A Comparative Study Of Two English Versions Of Ah Q Zheng Zhuan From The Perspective Of Rewriting Theory

The novel Ah Q Zheng Zhuan created by Lu Xun is one of the classics in Chinese and world literature. Its composition and influence have been branded by the history and culture. Likewise, its translation involves cultural elements, too. Based on the rewriting theory, this paper tries to study two of its English versions translated by the couple of Yang Hsien-yi & Gladys Yang and the American scholar William A Lyell respectively. Analyzing from the angles of cultural, political and economical factors, it probes into translators' activities and investigates into the influences of ideology and poetics on translation activities.The core content of the rewriting theory is: translation is rewriting which is under the control of ideology and poetics. Patrons affect the ideology and professionals pay more attention to poetics. This theory makes great contribution to the cultural turn of translation and is inspiring for researches on translation. However, it overlooks the subjectiveness of translators, who, as independent individuals, are not entirely enslaved to the social ideology and poetics. Translators can have certain impacts on their own translation activities with their personal ideology and poetics.Due to the wide differences in the times when the two versions were finished and their cultural backgrounds, they have their unique characteristics. Generally speaking, the Yangs' version is of standard British English with most of the contents literally translated while Lyell's version is of typical American English in simple spoken language. Then this thesis analyzes translators' ideology and poetics as well as the social ideology and poetics and further discusses about these macro factors on translation activities. In any translation macro factors are definitely reflected in micro text differences. In this paper, examples are listed and discussed in terms of language orientations, illustrations, footnotes, italicization of individual words, phrases or proverbs and idioms, supplementation and deletion as well as translation of sensitive words. But there are several exceptions which show that the role of translators can not be neglected. The applicability of the rewriting theory is tested here. What's more, this paper aims to promote Chinese translated literature.