On Translation Creativity Of Wolf Totem From The Perspective Of Context

Translation is a bridge connecting Chinese and foreign cultures and the only way for Going-out Strategy of Chinese literature. The ultimate purpose of translation is a successful cross-cultural communication. The study of translation attaches great importance to the influences of a translator’s translation principles and viewpoints on translation activities. Translation activities are closely connected with context of culture and situation. Influences of the context on translation are obvious.Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong has gained much success since its publication at home and abroad. Scholars discuss and explore ecology subjects and human natures in this book. Howard Goldblatt, the English translator, makes the book own more popularity with his superb translation techniques. As an American sinologist and translator, Howard contributes a lot to the translation and promotion of Chinese contemporary and modern literature.The popularity of English version Wolf Totem attracts lots of attention from scholars to study how a translator carries out translation activities more creatively. Creativity of a translator is close with the certain environment where language is used. The theory of context provides a totally new perspective for the study of Chinese-English translation. Context of culture and situation play significant parts in the process when a translator exerts translation creativity. Through the analysis of the context, a translator is able to have a better comprehension of the source text scientifically and objectively to create a better translation work. This paper aims to study the English version of Wolf Totem from the context theory, analyze how a translator’s creativity is influenced by context and finally list the specific manifestations of a translator’ creativity. By analyzing words, sentences and paragraphs in Wolf Totem, the purpose of this paper is to research the influences of context on translation.This paper is divided into 5 parts. The first part is introduction, including background and significance of the study, literature review, theoretical framework, research questions and layout of the thesis. In the second part, this paper mainly introduces the author, Jiang Rong, and main ideas of the source text. The translator, Howard Goldblatt, and his translation viewpoints will also be discussed in the second part. Influences of situational context on translation creativity are the third part. The fourth part is about influences of cultural context on translation creativity. Last part is a conclusion to the paper, restating the principal standpoints and limitations in this paper.