Studies On Mair's Translation Of Liao Zhai Zhi Yi: Strange Tales From Make-do Studio

Written by the famous writer Pu Songling of the Qing Dynasty, Liao Zhai Zhi Yi is a collection of short stories, enjoying tremendous popularity both at home and abroad. Its English version titled Strange Tales from Make-do Studio by Denis C. Mair & Victor H. Mair is one of the most influential among translations of different languages.On the basis of hermeneutic and functional theories and those related with domestication and foreignization, this thesis probes into the gain and loss of Mair's translation both linguistically and culturally. This paper illustrates that Denis C. Mair and Victor H. Mair's translation shows the translators carefully studied the obscure ancient Chinese terms while translating Liao Zhai Zhi Yi. However, hermeneutically, errors inevitably occur due to the limit of translators'knowledge. Their translation is occasionally marred by the lack of in-depth understanding of some Chinese cultural factors and syntactic patterns. Analysis goes forward to show that Denis C. Mair and Victor H. Mair stroke a proper balance between fidelity in reproducing the original text and the receptivity of the target language readers and managed to put the source text in fluent and idiomatical English. Functionally, their translation activity is closely related to their purpose of disseminating the masterpiece. And then with reference to Chinese religions and folk culture, the thesis explores the gain and loss of the translation of religious terms and shows some imbalance of the use of the translational strategies of domestication and foreignization which technically, should be dialectically indispensable to each other. This research serves to provide hints for the translation of traditional Chinese literature in terms of the use of translation strategies for linguistic and cultural subtleties.