A Study On The Translation Strategy In Howard Goldblatt’s English Version Of Life And Death Are Wearing Me Out From The Perspective Of Bourdieu’s Field Theory

Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out,which has won the second Hong Kong Baptist University“Red Chamber Dream Award”and the first“American Newman Chinese Literature Award”,is one of the representative works of Mo Yan,a famous Chinese writer.This novel,an epitome of social development and Chinese people’s spiritual outlook,shows the history of Chinese rural area over more than fifty years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.Howard Goldblatt’s English version of this work,through presenting the changes and development of China,has facilitated readers’understanding of the Chinese culture and obtained wide acclaim in the West.For a long time,the study of literary translation has been confined to the pursuit of equivalence between the source text and the target text.With the rise of the“Cultural Turn”and the“Sociological Turn”in the second half of the 20^th century,literary translation studies have paid more attention to describe and explain the interactions between various socio-cultural factors and translation behaviors,thus a sociological perspective of translation studies emerged.Pierre Bourdieu’s Field Theory,an important theory in“Socio-Translation Studies”,is of great guidance and practical value to the research of literary translation.Based on the Field Theory,this thesis studies the translation strategy used by Howard Goldblatt in his English version of Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out from the sociological perspective.In the process of research,this thesis firstly introduces the three core concepts of“field”,“habitus”and“capital”in the theory and their impacts on strategy-making in social practices.Then,the present author makes in-depth probe into the following two aspects:（1）the“habitus”of Howard Goldblatt,“capital”held by Howard Goldblatt,and“capital”held by the novel;（2）the translation strategy and methods employed in the English version of this novel under the dictation of“habitus”and“capital”.Through the research,it is found that Howard Goldblatt applies the strategy of“Capital Appreciation”in his English version under the influence of his translator-habitus and capital.After years of professional study and translation practices,Goldblatt has developed unique translator-habitus of being“simple,bold and free”,which leads to the formation of his translation concept,namely,being faithful both to the original text and the readers.During the course,a large amount of capital in the field of literature and translation has also been accumulated.Under the dictation of both habitus and capital,he boldly exerts his subjective initiative and creatively rewrites the original text by adopting the strategy of“Capital Appreciation”.At the operational level,to cater to market demand and attain success in the field of Western literature,this strategy is achieved through the flexible use of various translation methods including transliteration,literal translation,free translation,amplification,and omission,etc.This has all contributed to enhancing the capital in the translated version.Through the study on translation strategy employed in Goldblatt’s English version of Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out,this thesis not only widens perspectives in the study on literary translation strategy,but also enriches socio-translation studies by elaborating the translation behavior under the influence of“capital”.In addition,this thesis also serves the strategy of Chinese culture“going global”.