A Study Of The Chinese Translation Of Upton Sinclair’s Works In China

Upton Sinclair who is a well-known realist novelist and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in America is popular in American literary circles by creating muckraking novels.Since Sinclair published his first muckraking novel The Jungle in 1906,foreign scholars attached great importance to Sinclair and his works,especially scholars in Europe and the Soviet Union.Xu Xiacun who is an excellent Chinese scholar published an article The Jungle and Its Author that covered not only the Chinese translation of Sinclair’s masterpiece The Jungle,but also an introduction to the creating methods of Sinclair in detail in August 1926,which is regarded as the beginning of the Chinese translation of Sinclair ’s works in China.Although the Chinese translation of Sinclair’s works has a history of more than 90 years,the researches on Sinclair and his works still relatively lag behind until now.And current researches which were studied by Chinese scholars mainly conducted text analyses on themes,characters and writing techniques of Sinclair ’s works from the perspective of literature,but rarely from the perspective of translation.Therefore,this thesis intends to make a systematic study of the Chinese translation of Sinclair ’s works,aiming at sorting out the translation history of Sinclair’s works in China and further promoting the development of Chinese translated literature.This thesis firstly reviews the translation history of Sinclair’s works by collecting and analyzing the Chinese translation and publication of Sinclair ’s works in China.Then,this thesis probes into the influences of ideology,poetics as well as pat ronage on the translation history of Sinclair’s works in China from the perspective of manipulation theory.Finally,this thesis also discusses the features and values of the Chinese translation of Sinclair’s works in China.It is found that the translation history of Sinclair’s works in China can be divided into four periods,referring to the flourishing period from 1926 to 1937,the declining period from 1938 to 1949,the recess period from 1950 to 1976 and the reflourishing period from 1977 to 2019.And the Chinese translation of Sinclair ’s works is characterized by purposefulness,comprehensiveness and retranslation.Besides,the dominant ideology,mainstream poetics and patronage in different periods have different impacts on the Chinese translation of Sinclair’s works,and the dominant ideology and mainstream poetics play decisive roles in the translation of Sinclair ’s works in China.Furthermore,the Chinese translation of Sinclair’s works not only inspires the courage and determination of Chinese people to fight for the final victory of the anti-Japanese war,but also makes contributions to the formation of the Chinese documentary novels and the formulation of concepts of Chinese literature.To study the translation history of Sinclair’s works in China is helpful to broaden further studies and provide references for cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries.