A Study Of Pearl S. Buck’s Translation Of Shui Hu Zhuan From The Perspective Of Post-colonialism

Pearl S. Buck is an American female writer. She wan the Pulitzer Prize in1932 and Nobel Prize in literature in 1938. She grew up in China and accepted education in American. Because of her bilingual education background, she is master of Chinese and English. She was the first to introduce Shui Hu Zhuan into the western world translation. Although she has contributed to Sino-western cultural exchanges, scholars at home and abroad just put their emphasis on her achievements as a writer or social activist. On one hand, some scholars in America thought that she was not the most brilliant writer in their country and she did not deserve Nobel Prize for literature; on the other hand, her translation was not accepted by all Chinese scholars for her dead translation which caused misunderstandings among western readers. Therefore, the present thesis attempts to draw a relatively fair judgment on her translation. In accordance with Pearl Buck’s special cultural identity, the present research is conducted from the perspective of post-colonial translation theory, particularly Homi K Bhabha’s hybridity theory.With the increasing globalization of communication, post-colonial translation theory advocates people to get rid of traditional translation standard and restraint of equivalent translation. The process of translation does not just deal with linguistics problems, but social, cultural and politic problems. It must be regarded as a tool of resisting post-colonialism. Post-colonial translation theorists appeal that under globalization context people in the third word should resist cultural evasion and cultures in the third world can not be represented by cultures in the western world. They had better preserve differences and diversity in their marginal culture.The thesis concentrates on the translation strategies used by Pearl S. Buck in Shui Hu Zhuan based on the comparison between source text and target text from the perspective of post-colonial theories, it is believed that Pearl Buck’s bilingual identity caused her into dilemma. On one hand, because she is fond of Chinese language and culture, she tries her best to preserve the difference between Chinese and western culture; on the other hand, she uses a large number of her familiar English expressions to deliver information and meet western readers’need. But this contradiction illustrates the translator’s trying to show Chinese unique culture on the basis of receiving balance of two translation strategies.