A Study On The English Translation Of My Life From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Du Zi Shang Chang is the autobiography of Chinese sports icon Li Na.In 2012,China Citic Press first published the book.In December 2013,the English version of Du Zi Shang Chang translated by Shelly Bryant was published by Penguin Press,a world-renowned publishing group.Once issued,the overseas sales of My life exceeded 100,000 copies and it was recommended by the Wall Street Journal,an authoritative American media.The popularity of My life can be seen from that.The theory of reception aesthetics,which emerged in the 1960 s,is a reader-centered literary theory,focusing on readers’ literary reception activities.As a biography of sports celebrity,Du Zi Shang Chang is the personal story of Li Na,Asia’s first Grand Slam tennis winner.The English version of Du Zi Shang Chang is not about Li Na’s monologue,but the result of the dialogue between the author,translator and reader,and the result of satisfying people’s expectations of the stories behind the successful sports people.Therefore,the theory of reception aesthetics has important theoretical guiding significance for the study of the English version of Du Zi Shang Chang.This paper takes the English version of Du Zi Shang Chang as the research object,and makes a detailed study of it by using literature method,text analysis method and case analysis method.Based on the textual features of Du Zi Shang Chang,this paper tries to sort out its translation difficulties.Guided by the theory of reception aesthetics,this paper makes an in-depth analysis of the translation from the perspectives of "horizon of expectation","aesthetic distance" and "blank" as well as readers’ comments.The results show that Shelly Bryant takes target language readers as the center and fully takes into account their aesthetic acceptance.For the translation of the title in the English version,she mainly adopts literal translation and modified translation to focus on target language readers’ expectations for the main contents of the book and its chapters.For the translation of proper nouns in the English version,she mainly adopts official names,transliteration,literal translation and free translation to promote the target language readers’ aesthetic acceptance of proper nouns.For the translation of idioms in the English version,she adopts literal translation,free translation and set translation methods,which effectively solve the cultural differences in idioms,pays full attention to the target language readers’ expectations,and properly preserve or shorten the aesthetic distance in the original text,thus promoting the understanding and acceptance of the target language readers.For the translation of figures of speech in the English version,she mainly adopts literal translation and free translation,and properly retains or concretises the blanks in the original text,paying full attention to the aesthetic expectations of target language readers and promoting their understanding and reception of the original text.Finally,by analyzing the readers’ comments on the English version of Du Zi Shang Chang,it is concluded that the English version conveys the characters and culture in the original text to the target language readers in a vivid and uncompromising way.The positive comments from most English readers also reflect the readers’ acceptance of the translation.Based on Li Na’s popularity and the sales of her autobiography,Du Zi Shang Chang is a successful biography of a sports celebrity.As an important carrier of sports culture,sports celebrity biography literature can spread sports spirit and sports culture to a certain extent.Chinese excellent biographies of sports celebrities can not only establish a good sports image in the world,but also help Chinese culture go global.Therefore,this study is expected to provide references for the translation of the biographies of outstanding sports celebrities in China,so as to help Chinese sports culture go abroad.