A Study Of English Translation Of Mo Yan’s Novels In The Perspective Of Cultural Turn

Kristofer Schipper,the famous Dutch sinologist,has once said: “Chinese culture is too serious to be left to the Chinese alone”,so is Chinese literature.It should be shared by all the readers in the world.Throughout the 20 th century and the early 21 st century,modern and contemporary Chinese literature is not inferior to the contemporary works of other countries.Although contemporary Chinese literature is enhanced greatly with Mo Yan’s gaining the Nobel Prize in Literature,it is still not on a central position in the space of world literature.The reason may not be literature itself,but cultural and linguistic differences.Since Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize in Literature,the English versions translated by Howard Goldblatt have aroused wide attention in the field of translation studies in China.From Chinese to other languages,Mo Yan’s novels have crossed the cultural boundary by means of translation.The process of translation is thus changing into a process of disseminating cultures.Though Goldblatt is called “the leading western translator of Chinese literature”,his philosophy of translation,like Mo Yan’s gaining the Nobel Prize in Literature,has been very controversial.Because of the differences between the fields of traditional translation studies and the newly-built medio-translatology in the perspective of comparative literature,many different opinions on Goldblatt’s translation have appeared simultaneously.It’s also a part of the reasons that some Chinese critics have criticized Goldblatt’s translation negatively and fiercely.But in fact,it is Goldblatt’s long-term translation on Mo Yan’s novels that makes western literary critics pay continuous attention to Mo Yan’s works.There’s no doubt that Chinese literature has gone global to some extent with his efforts.Just for such reasons,reevaluation of the criteria of translation and renewal of the translation standards of Chinese literature have profound historical significance.In 1972,James S.Holmes presented a paper “The Name and Nature of Translation Studies” in the Third International Applied Linguistics Conference held in Copenhagen.The term “translation studies” came from the paper,which served as the disciplinary frame of translation studies as an independent discipline and was considered to have laid a foundation for the cultural school of western translation studies.Since translation studies as an independent discipline was established,in the context of globalization,with the rising and developing of translation studies and comparative literature,linguistic school of the traditional translation studies have got declined since 1990 s.Instead,poly-system theories of translation studies have begun to be influential.In 1990,as the representatives of cultural school,Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere proposed “cultural turn of translation studies” in the book Translation,History and Culture: A Source Book that they collaborated.From then on,the translation theories of cultural school have gradually become significant.Compared to western translation studies,though Chinese translation studies and discipline construction lag far behind,under the influence of western translation studies,the healthy development is on the way in recent years.Although the establishment of medio-translatology brought conflicts with traditional translation theories in China,at the beginning of the 21 st century,it helped Chinese translation studies complete the cultural turn.Medio-translatology originated from media studies in comparative literature in the early stage.Now it mainly focuses on literary translation in the perspective of comparative cultures.The leading figures of cultural turn in international translation studies,Susan Bassnett,André Lefevere,Lawrence Venuti and the founder of medio-translatology Xie Tianzhen,promoted the cultural turn to the most.Through analyzing the profound thoughts of these representatives,the development process of the cultural turn in translation studies from the West to the East can be clearly seen.That is very important for Chinese literature to get into the central space of world literature.As a successful example of Chinese literature out-translation,in the process of the dissemination in foreign countries,Mo Yan’s novels have once been criticized by some foreign critics in the perspective of politics first and then complimented by other critics for the textual characteristics.It shows that Chinese literature has exerted a vital influence on world literature.Mo Yan’s representative works Red Sorghum(1987)and Sandalwood Death(2008)with distinctive features are the novels created by MoYan respectively in his early career and in recent years.Twenty-one years have passed from the publication of the former book to that of the latter one.However,both of these two books have caused great sensation among western readers.Thus,to elucidate the problems appeared in the English translation of Chinese literary works in terms of cultural translation is the strong and urgent demand of the times.The English translator of Mo Yan’s novels,Howard Goldblatt,has been working on the translation practice and studies of modern and contemporary Chinese literature for more than 40 years and has achieved a lot.Taking the translation of Xiao Hong’s works as the beginning,Goldblatt stepped on the road of translating Chinese literature into English,accumulated a great deal of experiences and formed his own disparate philosophies of translation.When translating Mo Yan’s works,he not only kept the same style,but also wrote many critical papers.After sorting out and scrutinizing these papers,his main philosophies of translation can be summarized respectively to be faithfulness,readers’ consciousness and creative treason,which can bring new edification for Chinese literature out-translation.In the condition of the uneven literary communication between China and the west,to do research on Goldblatt’s literary translation practice has great significance on the dissemination of contemporary Chinese literature.Goldblatt is a pioneer in the field of modern and contemporary Chinese literary translation.Since 1970 s when he began to translate Chinese literature,he has contributed greatly to the dissemination of Chinese literature.Taking the example of Goldblatt’s translation of Mo Yan’s novels,in the respect of cultural translatiom,to explore the characteristics,strategies and techniques of his literary translation and to find out the cultural elements on the cover pages of the translated versions under the influence from the outside of literary system can solve the problem of how Chinese literrature gets global.Obviously,only when the translation complies with the expression of native languages with the code of language and the reading preference of the targeted readers,can the translation be truly accepted by the targeted readers.In the era of globalization and the rapid development of science and technology,the concept of world literature has changed dramatically from the one made by Goethe.Chinese literature has to get into the redefinition of world literature ——“free reading and circulation” made by the American critic David Damrosch,in order to go global completely and realize the real improvement of national cultural soft power in “world literary space”.In the process of dissemination,Chinese literature has witnessed the enormous shock from Sinophone literature.To clarify the future development of Chinese literary translation by analyzing Chinese literature’s dissemination in English world can help Chinese scholars to get rid of the dominant thinking of language shift in the ideological limitations of traditional translation.To set up the incentive mechanism for foreign translators of Chinese literature,to increase more translation awards,to enhance the exchange and communication between Chinese writers,scholars and foreign translators,to optimize the translation program funds and the trainings for foreign translators can make more foreign translators who are enthusiastic in Chinese literature devote themselves to the cause of translating Chinese literature.The strategies will help to brilliantly show Chinese literary works on the stage of world literature and restore the greatness of Chinese culture and literature.