Research Into English Translation And Dissemination Of Jia Pingwa’s Works Of Fiction

Translation of Chinese literary works can be traced back to the 16^th century,after which multitudes of Chinese literary works have been presented to the world’s readers in English language,facilitating the flourishing of the global civilization.From the outset of the 1920s,modern Chinese literary works initiated the journey to the English world and crossed the national and cultural boundary for new life to sprout,upon the wing of renditions by overseas professional translators,scholar-translators,overseas Chinese scholars,indigenous translators as well as state-sponsored translation institutions.Shaanxi Literature,as an important branch of contemporary Chinese literature,is characteristic of local culture,social transformation,and economic development of the time,with representative writers like Lu Yao,Chen Zhongshi,and Jia Pingwa occupying outstanding positions in the contemporary Chinese literary field.English translation of Shaanxi Literary works serves as a major means of the“Going Global”of Shaanxi Literature,and an important arena for the Occidental to meet the Oriental.Jia Pingwa,a renowned Shaanxi writer has established himself as a great man of letters,rich in publications and literary awards to his credit after long-time devotion to literary creation.His works started the journey to the English world through national translation programs of the 1970s,and at the beginning of the 1990s,Howard Goldblatt’s English translation Turbulence（Fu Zao）brought hot discussion for a short period before the English translation activities of Jia’s works entered a“frozen”period of more than ten years.Starting from 2016,several English translations of Jia’s novels have been published,acuminating his fame in the world literary field and promising a new future for overseas promotion of his works.In terms of traits of translation modes,the English translation of Jia Pingwa’s fiction is complicated with diversified modes and various translators involved.In terms of overseas reception,most English translations of Jia’s fictions are not so well received in the target culture with only a few exceptions,which is a sharp contrast to the domestic reception of his original works.To sum up,the facts to follow make the English translation of Jia’s fictions a peculiar phenomenon in the process of Chinese literature“Going Global”:a)Jia Pingwa’s literary reputation in the contemporary Chinese literary field,b)the drastic passage from the“frozen”period to the“golden”period,c)the diversity of translation modes and translators involved,and d)the sharp contrast of overseas reception of his fictions in different translation modes.Hence,a thorough analysis of and reflections on the traits concerning the translation activities will shed light on the holistic overseas promotion of contemporary Chinese literature.This research focuses on the English translation of Jia Pingwa’s fictions,aiming to provide theoretical underpinnings for the“Going Global”of contemporary Chinese literature.Firstly,the overseas and domestic research on the English translation of Jia Pingwa’s fiction is reviewed to clarify the research status and summarize the research deficiencies.Secondly,this paper gives an overview of the English translation history of Jia Pingwa’s fictions,covering contemporary Chinese literature athonolgy,special collection,offprint editions and other English translation promotion behaviors of Jia Pingwa’s fictions.Thirdly,the English translation and dissemination modes of his works are categorized into a)institutional translation&domestic publication mode,b)sinologist translator&foreign academic publication mode,c)foreign professional translator&foreign commercial publication mode,and d)domestic translator&foreign commercial publication mode.Then,taking Chinese Literature,The Ruined City,Happy Dreams and The Earthen Gate as illustrative cases,the translation and dissemination process and the constraining factors are elaborated in the previously mentioned modes respectively to reveal the defining traits of and differences among them.Fourthly,the reception of the translations of Jia Pingwa’s fiction is analyzed based on periodical book reviews,and online book reviews in the English world.Then,the problems existing in the English translation and dissemination process and the constraining factors are further explored with that of Mo Yan’s as a contrastive case.Finally,based on communication theories and the literature reviewed in the previous chapters,pre-translation,translating,and post-translation phases of the translation and dissemination are explored with the focus on the strengths,weaknesses,and the contributing factors,attempting to construct a new mode to help contemporary Chinese literature“Go Global”.The above analysis leads to the following findings.To begin with,the overseas and domestic research on the translation and dissemination of Jia’s fictions lag far behind those of other Chinese contemporary writers like Mo Yan,suggesting that the literary influence of Jia Pingwa in the English world is far from adequate.On the one hand,there are only five typical dissertations and monographs concerning Jia’s fictions in the English scholarship,all of which discuss the creative characteristics of Jia’s fictions or examine the commonness and individuality between Jia Pingwa and other important contemporary Chinese writers.The novel perspective and unique insights all highlight the local creative characteristics of Jia Pingwa’s fictions in other cultures.However,the overseas research papers on the English translation of Jia Pingwa’s fictions are all published by domestic scholars in overseas journals,which not only shows the scholars’consciousness of practicing the“Going Global”of Chinese literature,but also reflects the fact that the English translation and dissemination of Jia Pingwa’s fictions is not effective.What’s more,though domestic research on the translation and dissemination of his works have been on the rise,systemic studies of the translation and dissemination of Jia Pingwa’s fictions are missing such as doctoral dissertations and monographs,which indicates that there is much room,if not blank,left for the research on this topic.It is noteworthy that articles published by domestic scholars in the English world outnumber those of overseas scholars,which in a way reflects the anxiety and determination of the domestic scholars to promote Jia’s fictions in the English world.Secondly,the translation and dissemination of Jia’s fictions involve different modes,each having a peculiar operation mechanism and different reception effects.His fictions translated in“institutional translation&domestic publication mode”belong to typical state-sponsored translations,which give priority to the source text and pay less attention to the readers’expectation in the target culture with the consequence of unfavorable reception.Those translations of Jia’s fictions in“sinologist translator&foreign academic publication mode”emphasize the reproduction of the original,taking the professional readers and literary critics as the major target readership.Hence,those translated works are comparatively well-received among the academic circle,but not influential among average target readers.Those translations in“foreign professional translator&foreign commercial publication mode”emphasize commercial profit,adopting translation strategies catering to the target readers’expectations.As a result,the reception is favorable compared with those translations of the other modes,and the translated text Happy Dreams is very popular among the average target readers,but the holistic reception of those works in this mode still needs time to confirm considering the fact that all the works were just published recently.What’s more,only one of Jia’s fictions has been rendered in“domestic translator&foreign commercial publication mode”so far,which was co-sponsored by agencies in both cultures with reception prospects unclear.When it comes to cross-cultural transmission,Jia Pingwa’s fictions meet several challenges.First,he uses traditional narrative skills and abundant folk languages in his writing,which poses a great challenge to the translators with high untranslatability.It partly accounts for the limited number of translated works though he has been one of the most productive contemporary writers in China.Second,the English translation activities of Jia’s works witnessed a periodical change with diversified modes of translation and dissemination and various translators involved as mentioned above.The diversity or variety is detrimental to the consistency in the quality of the translations,which in turn causes the loss of stable readership in the target culture.Third,the English translation and dissemination of Jia’s works involve several publishing houses,some of which are neither endowed with enough social capital or symbolic capital in the English literary field nor with a well-developed social network of dissemination.So,the English translations are not sufficiently promoted in the post-translation phase especially compared with those of Mo Yan’s,and there is much space left for improvement though a few of them have aroused some attention in the target culture.Thirdly,contemporary Chinese literature“Going Global”encompasses different factors rather than simply inter-linguistic transfer,which should be taken as organic system involving three phases:pre-translation,translating and post-translation.First,in the pre-translation phases,translation planning,communication subject,and communication content are of great significance.Collaboration of Chinese and English translators,foreign publishing houses with sufficient capitals in the literary field,professional agencies,and works combining Chineseness and cosmopolitanism are key factors worth serious consideration in the first phase to ensure the effect of overseas communication.Second,in the translating phase,translators,as the core actor should adopt proper translation strategies according to the communication situation,collaborate with other actors like the writers,and ask for government support to advance the translating process.Third,in the post-translation phase,reception effect is the first principle.Cover binding,dissemination channels,opinion leaders,reader response mechanisms are all determining factors to ensure the efficient post-translation promotion of the translated Chinese literature in the target culture.To sum up,the Chinese cultural elemnents contained in Jia Pingwa’s fictions are undoubtedly of the aesthetic interest to the readers in English world,and the English translation and dissemination of his fictions is likely to become a typical case of English Translation and dissemination of contemporary Chinese literature.In the process of“Going Global”,the translation of Jia’s fictions depends not noly on the improvement of translator’s modes,English translation strategy and translation quality,but also on the interaction and cooperation between other communication subjects,initiative of professional groups,and a deep understanding of the cultural consumption habits of overseas readers.Besides,it is also necessary to innovate the promotion methods and models to arouse the attention and interest of overseas readers,and at the same time,to grasp the essence of cross-cultural communication and the national culture from the spiritual level.With joint efforts,the“cultural discount”and“cultural misunderstanding”can be effectively avoided to enhance the communication effect of Jia’s fictions.To conclude,this dissertation conducts systemic research on the English translation and dissemination of Jia Pingwa’s works,including literature review,translation history,translation modes,and reception effect.The thorough analysis of the problems existing in the pre-translation phase,the translating phase,and the post-translation phase of the English translation of Jia’s works will shed light on the holistic initiative of Chinese contemporary literature“Going Global”.Based on the previous discussion,a tentative new mode is proposed taking communication theories as the framework,which might be of some guiding value to the overseas promotion of Chinese contemporary literature.