Translation And The Reconstruction Of Chinese Cultural Images In The Postcolonial Context

In his academic work Translation and Empire: Postcolonial Theories Explained,the postcolonial scholar Douglas Robinson expounded that postcolonialism is a way of looking at intercultural power,the psychosocial transformations brought about by the intertwined dynamics of dominance and submission,geographical and linguistic displacement.This relation reveals how a marginalized culture can be described as a stereotyped,distorted and silent one,for it can not speak for itself.The boundary between translation and writing becomes fuzzy in the postcolonial context,which makes translation a method for marginalized culture to resist cultural hegemonic power,speak for itself and reconstruct its cultural image.A traditional Chinese Peking Opera,HongZongLieMa,was translated into an English play by S.I.Hsiung according to its traditional style named Lady Precious Stream,which went viral overnight and became the first Chinese opera ever performed on Broadway.This play was translated to deconstruct Western world’s misunderstanding about Chinese culture and reshape Chinese cultural image.Based on the theory of Said’s Orientalism and Homi Bhabha’s Hybridity of cultural translation,this thesis starts with an analysis of power of discourse,by which Chinese cultural image was shaped as ‘the Other’.Then it analyses how Hsiung reconstructed Chinese cultural images and made ‘the Other’ image of Chinese culture invisible by selecting text,adjusting storyline,reconstructing Wang Baochuan’s image,adding an image of ‘the other’ and using linguistic and cultural hybridity strategy in Lady Precious Stream,obtaining the right to make dialogues with Western audience and speak for Chinese culture.This thesis holds that in the postcolonial context,the hybridity state of translation can reduce the gap between the translation and the readers and increase the possibility of acceptance in the receiving culture.The fuzzy boundary between translation and writing lays the foundation of reconstructing cultural image in the translation,making translation a method for marginalized culture to resist cultural hegemonic power,speak for itself and reconstruct its cultural image.Hopefully,this thesis may provide a reference for the ‘going out’ of Chinese Opera.