改写理论视角下《生死疲劳》英译本研究

  本文关键词：改写理论视角下《生死疲劳》英译本研究，，由笔耕文化传播整理发布。

改写理论视角下《生死疲劳》英译本研究 （2014山东大学硕士论文） Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Previous Study on the Condition of C—E Translation of Modern and Contemporary Literature 2.2 Previous Study on the Eng

lish Version of Life and Death are Wearing me Out

2.2.1 Study Achievements
2.2.2 Study Shortages

改写理论视角下《生死疲劳》英译本研究 （2014山东大学硕士论文） Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Previous Study on the Condition of C—E Translation of Modern and Contemporary Literature Habitually speaking ， the critical line between modem and contemporary Chinese literature is the year of 1949，in which the New China was founded．The literature from May 4th Movement in 1919 to the year 1949 is called modem literature and correspondingly the literature from 1949 to the present is named contemporary literature．Both modem and contemporary literature in China occurred in the great social transformation，which is the transition from agricultural society to industrial society in nature．

Although Chinese government has applied the strategy of exporting Chinese culture to the world, as an essential part of Chinese culture, the English translation study of modem and contemporary literature as well as its reception condition in the English world have not been paid enough attention by the academic circle. The relative studies are lacking, among which Ma Huijuan’s “How Modem and Contemporary Chinese Literature Has Been Translated and Circulated in the Englishspeaking World: An Overview’’ published in Chinese Translators Journal gives a comprehensive study of its current situation and existing problems.

According to Bonnie S. Mcdougall, the present English translation of Chinese literature can be divided into four patterns, namely, academic translation, business translation, translation motivated by politics and individual translation. These four patterns possess their own features in the translation initiator, publishing house, translator and the target readers. (Bonnie S. M, 201 1; 143) Generally speaking, there are three types of translators working on C-E literature translation. They are translators with Chinese as their mother tongue, like Lin Yutang Eileen Chang, translators with English as their mother tongue, like John Minford, Julie Lovell, and couple translators with English and Chinese as their mother tongue respectively, like Mr. and Mrs Goldblatt. However, works from translators belonging to the first type have always been not popular among the target English readers nowadays because of their non-proficiency in the idiomatic expressions and the local dominant culture and values. While translators in the second type, the condition of whom is not positive either. In line with the American scholar J. P. Sandy, the number of translators in the English-speaking countries working on C-E literature translation is quite small. What’s worse, the grants subsidized to the C-E literature translators are beyond mentioning. In the English speaking countries, it is almost impossible for translators to make ends meet by only working on translating Chinese literature works.

Professor Goldblatt analyzes that there are only two persons dedicated to the C-E translation of Chinese literature at present in the English world(Topical organization), namely, John Balcom who is engaged the translation of Chinese poems and himself. Because the other C-E translators, from his point of view, are either postgraduates who are enthusiastic but short of translation experience with too much lessons burden, or college teachers with even more teaching work to do. (Goldblatt, 2000; 24) Therefore the current condition of C-E translation of Chinese modem and contemporary literature works is not optimistic.(problem)

2.2 Previous Study on the English Version of Life and Death are Wearing me Out
Life and Death are Wearing me Out was translated by the renowned sinologist Howard Goldblatt. Considering the English version, which was published in 2008, is relatively new to the readers, its study in the academic circle is still in a small quantity and limited. However, as a representative of Mo Yan’s series literature works giving rise to 2012 Nobel Literature prize, the study value of its English translated text is certainly nonnegligible.

2.2.1 Study Achievements
So far, there are around 1 0 academic papers concentrating on the study of the English version of Life and Death are Wearing me out, two of which are master’s graduation theses and the rest are from important academic journals such as Foreign Language Education, Foreign Languages and Their Teaching, Writer Magazine, Shandong Foreign Language Teaching Journal and so on. These research papers are mainly concerned with the aspects of stylistics study, narratology and the concrete translation strategies on metaphor, foregrounding language etc.(Topical organization) In Li Yanxia’s thesis “A Stylistic Approach to Translation: Life and Death are Wearing Me Out”, she delves into its stylistic features as well as its literary effects on the basis of literary stylistics in three aspects: narrative point of view, linguistic style, and plot structure. She concludes that “the stylistics showed in the translation do influence the translation effects and the translator’s choice about how to express the style of the source text also influences the translation effects.” Shao Lu made her research in terms of narrative study, focusing on narrative voice, narrative point of view, and metalepsis. According to her, “there are two kinds of metalepsis in the target text (TT) by Howard Goldblatt--overt metalepsis and covert metalepsis.

Both paralipsis narrative and pseudodiegetic narrative feature these two kinds of metalepsis, and they are related to narrative voice and narrative point of view.” In her another paper “The Application of explicitation in the English Translation of Life and Death are Wearing me Out: From the Perspective of Stylistics”, she indicates that “explicitation is one of the prominent stylistic markers in the translated text by Howard Goldblatt”. In her opinion, there are primarily four characteristics of stylistics: additional dramatic effects, added utterances, filled out tone or intensity, and increased vividness. Zhang Dan discusses the translation methods of metaphor in Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out from the perspective of rhetorical features of metaphor and its difficult points in translation. While Sun Tingting, in her thesis, “The Translation of Foregrounding Language in Novels--- A Case Study of Life and Death are Wearing Out”, attempts to figure out some translation principles and strategies on the translation of foregrounding language, which means “that the writer deliberately violates the language conventions in his writing to generate a special aesthetic effect and convey the theme of the work more impressively”. What’s more, Qin Qin and Cao Ying put emphasis on the study of translation loss and compensation strategies in Life and Death Are Wearing me Out.

All the above researches have made great contributions to the study on the English translation of modem and contemporary literature works represented by Life and Death are Wearing me Out. (The significance of the former researches is written too simple)But they are surely inadequate for the study of such a successful case entering into the world and circulating Chinese culture.

2.2.2 Study Shortages
The shortages in studying the English version of Life and Death are Wearing me Out are manifested in the following two aspects: On the one hand, the quantity of the research papers is pretty small, which means the English version of Mo Yan’s Life and Death Are Wearing me Out does not draw the due attention from the scholars both at home and abroad. On the other hand, the present research contents are confined in a limited angle of coverage. In other words, they still concentrate on the comparison of texts and languages, ignoring the grand cultural as well as social background in which the translation takes place. Though some specific translation strategies and methods towards a particular language phenomenon have been summarized, it is far from enough. The possible reasons why this English translation version is successfully accepted and circulated in the English-speaking world should be surveyed intensively from the perspective of not only the translated text but also from the cultural and social factors of the translation process in order to provide references for the quality translation of modem and contemporary literature works and globalize Chinese culture to the outside world.

This thesis attempts to fill this gap and study Goldblatt’s translation from the perspective of the macro-background with a view to presenting a comprehensive analysis of the popularity and success of this translation version.



  本文关键词：改写理论视角下《生死疲劳》英译本研究，由笔耕文化传播整理发布。