Study On The Rewritings And Their Causes In Wolf Totem

Lang Tuteng is a semi-autobiological novel which vividly reflects the life of valiantwolves and hardworking herdsmen in the Inner Mongolian grassland. In2007, JiangRong, the author of Lang Tuteng, won the first Man Asian Literary Prize. In2008, theEnglish version Wolf Totem immediately rose to fame after its first publication. TheEnglish version was translated by American translator Howard Goldblatt and publishedby Penguin Press. Until present, readers can find the book Wolf Totem both in Chineseand English in any bookstore. Compared to the studies on the Chinese version LangTuteng, study on the English version of Wolf Totem is still far from enough. Therefore,in this thesis, the author tried to analyze the English version of Lang Tuteng from theperspective of the reception theory.Reception theory (also known as the reception aesthetics) was born in Germanyin the late1960s. It transfers the focus of literary criticism theory from the author andthe work to the text-reader relationship. It holds that reader’s reaction is the standard ofevaluating a work, so the reader’s social experience, aesthetic orientation and receptivity,in other words, the “horizon of expectations”, should be considered by the author duringtranslation process. There will be “aesthetic distance” when one work cannot meet thereader’s “horizon of expectations”. Since a translation work has its target reader,therefore, it is essential for the translator to grasp the reader’s “horizon of expectations”and adjust the “aesthetic distance” so as to achieve “fusion of horizons” which canensure the success of the translation work.With the reception theory as the theoretical framework, this thesis employs thethree concepts of “horizon of expectation”,“fusion of horizons” and “aestheticdistance” to analyze the rewritings in Wolf Totem which was translated by HowardGoldblatt. Firstly, the author collected all the rewriting parts in Wolf Totem andclassified them according to the rewriting methods, which are alteration, omission andaddition and the proportion of each rewriting method in the Wolf Totem is also beencalculated. Secondly, it’s the analysis of some typical translation rewriting examples inWolf Totem. The study shows that either the translation patronage—Penguin PublishingHouse or Goldblatt all took target reader’s language customs, cultural traditions andaesthetic experience into consideration between the original and the translation, and thatbetween the translator and readers. Therefore, they adopted alteration, omission and addition theses three rewriting methods to narrow the aesthetic distance between readerand translation so as to achieve the “fusion of horizons” between translation and reader.Finally, the thesis concludes that the consideration of readers in translation is critical tothe realization of translation objective and values.Lang Tuteng is a book with a wealth of aesthetic information and cultural meaning.It is no doubt the translation will be a painstaking process and requiring increasedrewriting of the author for the translation. Based on the reception theory, the authorpoints out that rewriting in literary translation should conform to the reader’sacceptance.