A Comparative Study Of Four English Versions Of Ah Q Zheng Zhuan In Perspective Of Rewriting Theory

The study on Ah Q Zheng Zhuan has long been a heated issue in the academiccircle. Moreover, there are quite a few studies on its English versions, which mainlyfocus on studying certain aspect of a single version or making comparisons betweentwo versions, and their research perspectives would be rather limited. Traditionally,translation is generally regarded as a pure converting of one language into another,but in recent years translation studies have gradually gone beyond the linguistic level,turning to fields like culture, etc. Based on the Rewriting Theory proposed by AndreLefevere, an in-depth comparative study of four English versions of Ah Q ZhengZhuan is conducted in this thesis. Besides Introduction and Conclusion, this thesis iscomposed of three chapters. Chapter One is the literature review of Ah Q ZhengZhuan as well as its English translation. Chapter Two is an overview of the RewritingTheory regarding “Culture Turn”,“Manipulation School” as well as the three factors:ideology, poetics and patronage. Chapter Three is the main body of this thesis. On thebasis of Rewriting Theory, this thesis makes a comparative study on the four Englishversion of Ah Q Zheng Zhuan in terms of the three factors with the support ofnumerous examples and statistic tables as well. In the final part of the thesis, thepresent author draws a conclusion that though the four English versions differ a lot,none of them should be regarded as the best or the worst, instead, the study on themshould be placed in economic, cultural, social and political backgrounds.Through the comparative study, the present author finds that the three factors--ideology, poetics and patronage are deeply rooted in each version, greatly influencingthe choice of their translation strategies. However, the influence of ideology is thegreatest. In George Kin Leung’s version, the translator takes the feudal ideology intoconsideration, and he himself is affected by the prevailing literal translation after theMay4th Movement and New Culture Movement. Therefore, to spread the Chineseculture by retaining the native characteristics, foreignization inevitably dominates his translation. Likewise, in the Yangs’ version, their translation strategies are dominatedby socialist and communist ideology. In their special political condition, a faithfultranslation or foreignization is called for by the government for certain purposes.Lyell’s and Chi-chen Wang’s versions are both mainly affected by poetics with asimilar style, and they are rendered in colloquial American English by means ofdomestication, thus catering to the need of average American readers and being wellreceived. Besides, all the four versions are more or less influenced by the invisiblepatrons like publishers.In the description of the ideological influence on translation, this thesis analyzesfive categories of culture-loaded terms according to Nida’s classification of culture.As to the poetics, this study is carried out in two aspects: lexical and syntactical levels.At the lexical level, the software AntConc is employed for calculating the frequencyof words, through which the translators’ preference in the choice of words can befigured out. At the syntactical level, the software Wordsmith is used to work out thenumber of sentences, average sentence length, etc., from which the stylistic featuresof translators’ language and the reasons behind them are analyzed. Throughcomparing the four English versions, this thesis attempts to find out the reasons whythey are different, namely, what influences such three factors as ideology, poetics andpatronage have upon the English versions, so as to contribute to the further researchon the English translation of Ah Q Zheng Zhuan and the like.