The Analysis Of Bowra's Foreignizing Translation Of "jinling Prophecies"-From The Cross-Culture Perspective

Dream of the Red Chamber is one of the four greatest classical novels in ancient China.Since it represents the zenith of Chinese literature and Chinese traditional art and culture,famous intellectuals have spent their persevering efforts in the study of it.At the same time,the novel is also translated into many different versions,among which the English versions are the most abundant ones.One of the noteworthy versions was translated by Bowra in 1868,signifying the beginning of the systematic translation of the novel.The translator managed to faithfully present the original ideas both in form and in meaning.At the age of calling for studying from the west,this phenomenon is of unusual and worthy of study despite the fact that the translator was a representative of �colonial ruler�.In our country,the study of Bowra's version is relatively late and only a few related articles could be found.The first thesis on Bowra's version was published in the 6th volume of A Dream of Red Mansions in 2010 focusing on the testifying of the basic information of the version.Later in 2011,an article concerning on the poem translation of the version was published.The latest thesis published in 2013 was also about the testifying of the basic information of the version.Based on the above statements we can see that the study of Bowra's version is still at the beginning stage.The hitting point of this thesis is from its general translation strategies--Foreignization.The author tries to explor the cultural features of that special stage of time through the study of this version.This thesis,based on Venuti's theory of foreignization,sets up a study on the translation of �Jinling prophecies� in the fifth chapter of the novel.The translation of the prophecies is studied from the cross-culture perspective by case studies.By proving the foreignizing translation of Bowra's version,the author explores the reasons for the translator's foreignizing strategy.The framework of this thesis consists of three parts: introduction,the body part and the conclusion.The introduction mainly deals with the research background,objectives,methods and significance of the study,as well as the overall organization of the thesis and the theoretical foundation of the paper--Venuti's theory of foreignization.In the first chapter,a thorough introduction of the translated version is made.The author quoted 14 prophecies and the explanatory notes translated by Bowra.At the same time,Hawkes' version of the prophecy translation is also added to serve as a comparison so that the readers can have an overall knowledge of the prophecy translation.In the second chapter,Bowra's foreignizing translation strategy was testified.As the prophecies are presented in the form of Chinese traditional poems and were permitted with rhetorical devices,the study of Bowra's foreignizing translation will mainly focus on the two points: Bowra's foreignizing translation of the Chinese poem and Bowra's foreignizing translation of the rhetorical devices.Besides,the significance of Bowra's foreignizing translation is also discussed.In the third chapter,the reasons of Bowra's adoption for foreignizing strategy is explored,including the life experience of the translator,the purpose of translation and the target readers,and the charm of Chinese culture as well as the Chinese social background--the �Westernization Movement� and the slogan they put forth--�traditional Chinese values aided with modern Western management and ideology.�In conclusion,major findings of the study are summarized and limitations are stated with suggestions for further studies being made.Through the studies,we can draw the conclusion that Bowra adopted foreignizing strategy in his translation and this has a great significance.On the one hand,this enhanced the identity of Chinese culture at the same time made contribution for the communication between cultures.On the other hand,based on the study,we can make the assumption that in the latter part of the 19 th century,although China was vulnerable both economically and politically,Chinese culture was still among the world powerful cultures worthy of studying.China,a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society at that time,still had the awareness of conserving native culture.Unbalanced development of economy,politics and culture existed at that time of China.