Understanding Herbert Giles’ Domesticating Translation Strategy From Bourdieu’s Sociological Perspective

Taking Liao Zhai Zhi Yi as the object of study, this thesis conducts a sociologicalinterpretation of domesticating translation strategy employed by Herbert Giles based onthe theories of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.Hebert Giles’s Translation of Liao Zhai Zhi Yi, with its strong artistic vitality, hasbeen favored by the domestic researchers of English versions of Liao Zhai Zhi Yi fordecades. The introduction of Bourdieu’s sociological theories has opened a newperspective for us to observe the translation phenomenon and study the operation of thetranslation activities under the cultural of globalization as well as the behavioralexpression of all parties and their interconnections in the translation activities.In terms of the translation strategy study of Giles’ translation, many researchershave discussed this domesticating recreation, which especially focus on the combinationof some essential concepts, like field, capital, and translation studies.Firstly, the writer mainly introduces the three key concepts the thesis is going to use:field, capital, habitus, and the application of the theory in today’s translation studies.Then the thesis teases out the study status of Pu Songling’s Liao Zhai Zhi Yi as well asGiles’ translation of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. Thirdly, by further statingBourdieu’s sociological theory and finding out its intersection point with literarytranslation, and through the introduction of the translation strategies of“foreignization-domestication”, it extracts the five major operational means of thetranslation strategy of domestication and analyzes each step combining Bourdieu’ssociological theories. In the demonstration part, it interprets the15examples chosenfrom Giles’ Strange Stories combining Bourdieu’s sociological theories and attempts tofind out the social agents that propel Giles to choose the translation strategy.Case studies show the interactions between Hebert Giles and different social factorsduring his thorough translation of Liao Zhai Zhi Yi. Concepts like field, capital, habitushave laid essential influences on the choice of translation strategies. Understandingthese kinds of interactions can provide us a broader view and a better understanding oftranslation text.