Translator’s Cultural Identity:A Case Study Of Xu Yuanchong’s C-E Poetry Translation

This thesis is based on the “cultural turn” in translation studies. With the cultural turn in the 1970 s, translator, as the subject and mediator of translation and cultural communication, enters the horizon of translation studies. As individuals in society, translators constitute their cultural identities under the influence of different cultural systems. And through translation, the cultural exchange activity, translators reveal their cultural identities in the process of translating. To analyze translators’ cultural identities is helpful for readers to have a profound understanding of the cultural ideologies behind translation. Cultural identity is a dynamic construction mechanism and it has been formed and developed since one’s childhood in the process of human socialization. Accordingly, one’s cultural identity is closely related to the social-cultural background and one of the features of cultural identity is dynamics.Xu Yuanchong is famous for his rhymed translations of classical Chinese poems and has translated most of them into both English and French. Compared with the traditionanl translation activity, Xu Yuanchong’s translation activity is the inverse translation. Due to the feature of the inverse translation, Xu Yuanchong plays a culture-exporter role in his translation. However, because of the dynamic feature of one’s cultural identity, Xu’s culture-exporter identity is not constituted completely at the beginning but slowly develops with the development of social-cultural background. Therefore, this thesis is conducted with a case study of Xu Yuanchong’s C-E poetry translation and divides his C-E poetry translation into different stages according to different social-cultural backgrounds, aiming to make an analysis on the relationship between the translator’s cultural identity and his or her translations.The research methods of this study consist of both qualitative methods and quantitative methods. The case study in this thesis will be carried out at two variables: selection of source texts and choice of translation strategies. In terms of the selection of source texts, this thesis adopts the method of text analysis to make a qualitative description. In terms of the choice of translation strategies, the thesis describes them quantitatively through text analysis. Through the analysis the following conclusions have been drawn. Firstly, Xu Yuanchong’s cultural identity exerts influence on his play of subjectivity firstly and then on his translation. Secondly, the dynamic development of Xu Yuanchong’s cultural identity influences his translation with different degrees. Lastly, Xu Yuanchong’s culture-exporter identity becomes more and more prominent due to the different socio-cultural backgrounds and through his translation activities Xu Yuanchong makes a manifesto of Chinese national cultural identity to the world.