A Study Of Yu Guangzhong’s Self-translation Of The Night Watchman From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Self-translation is a particular translation phenomenon. A self-translator has a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of the original text than the conventional translator when self-translating. Obviously, the self-translator, as the author, enjoys the superiority on manipulation towards the original. Many scholars who act as both writer and translator have engaged themselves in self-translation. Overseas studies on self-translation appear earlier and obtain more accomplishment than domestic studies. Moreover, domestic studies on self-translation largely concentrate on novel self-translation; little on poetry self-translation.This thesis applies the main concepts “horizon of expectation”, “aesthetic distance”, “appealing structure” and “concretization” in Reception Aesthetics to discuss Yu Guangzhong’s self-translated poem collection The Night Watchman. The theory has brought a lot of enlightenment on translation studies. It requires the translator take the target reader’s horizon of expectation and the receptivity into consideration in order to make the translation spread more widely.In this thesis, the author firstly makes a review about the overseas and domestic studies on self-translation and the previous studies on Yu Guangzhong, then makes an introduction to Reception Aesthetics and its origins and developments and main concepts, and elaborates its enlightenment on translation studies. The author applies the main concepts of Reception Aesthetics to analyze Yu’s self-translated poems. Considering of the target reader’s horizon of expectation, Yu firstly chooses the poems which are more translatable and have the ordinary themes. He makes a lot of adjustments in the form and musicality of the poem to conform to the aesthetic habits of the English reader. To achieve a better transformation of the content, Yu makes a further explanation and concretization to the obscure places and cultural blanks.Through the analysis of Yu’s self-translation, the author finds that Yu Guangzhong adopts translation strategies flexibly and makes adjustments to clear the vague and enhance the musicality of the original poems, transforming the spirit of the poem better.