An Exploration Of Translator's Subjectivity Based On The English And French Versions Of Big Breasts And Wide Hips

With the birth of the first Nobel prize for literature in China,the Chinese contemporary writer,Mo Yan and his works have attracted worldwide attention.The spread and acceptance of Mo Yan's works in the overseas due to its novel creation,at the same time,some famous translators have also played a crucial role as a bridge.As one of the most representative works of Mo Yan,Big Breasts and Wide Hips has gained the overseas market and its success is inseparable from the credit of its English translator Howard Goldblatt.However,domestic scholars only paid attention to its English translation without realizing the fact that more foreign readers actually get in touch with Mo Yan and his works owing to its French translation.Moreover,Mo Yan was once named “the most popular Chinese writer among French readers”.All of these can be attributed to the merit of its French translator.In view of this,this paper attempts to put together the two versions to compare,and through the analysis of their different selection criteria,translation thoughts and strategies to make people understand the translator's subjectivity and its embodiment more clearly.This paper takes respectively Goldblatt's English translation of Big Breasts and Wide Hips and Dutrait's French version as research objects.By using the method of text comparison,the author compares and analyzes the original text and the two translated texts in order to explore the different manifestations of the translator's subjectivity in translation.Through comparison,we find that Howard Goldblatt and Noel Dutrait hold totally different translation standards and translation thoughts in the process of translation.In the selection of the translation text,in addition to his own style and preference,Goldblatt is more concerned with the audience and the acceptance of the market while Dutrait's selection is mainly based on his own preference as well as the recommendation of his friends and publishers.About translation thoughts,Goldblatt stresses that translation is rewriting and betrayal based on loyalty,and to make the translation readable,the translator,who should service the readers more,ought to play more initiative to get involved in the work.On the contrary,Dutrait believes that translation should try to be faithful to the original and retain the original style.Therefore,in consideration of different translation theories,Goldblatt and Dutrait have adopted different translation strategies.This paper explores the translator's subjectivity based on the English and French versions of Big Breasts and Wide Hips and its influence on the translated works,which is of theoretical and practical significance for translation studies.Theoretically,we should takeinto account the subjective initiative of the translator when establishing translation criteria.From a practical point of view,certain enlightenment may be provided about the translation methods employed by Goldblatt and Dutrait in dealing with translation difficulties brought by cultural conflicts.Translators should be familiar with both the languages and cultures of the two countries when choosing translated works and use appropriate translation strategies to give full play to his subjectivity in the translation process to effectively promote the interaction and communication between Chinese culture and the target language culture,making Chinese excellent works enter the world more successfully.