The Reconstruction Of The Female Images In Howard Goldblatt’s English Translation Of The Chinese Novel Wa

The thesis conducts a case study of Howard Goldblatt’s English translation of the Chinese novel Wa from the perspective of Imagology.It intends to analyze Goldblatt’s reconstruction of the female images in Frog,his English translation of Wa,with the two major approaches of Imagology: the intrinsic textual analysis and the extrinsic textual analysis.The thesis attempts to address the two research questions.One is to explore in what ways Goldblatt reconstructs the female images in the target text Frog through intrinsic textual analysis.The other is to examine what influences Goldblatt’s reconstruction of the female images in Frog through extrinsic textual analysis.To address the first research question,the thesis starts with the classification of three main groups of the female images according to the characteristics of different female images in the source text Wa,including gravidas,midwives and the women cadres of the Family Planning Policy.By making the distinctions between the female images in the source text Wa and those in the target text Frog,the thesis reveals that the Chinese female images are reconstructed by Goldblatt through rewriting or deleting the corpora related to lexicon,hierarchical relationship and plot in the target text.In terms of the lexicon,Goldblatt rewrites some vulgar or negative lexicons shaping the female images,mainly reconstructing the negative female images into milder or more positive ones.He also integrates his individual understandings into his translation of some lexicons,leading to some variations of the Chinese female images in Frog.In terms of the hierarchical relationship,confronted with the dual hierarchical relationships between the male and the female,the Orient and the West,Goldblatt,a Western male translator,generally enhances the position of the females or promotes gender equality.He gives more prominence to the superiority of the females in the target text.In terms of the plot,Goldblatt cannot break free from fixed Western social collective imagination on Chinese females to rewrite some programmed plots,consequently strengthening the traditional child-rearing,child-bearing and family concepts of the Chinese females.To address the second research question,the thesis investigates some factors which influence Goldblatt’s reconstruction of the female images in Frog.Firstly,under the influence of Western social collective imagination on Chinese females,he rewrites or deletes some portraits of the plump and tall figures or the violent actions of the female images in the target text.The female images in the target text become thinner or milder than those in the source text.Secondly,influenced by Goldblatt’s life experiences in China,his enthusiasm for Chinese literature and sympathy for Chinese females,he holds an attitude of “friendliness” towards the Chinese female images when he is translating Wa into English.Due to the differences amongst social formations,Goldblatt reconstructs the female images by rewriting some expressions contradicting with his own ideology in the target text.Finally,against the backdrop of the continuous improvement of females’ status in modern society,Goldblatt reshapes the humble female images with lower status by rewriting the discourses of objectifying female images and the descriptions of expressing a preference for boys over girls.The above research findings reveal some significant implications for the practical application of Imagology to translation studies in literary translation.These findings have the potential of promoting the dissemination of authentic and trustworthy Chinese female images among English readers.