A Study Of Binu And The Great Wall From The Perspective Of The Manipulation Theory

Binu and the Great Wall is a novel written by the famous contemporary Chinese writer Su Tong.It retells the celebrated Chinese story Meng Jiangnü’s Wail Shattering the Great Wall which is regarded as one of the Four Major Folk Stories of China.As the first Chinese myth in Myth Series which is a project initiated by the Canongate Books of Britain,Binu and the Great Wall becomes a bestseller once being published in China and attracts great attention from the literary circle.Myth indicates the wisdom of our ancestors and deeply affects the national character and the structure of cultural psychology of Chinese.Therefore,inheritance and development of Chinese myth are of great importance in strengthening national unity,improving national confidence and soft power of China.As a new way of writing,retelling endows the ancient myth with new vigor and vitality in modern times.With magnificent language and poetic image,Su Tong successfully transforms the ancient myth into a modern retelling of Binu and the Great Wall,and turns a vague legendary woman into someone who is living.The retold myth helps to make the reader ponder over human nature,destiny and the real world.Binu and the Great Wall is translated by Howard Goldblatt who is regarded as the chief translator of Chinese literary works in the western world.In 2007,the retold myth was introduced to the English reader.The novel attracts great attention from the English-speaking world and provides a good way for the western world to understand Chinese literature and China.At the end of the 20 th century,concept of the Cultural Turn in translation study was proposed by some western scholars.Since then,scholars turn their eyes to the cultural consciousness which heavily acts on the translation process.This change makes translation study turn from linguistic level to cultural level.The manipulation school,a branch of the Cultural School,believes that translation shall be studied in the cultural context and translation activities are manipulated by many factors outside the linguistic system.As one of the most outstanding representatives,André Lefevere comes up with the concept of rewriting and makes great contribution to the development of the manipulation theory.In Lefevere’s eyes,translation is a kind of rewriting which is mainly manipulated by three major factors,namely,ideology,poetics and patronage in the target society.With descriptive analysis as the basic method,this thesis intends to make a full and comparative analysis on Binu and the Great Wall by taking André Lefevere ’s manipulation theory as main theoretical basis,and also studies on the translation strategies and methods adopted by Howard Goldblatt.After perusing the original text and the English version,the author finds that,under the influence of ideology,poetics and patronage in the western world,Howard Goldblatt selects the original text and mainly adopts the translation strategy of domestication in Binu and the Great Wall.Under the guidance of domestication strategy,he rewrites the original text to a large extent,and his rewriting is divided into four parts which are deletion of the content,rearrangement of the structure,reconstruction of the protagonist’s image and localization of the language.In realizing the rewriting,he uses flexible translation methods and makes relevant adjustment according to the different situations.By rewriting,Howard Goldblatt enables the spirit of the original text to be transmitted to the English version and makes the Chinese legend,Meng Jiangnü’s Wail Shattered the Great Wall,gain rebirth in the western world.