A Study On The Translation Of The Chinese Maze Murders From The Perspective Of Manipulation Theory

Western detective novels are popular worldwide because of their exquisite reasoning and ups and downs of the plot.In China,there are novels that describe similar case-solving stories since ancient times,which are called court-case fictions.Celebrated cases of Judge Dee is one of them.Gulik,a Dutch Sinologist,translates the first 30 chapters of this book after reading it by chance In this process,he realizes the differences between Chinese and Western detective novels and readers’ aesthetics,therefore,he determines to create a series of Chinese detective novels in English that meet the tastes of Western readers.In the 1980 s,this series of works of Dee Gong case,which integrates the characteristics of Chinese and Western detective novels,was successively translated into Chinese by Chen Laiyuan and others.The Chinese Maze Murders selected in this thesis is one of them.While widely welcomed by readers,Chen’s translation has also attracted criticism for its unfaithfulness.In order to understand his translation more accurately,under the guidance of Lefevere’s manipulation theory,and based on the extensive collection of Chen Laiyuan’s translation background and his published articles,this paper discusses the influence of ideology,poetics,and patronage on Chen Laiyuan’s translation,as well as the translation methods employed by him.This paper found that ideology mainly affects the translator’s translation of the original text involving national/ethnic conflict,religious belief and sexual idea.Considering the principle of peaceful coexistence and national equality in China,the translator always rewrites the contradictions between Chinese and the Uigurs in the original with translation method of omission and addition mainly;in terms of religious belief,the translator mainly adopts the substitution and free translation method to translate the ritual dialogue with Christian color in the original,so as to make it meet the psychological expectations of the Chinese people;and when dealing with the female body and homosexual plot,the translator mainly employs the method of omission,free translation,and creative translation.The influence of poetics on Chen’s translation is mainly discussed from three aspects: literary form,diction and a fight scene.In terms of literary form,this paper finds that the translator has deleted the common chapter headings and introduction in court-case novels specially reserved by Gulik,but tells the novel in story-telling mode Gulik doesn’t employ,which reflects the translator’s consideration of the poetic characteristics of Chinese and Western detective novels;in the aspect of diction,the translator adopts free translation and idiomatic translation,and uses a large number of four character words and idioms;and influenced by the upsurge of Chinese martial arts novels in the 1980 s,the translator adds a little martial arts color to the translation.As for patronage,the study finds that Zhao Yiheng exerts important influence on Chen Laiyuan’s translation.He not only offers the translator the original fictions,but even suggests the translator to translate them in the vernacular language of the Ming and Qing Dynasty.Such influence can be seen from Chen Laiyuan’s extensive use of the common sentence patterns and vocabulary in the vernacular novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasty.From above,the author holds that The Chinese Maze Murders translated by Chen Laiyuan is a translation influenced by ideology,poetics,patronage.Meanwhile,the translation methods adopted by the translator in translating such a work integrated with Chinese and Western elements also have their reference.