A Case Study On The Application Of Thick Translation In Paolo Santangelo’s English Translation Of Zibuyu

The great significance of English translation of Chinese classics lies in how to preserve cultural information and features in the translation for the purpose of promoting readers’full understanding and deeper respect for Chinese culture.Therefore,most translators use the strategy of thick translation,namely,integrating the translator’s reinterpretation and hypothesis into the translated text,to show his or her respect for the source culture and to reproduce cultural heterogeneity in the translation version.Zibuyu is known as one of the three major classical Chinese novels in the Qing Dynasty,along with Liao Zhai Zhi Yi(聊斋志异)and Yuewei Caotang Biji(阅微草堂笔记).It is a collection of stories by Yuan Mei,but it is not highly valued as the other two works by researchers.Zibuyu,together with its rich cultural connotations and literary aesthetics,has also long been overshadowed by Yuan Mei’s poetry and works of poetry theory.Unexpectedly,it was favored by the Italian sinologist Paolo Santangelo.Cherishing strong interest and curiosity,Santangelo published the English translation of Zibuyu in 2013,which is the only complete translation of Zibuyu up to now.On the basis of relevant literature review,the author believes that as Chinese culture goes out to the other parts of the world,Zibuyu,being a marginalized literary work for a long time,will arouse more interests among readers and researchers around the world.In order to better bring Chinese culture to the target audience,Santangelo tried to compensate for cultural reduction and omission of the translated text and demonstrate cultural heterogeneity through thick translation during the translation process,which produces a defamiliarized aesthetic effect in the target text.This thesis makes an investigation of thick translation in the English translation of Zibuyu.The author first makes a comprehensive yet specific classification of the thick translation strategy,namely,thick translation strategy presented as Paratext,such as acknowledgments,footnotes,prefaces,etc.;and thick translation strategy as text,namely,Realia~1 translation strategy,such as transliteration,calque,assimilation,formation of new words,etc.By investigating examples,the author draws two conclusions:for one thing,in order to deeply explore the historical background of the original text and to understand the cultural,linguistic,and ideological features of the source text,the translator needs to employ the thick translation strategy presented as Paratext and text;for another,thick translation emphasizes the differences between cultures,which is coincided with the aesthetic pursuit of the literary defamiliarization.Santangelo tried to compromise between the effect of"unfamiliarity"and the vacancy of readers’knowledge span,thus avoiding failure of readers’acceptance and perception.Hopefully,the study of Zibuyu and its English translation may provide some inspiration for translating Chinese classics into English in the future.