Translation As Rewriting: A Study Of Julia Lovell’s English Translation Of Ah-Q Zhengzhuan

The Rewriting theory situates the translation in a macroscopical political, economic,and cultural environment of the target culture which subverts the traditional translationcriterion of “fidelity” by stressing that the translating can be significantly affected by ideology,poetics, and patronage, against which the translators can either challenge and take theirexplicit initiatives, or they can also choose to conform to. In translating, the translator candelete, add, adapt or preserve the message and form of the source text, which has to berealized by playing their implicit initiatives.Based on the Rewriting theory, this thesis has taken the latest English version The RealStory of Ah-Q translated by British Sinologist Julia Lovell and published by Penguin Groupwhich has labeled it as Penguin Classics. Lovell aims at probing into the impact of thedominant ideology and poetics of target culture, the personal ideology and poetics of thetranslation of translator and the patronage on translation. The source novel is an allegorynovel with typical characters, narrative tone of supercilious irony, and abundant culturalreference designed to advance the novel’s therapeutic aspiration. And the translation does notrequire the simple fidelity at linguistic level but involves with cultural and othermacroscopical factors.In the21stcentury, cultural globalization is prevailing, and the pursuit of universalvalues of freedom, democracy and human rights in England brought the novel available toWestern readers. However, the manipulation in The Real Story of Ah-Q in characterization,narrative mode, culture-specific items and the rhetoric as parody largely owes to the marginalstatus of Chinese literature in the Western culture, the requirement of interesting and readableworks by Penguin Group as the commercial publishing house, and with the translator’sindividual ideology as young Sinologist with limited Chinese culture background, and the“faithful recreation” and the consideration of the reader acceptability as translation poetics ofherself. Under the constraint of ideology, Lovell rewrites the message regarding religion,historical background, convention about sex, Shaoxing dialect, and the traditional Chineseculture. Under the constraints of poetics and patronage, Lovell changes the narrative point-of-view, adopts emotional involvement and deletes direct speech for the considerationof the acceptability of the British readers. The parody has been achieved with the use ofFrench phrases and the expression and syntactic structure of English Legal document.Lovell’s rewriting has enhanced readability and acceptability in the book market inBritain and the English readers, especially those who are interested in getting to knowChinese literature and culture, enjoy reading the translation. And this argues for the fact thatthe justified rewriting for the target readership is one of translation strategies that make theliterature of the third world gain readership.