A Study On The English Version Of Yan Lianke’s Novel Lenin’s Kisses From The Perspective Of Bourdieu’s Field Theory

Translation does not happen in a vacuum.From the selection of the text,the initiation of the translation process and to the transmission of translated works,the whole process inevitably bears the traces of the social environment and the translator’s traces of thinking.Nowadays,Bourdieu’s Field Theory,a sociological theory,is being applied to translation studies by more and more people,opening another door to people’s ways of thinking.Field,capital and habitus,the three core concepts provide powerful tools for the study of the entire translation process.Shou Huo is one of Yan Lianke’s representative works,which has been translated into English by American sinologist Carlos Rojas.The novel received a lot of positive reviews from the mainstream media in the United States and was praised by The New Yorker as the best of Yan Lianke’s satirical novels.However,many scholars only focus on the specific aspects such as its translation methods,characteristics and overseas acceptance,etc.There are rare studies on the whole translation process of Shou Huo from the perspective of sociology.Based on Bourdieu’s Field Theory,this thesis attempts to analyze the reasons behind the success of the English translation of Shou Huo through field,capital and habitus,providing valuable experience for expanding the scale and influence of the overseas English translation market of Chinese works in the future.The thesis consists of five chapters.The first chapter briefly introduces the research background of the thesis,the significance of this study,research questions and methodology as well as the structure of the thesis including the previous studies on Shou Huo and its English Version Lenin’s Kisses at home and abroad,and the previous studies on Bourdieu’s Field Theory in translation at home and abroad.The third chapter explains Bourdieu’s Field Theory by introducing the key concepts and interaction of the three key concepts in translation study.The fourth chapter analyzes the influence of field,capital and habitus on the text selection,text dissemination and translation strategy of Shou Huo.When analyzing the influence of translator’s habitus on translation strategies,the thesis focuses on the translation of dialect,mimetic words and modal particles,translation of culture-specific words and textual structure.The fifth chapter is the conclusion.This thesis draws the following conclusions: Shou Huo has an important position in the field of contemporary Chinese literature,and at the same time is highly controversial.The West passively has paid attention to this book.At the same time,the field of the western literature itself is increasingly focusing on the cultural diversity,so it has introduced more and more Chinese native works for translation.Therefore,the field directly or indirectly affects the selection of text.Invisible capital generated by Yan Lianke’s relationship network of agents,translators,and publishing houses together with symbolic capital created by Carlos Rojas’ s academic achievements critics in Chinese literature translation and vigorous publicity by mainstream media have greatly contributed to the dissemination of translation.The learning and research experience of translator has been internalized into the translator’s habitus.Then,through continuous translation practice,it is manifested as the translation style of translator—faithful creation,which penetrates into the application of translation strategies.Through the text analysis,he preserved the heterogeneity of the original text by placing faithfulness as the foremost priority and focusing on foreignization strategies.However,he did not blindly pursue foreignization.At the same time,considering the readability and fluency of the translation,the domestication strategy was adopted within a limited scope.