A Comparative Study Of Patrick Hanan’s And Nathan K.Mao’s Translation Versions Of Li Yu’s Shi Er Lou From The Perspective Of Translator Behavior Criticism

Li Yu’s(1611-1680)works,which are full of Chinoiserie elements,are popular among Western readers because they differ greatly from traditional classic ethical literature in their secular aesthetics.His masterpiece,Shi Er Lou,also known as Jue Shi Ming Yan,consists of twelve stories and uses the building names as titles,not only drive the plot but also suggest the fate of the main characters.The stories are set in Jiangnan classical gardens,reflecting the typical Li Yu’s aesthetics style.The translator is one of the key factors in translation activities,and the translator’s role can have an important influence on the translation process and translation results.However,nowadays,translation evaluation mainly focuses on language-level reciprocity like words and sentence patterns,while less attention is paid to factors out of the text,i.e.extra-translational factors,such as translator behavior and translator roles.Proposed by scholar Zhou Lingshun,Translator behavior criticism is concerned with translator behavior,including both the translator’s instinctive behavior and social behavior.This theory can objectively describe the translator behavior from both internal and external parts of translation,and carry out an objective evaluation of the translation process.In this thesis,translator behavior criticism is employed to compare the two English translation versions of Shi Er Lou by Hanan and Nathan K.Mao from the three dimensions: the degree of truth-seeking,the degree of utility-attaining,and the degree of rationality.Firstly,on the linguistic level,i.e.,the translator is biased toward the author and the source text,how the translator achieves the degree of truth-seeking in reproducing the structure and language of the source text;secondly,when the translator functions as a social being,whether the translator will rewrite the source text under the influence of personal factors and social factors in order to meet readers’ needs and Master of Arts Thesis social requirements and,consequently,achieve the degree of utility-attaining.Finally,the degree of truth-seeking and the degree of utility-attaining in the process of translation jointly determine the degree of rationality of the translation.The study finds that at the linguistic level,Hanan reproduces the structure and the language in the source text,and completely conveys Li Yu’s “innovation” to achieve“truth-seeking”;at the social level,he takes into account the Western readers’ needs and achieves the degree of utility-attaining.Nathan K.Mao rewrites the source text to a great extent.In order to satisfy the reading needs of the Western readers to the maximum extent,he replaces the form of the vernacular novel with the form of English novel that favors Western readers.He emphasizes the degree of utility-attaining over the degree of truth-sseking so that his translation loses the balance between the degree of truth-seeking and utility-attaining.In conclusion,Hanan’s translation achieves a higher degree of rationality than that of Nathan K.Mao’s.