Power Manipulation In Goldblatt’s Translating Of Mo Yan’s Early Works

Mo Yan is the first Chinese writer who has won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and his works have great influence on Chinese literature and even the world literature. Frankly speaking, Mo Yan’s winning is largely attributed to Howard Goldblatt’s translation, which has aroused critics’ attention and review in terms of translation strategies, translation style or cultural transmission. But the power manipulation in Goldblatt’s translating process still needs to be discussed.According to Andre Lefevere’s theory of “translation manipulation”, power manipulation in translating is mainly reflected in ideology and poetics through the dimensions of the selection of original texts, catering to the target readers’ reading interests and the adopted translation strategies and methods. This process is in fact a kind of power manipulation taken by the translator. This thesis, taking Mo Yan’s three early works The Garlic Ballads, Red Sorghum and The Republic of Wine for examples, will analyze the power manipulation in Goldblatt’s translating from the three dimensions mentioned above.The body of the thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter one introduces the theories about power manipulation. Chapter two analyzes the power manipulation in the selection of Mo Yan’s early works in Goldblatt’s translating. It points out that Goldblatt’s selection of Mo Yan’s early works, on one hand, is a representation of Occidentalism, which reinforces the dominant western ideology; on the other hand, the commonality between the poetical features of the source texts and the western poetical tastes has been fully taken into account by Goldblatt. Chapter three studies Goldblatt’s power manipulation in catering to target readers’ reading tastes, holding that Goldblatt has fully taken into consideration the western readers’ prejudice against China and is aware that the western readers are fairly interested in the“violence aesthetics” and Chinese characteristics in Mo Yan’s works. Chapter four gives an analysis to the power manipulation in Goldblatt’s translation strategies and methods. It believes that when dealing with the information on political culture, religious culture and folk culture, Goldblatt has adopted translation methods of substitutions, omissions etc, while free translation in figures of speech and alterations in the narration. On the one hand, these strategies and methods correspond to the expectations of the target society and the interests ofthe target readers. On the other hand, they also strengthen the stereotyped image of China.There is no doubt that the power manipulation in Goldblatt’s translating enables Mo Yan’s works to gain a huge success internationally and helps with the transmission of Chinese literature in the world culture. But what we should be aware of is that his translating conforms to the western discourse power to a large extent, which is very thought-provoking that when spreading Chinese culture into the world, we should take serious how to foster a China image rooted in mutual equality and respect, and how to reduce the intervention of Occidentalism upon translating.