| Mo Yan’s receiving of the Nobel Prize is considered to be greatly owed to the translation of thefamous American translator and sinologist Howard Goldblatt whose authentic and well-written translationhas won recognition. Just like the Chinese-American writer Hajin says, Howard Goldblatt’s translatedversions seem as if they are originally written using the target language. Therefore, his English versions areregarded as models for researches. So far, he has translated ten of MoYan’s novels. Based on a case studyof Mo Yan’s novel Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, which has won the most awards in the west, thisthesis is intended to explore Howard Goldblatt’s translation strategies.It is well known that translation is more of a cross-cultural communicative activity than a bilingualtransformation. Culture-loaded words are the ones that can mostly embody the cultural information that thesource language carry and that can display the particular life style of the unique nation. Thus the textualtranslation for the delivering of the cultural information is believed to be the most difficult, which couldreflect the translator’s translation views and the strategies he adopts. In view of the distinct characteristicsof the full use of culture-loaded words in the source text Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, the thesiswill analyze the employment of the strategies from the angle of culture-loaded words in particular. Theresearch finds that, in literary translation, Howard Goldblatt inclines to employ the strategy of foreignizingtranslation, by which means he shows a colorful and authentic Chinese culture before readers’ eyes.Meanwhile, foreignization is supplemented by domestication, making the translation more fluent andnatural. The two strategies supplement each other and bring out the best in the translation.Apart from this, it is found in this research that Howard Goldblatt has a good idea of the whole text.His translation is not just a word-for-word translation. Before translating, he organizes the text well, andthen translates it into a more acceptable text for the target readers. At the linguistic level, Howard Goldblattadjusts the textual pattern and reconstructs the syntactic structure so as to conform to the English thinkingpattern and writing norm, thus making the translation preferable to accept. The translation thereforereduces translationese. At the broad level, since the cultural context has a great influence on the receptivityof the translated text, the place where the cultural loss lies is deleted. What’s more, Howard Goldblattdeletes the unnecessary plots and the tedious description, thus the translated text revolves the main clue of the story all the time. The text-oriented translation fully reflects his strategy of domestication.By way of combining the two strategies, that is, foreignization and domestication, Howard Goldblattmakes the English version Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out a success. The translated version not onlyretains the flavor and beauty of the source text, but also wins a greater readership in the west as well. |
