A Study On The Hybridity In Nicky Harman’s Tranlation Of The Flowers Of War

Jin Ling Shi San Chai,as one of the representative works of Yan Geling,was first published in 2007.Later in the year of 2011,the famous Chinese director Zhang Yimou adapted it into a film by the same name,which has gained extensive attention at home and abroad.In 2012 the well-known English sinologist Nicky Harman translated it into English and entitled The Flowers of War.This thesis attempts to study The Flowers of War in light of hybridity theory that originated from the post-colonialism.And the following three questions will be explored: i)What are the hybridity features in Nicky Harman’s The Flowers of War? ii)What are the factors that influence the degree of hybridity in The Flowers of War? iii)What implications for literary translation can we get from the analysis of Nicky Harman’s The Flowers of War?One of the representative post-colonial theorists Homi Bhabha first proposed the concept of hybridity in his book The Location of Culture.There exists a so called“the third space” where the “hybridity” appears when the culture of ex-colonial powers makes contact with the culture of colonized countries.This thesis examines the manifestations of hybridity in The Flowers of War at linguistic,cultural and literary level respectively.Firstly,a case study is applied to gather some representative translation examples in The Flowers of War which bear distinct hybrid features.Then,the internal and external factors which attribute to the hybridity in The Flowers of War are analyzed by means of descriptive translation studies.The thesis concludes that the translator has applied the hybrid translation strategy which is the combination of domestication and foreignization.All the translated texts are hybrid to some extent,and the only difference lies in the proportion.This thesis holds that hybridity can not only promote the optimization of target culture,but also can resist the cultural hegemony and facilitate the cultural balance between the weak culture and the strong culture.Besides,studying the literary translations from the perspective of hybridity can enrich the researches on hybridity.