A Study On Translator’s Subjectivity In Howard Goldblatt’s Big Breasts And Wide Hips

The famous Chinese writer, Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2012, which owes much to the successful translation of Mo Yan’s works. Big Breasts and Wide Hips is Mo Yan’s best works and its English version by Howard Goldblatt was viewed “better than the original” by American sinologists. Its successful translation has great significance and provides references for Chinese literary translation. Therefore, the English version is worth making further studies for scholars in the field of Chinese translation.The current studies on Howard Goldblatt’s English translation have gained the following achievements: focusing on specific language translation; highlighting on the translation of culture; concentrating on the specific translation strategies and the related factors; focusing on the influencing factors on translation. However, few studies have been done on translator’s subjectivity in its English version. As a successful English translation, Howard Goldblatt’s subjectivity, which is a key to achieve excellent translation, should not be ignored in translation.Translator’s subjectivity refers to translator’s subjective initiative embodied in translation for realization of translation purpose under the premise of respecting source text. People’s subjectivity is revealed by their cognition and practice. In light of this, the thesis probes systematically the entire process of Howard Goldblatt’s translation from aspects of cognition and practice to reveal that translator’s full play to subjectivity is the reason for his successful translation of Big Breasts and Wide Hips. By comparing and analyzing the original and the translated texts, the thesis points out that Howard Goldblatt’s subjectivity embodies in the following aspects in its English translation: first, the choice of the original text and the translation thoughts(Translation should abide by the principle of fidelity; translation is betrayal; translation is rewriting; translation is a kind of multi-cultural communication.) both reflect the translator’s cognitive subjectivity; second, the selection of translation strategies of domestication, foreignization and the combination of them; the choice of translation compensation, including grammatical compensation and cultural compensation because of cultural omission caused by the Chinese and western language and cultural differences and the choice of translation procedures, including pre-translation, while-translation and post-translation, which all reflect the translator’s practical subjectivity.The thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter one is the introduction part,which introducing the background, purpose, significance and the framework of the thesis. Chapter two introduces Howard Goldblatt, the previous studies on English translation of Big Breasts and Wide Hips and the brief introduction about the development of translator’s subjectivity is also included. Chapter three analyzes the concrete embodiment of translator’s subjectivity in Big Breasts and Wide Hips from two levels of cognition and practice. Cognitively, it mainly focuses on the choice of the source text and the translator’s thoughts. Practically, it mainly concentrates on translation strategies, translation compensations and translation procedures. Chapter four is the conclusion part, summarizing the ideas, the implications and the limitations of the study. The study will have typical significance for thoroughly understanding translator’s subjectivity, provide references for evaluating the success of a translation and translation practice and enrich the studies on English translation of Big Breasts and Wide Hips.