Henan Province where she was sent to reform through labor during the Great Cultural Revolution.After reading this book,Hu Qiaomu gave his comments: being resentful but without anger;being mournful but without distressing;being sentimental and true(Wu Xuezhao,2017: 328).Undoubtedly,what Hu Qiaomu said points out the book’s essence.Throughout this book,the writer does not use pungent words with hysteria to denounce the Revolution,but describes these trifles with simple and uncommon language,such as caring and love between couples,sincere friendship between people and animals,intellectuals’ strength of character and human’s perseverance.Surprisingly,it helps readers have a knowledge of those happenings between the lines and the torment of human nature caused by the Revolution.When it was first published in Hong Kong in1981,it immediately attracted wide attention.Later,Geremie Barmé,Howard Goldblatt and Djang Chu translated this book into English with A Cadre School Life: Six Chapters,Six Chapters from My Life “Downunder” and Six Chapters of Life in a Cadre School:Memoirs from China’s Cultural Revolution,respectively.Since its English translations come out,this book has been widely welcomed by western readers and focused by scholars at home and abroad.However,both studies on English translation of Gan Xiao Liu Ji and research on Howard Goldblatt’s translated text are far from enough.The 1980 s and 1990 s witnessed a cultural turn in the history of western translation studies.Scholars began to study translation from the perspective of cultural studies and then paid attention to subjective factors in translation,especially the translator’s subjectivity.Gradually,translation has been considered as an artistic re-creation of the source text done by the translator,in which creation and treason are inevitable.In this case,“creative treason” emerged,which was first put forward by Robert Escarpit in 1958,a famous French litterateur and literary sociologist.According to Robert Escarpit(1987:137),translation always is a kind of creative treason which not only gives a new appearance to the source text,but also prolongs its life and offers a second one.It’s worth noting that absolute faithfulness is impossible in literary translation,which coexists with creative treason.Furthermore,creative treason in the target text is not an arbitrary result but has deep motivation.As the subject of translation action,the translator is the agent of creative treason,too.Therefore,creative treason in the target text is closely related to the translator’s subjectivity.This thesis uses the source text Gan Xiao Liu Ji as a reference and attempts to explain these phenomena of creative treason in Howard Goldblatt’s English translated text from the perspective of the translator’s subjectivity.First,the author explores creative treason at linguistic level and cultural level.Linguistic level mainly includes these aspects: words and phrases,sentences,paragraphs,figures of speech,book title and chapter headings.Cultural level involves culture-loaded words,proverbs and poems.Then she further discusses translation strategies employed by the translator to realize creative treason,finding that Howard Goldblatt mainly adopts foreignization and domestication is an auxiliary companion.Finally,she probes into the relationship between creative treason in the target text and the translator’s subjectivity.It is found that during the translation process,the translator gives full play to his subjectivity with four demonstrations—translation purpose,ideological manipulation,cultural stance and linguistic creativity.He chooses different translation strategy,achieving the re-creation in the source text by means of addition,omission,division,combination,shift,cultural filtering and others.In short,there is an inseparable relationship: Creative treason fully reflects the translator’s subjectivity,and the translator’s subjectivity results in creative treason in the target text.