| Herbert Allen Giles(1845-1935)is a leading figure after James Legge in British Sinology.He serves as a diplomat in China for nearly thirty years,but devotes most of his time and passion to writing and rendering books about China.Quips from a Chinese Jest-Book,the first and the largest English version of Xiao Lin Guang Ji so far,has been left in the basket by the academic circle for a long time.In the late 18~thh century,China has suffered more sharp criticisms and unfair treatment from the West.And there are various distorted images in Western literary works,while the image of China in Giles's works are based on his personal experiences in China.Thus this thesis aims at analyzing the reconstruction of China's image in the work of Quips from a Chinese Jest-Book.Imagology originated from comparative literature,mainly focuses on the exotic image of foreign countries in literary works.It studies how the image of the“other”is observed,imaged and recreated by the“self”and analyzes the deep-rooted social and cultural background for the generation of these images.Based on intrinsic textual analysis including lexicons,hierarchical relation and plot and extrinsic textual analysis including imaginaire social and translator as image creator,this thesis points that the image reconstruction of the exotic country is affected by translator's emotions,personal imaginations and attitudes.This thesis has analyzed China as the“other”based on imaginaire social of Westerners in the 19~thh century,and found that the images of China and Chinese have been badly distorted in western literary works.Then it analyzed Giles's reconstruction of China's image in his translation of Xiao Lin Guang Ji and found that Giles deleted dirty jokes,description of sexual organs,and indecent and vulgar description of the original text in his translated text.At the lexical level,the translator has adopted addition,annotation and domestication during the process of image-reconstruction in that he wanted to narrow the gap between the target readers and Chinese culture so as to eliminate the deep-rooted prejudices of western readers against Chinese.What's more,the translator made some variations in the translated text based on hierarchical relation,but these variations about hierarchical relation of China do not affect the humorous effect of the original text.Based on the level of the plot,the translator made plot adjustments,such as addition,deletion and variation in the original text to convey the humorous effect of the original text.From the perspective of the study of the translator,the thesis has found that Giles has adopted a friendly attitude and positive emotion in the process of translation,thus the images of China and Chinese in his translation mirror the realities of China,which is constructive to reconstruct the positive image of China in the western world.In addition,in Giles's young mind,the Bishop of Oxford's persecution was the root of his family's adversities.As he grew older,his hatred for the Bishop became the one for the Church of England and churchmen.In Quips from a Chinese Jest-Book,Giles has depicted conditions of society and people's lives in detail to glorify the Chinese people at the bottom of society criticizing ugly faces of their rulers and smiling at life in the face of miseries.Studies on literary works from the perspective of imagology can provide valuable experience and guiding enlightenment for translators in examining images of the“other”in translated text,evaluating transferring effect of images in literary works translation,and promoting construction of our national images and cross-cultural communication. |
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