A Study On Folk Adage Translation Of Mo Yan’s Novels From The Perspective Of Manipulation Theory

Translation is an important cross-cultural communication activity and contributes to the promotion of Chinese culture. However, most literary works translated by Chinese translators are not well-accepted and popular in the western countries. Mo Yan is the first Chinese who won Nobel Prize in Literature, who might mostly attribute his success to the American translator Howard Goldblatt. This thesis discusses Goldblatt’s translation of folk adage in Mo Yan’s novels from the perspective of manipulation theory.This thesis sets Andre Lefevere’s manipulation theory as the theoretical basis and analyze Goldblatt’s translation of folk adage in Mo Yan’s novels in aspects of ideology, patronage and poetics. This thesis will explore the main cultural factors that influence Goldblatt’s translation activities and discuss how these factors affect Goldblatt’s choice of translation material and translation methods.The research findings can be concluded as follows:Influenced by the patronage, Goldblatt would attach more importance to the expectation and interests of western readers in his translation to fulfill the requirements from the publishers; meanwhile, to cater to the demands from the ruling class and public opinions, he would adopt domestication to transform or delete some parts running counter to American ideology; under the influence of western dominant poetics, western readers pay more attention to the whole structure and context, so Goldblatt omitted those repetitions to make the structure of the novel more explicit, also he added some elements which do not exist in the source text to arouse the interest of western readers. It can be concluded that under the influence of ideology, poetics, patronage, etc. translator adopts different translation methods such as free translation, literal translation, addition, etc, according to the different needs in the process of literary translation. It is hoped that this thesis can provide translators with some suggestions, facilitating Chinese literary works going global.