A Study Of Mark Bender’s Thoughts On The Translation Of Ethnic Oral Literature

Mark Bender is a well-known American scholar whose research domain is the ethnic literature in China.He is also a distinguished translator devoting himself to translating the ethnic oral literary works into English in the past four decades,like Hmong Oral Epics and The Nuosu Book of Origins: A Creation Epic from Southwest China.He is regarded as “the pioneer of the translation of ethnic literature into English”.Simultaneously,Bender published some articles regarding the translation problems and voiced his claims and arguments in some interviews and keynote speeches.It is significant to uncover Bender’s thoughts on translation through probing into these claims for the spread of China’s ethnic oral literature as well as filling the gap of the research on the translators of ethnic oral literature.Following the research paradigm of translator research,the present study highlights the denotation of concept,the theoretical origin,and significance in light with the viewpoints of Bender and his translation practice.It has mainly the following findings in three aspects.First,Bender claims that the translation of the ethnic oral literature is “cosmographic translation”,emphasizing that the constellation of everything in the cosmos should be taken into account in the translation of oral literature.The meanings of all objects appearing in the oral text like plants,mountains,rivers,etc,and their relation to the oral works should be uncovered in the translated versions.Second,Bender argues for “We Translate”,a kind of translation collaboration.It is characterized with the multiple participants involving in the translation process including translators themselves,the experts on local culture,and the inheritor of oral epics.It emphasizes the importance of “collaborators’ discussion”in the process of translation.Third,Bender claims that the readers of the translated versions of the ethnic oral works should not be lazy.They are responsible for adapting to the ethnic culture by reading the detailed notes and preface.The study is divided into six parts.Chapter one is introduction which presents the research background,research purposes,research methods,research significance,and frameworks of this thesis;Chapter two in the literature review which reviews the related studies concerning the topic of the present study.From Chapter three to Chapter five is the core part of this study.Focusing on three themes including cosmographic translation,collaboration translation,and readers’ duty,the three chapters explore the denotation of these concepts,their theoretic origin and significance.They also illustrate how these translations thoughts are applied to translation practice through analyzing the examples.The final chapter is the conclusion of this thesis,which summarizes the main findings,the implications and some shortcoming of the present study.It also provides some suggestions for the future study of this topic.