A Case Study Of Eileen Chang's Self-translation Of The Colden Cangue: From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Eilcen Chang (also Zhang Ailing,1920-1995) has established herself as one of the few bilingual writers as well as skillful translators in the history of the 20th-century Chinese literature. Eileen Chang's Chinese-English translation spans from 1950s to 1990s. Researches on her translation works are rare, despite the fact that there has been a lasting interest in her works among readers and critics at home and abroad. People are very familiar with her novels and essays, but they are ignorant of her translation works. From her translation and speeches we can conclude her translation opinions, which are emphasizing the use of foriegnization to transfer the culture of the source text, always taking the reader's reception into consideration and the author being the only one who can fully understand and translate the essence of the original text.With regard to enriching researches in the field of translation studies, this thesis intends to employ some key concepts of the Reception Aesthetics, to analysis Eileen Chang's concerns for the reader and her concretizations in her self-translation. The thesis makes a brief review of the Eileen Chang's self-translation of the Chinese novel The Golden Cangue into English to emphasizes that in order to cater to the English readers' reading habits and their reception level, Chang applies more foriegnization strategy in her translation of The Golden Cangue in considering of constructing the English readers'horizon of expectations, spreading the Chinese culture into the English-speaking societies and exploiting the advantage of the target language as well.