A Study On Translation Choices Of The Last Quarter Of The Moon From The Perspective Of Bourdieu’s Sociological Theory

It is necessary to tell a good story of Chinese literature for Chinese culture to go out.How to better promote Chinese literary stories under the sense of community for the Chinese nation is an urgent issue for translation research to consider.However,given the diversity of languages and the characteristics of ethnic cultures,the current situation of translation and dissemination of literature is not very satisfactory.Especially for non-Chinese-speaking readers,the reading experience of literature directly affects their overall impression of the nation.Therefore,the study of literature translation has important practical significance.Chi Zijian’s The Last Quarter of the Moon is the first long novel describing the current situation and the hundred-year vicissitudes of the Evenki group in northeast China.The American sinologist Bruce Humes has paid much attention to the promotion of Chinese literature,and The Last Quarter of the Moon is one of his representative translations.The application of Bourdieu’s sociological theory to translation studies focuses on the translation activity itself and the production process of translated works,and the theory has certain methodological significance for examining and exploring the literary translation activity and constructing its translation norms.Using Bourdieu’s sociological theory as a guide,this thesis explores the field,capital and habitus factors that influence Bruce Humes’ choice of translated texts and translation strategies.The field aspect focuses on the social and historical conditions under which the act of translation occurs and the translator’s personal motivation.The capital aspect focuses on three factors: cultural capital,social capital and symbolic capital.The habitus aspect focuses on the influence of translator’s value on the reproduction of culture-specific items in the text.The study found that:(1)the autonomy of the translator has increased in the translation field in the 21 st century,and translator is autonomous in choosing text that meet the expectations of publishers and readers as well as his personal interests for translation activities.(2)The translator’s cultural and social capital provide sufficient and necessary conditions for the text selection.The symbolic capital of the original work provides opportunities for the translator’s textual choice,and the symbolic capital of the publisher interferes with the translator’s choices.(3)Under the influence of the field and capital,the translator forms the habitus of introducing new understanding of Chinese culture and literature to the Western world.Under the influence of this habitus,he focuses on highlighting Chinese cultural characteristics in the translation process in order to achieve effective communication of cultural information.Therefore,he mainly adopts the translation strategy of conservation to deal with culture-specific items related to proper nouns and the translation strategy of substitution to deal with expressions related to material,ecological and social culture,but the two strategies are not applied independently in the translated texts.This paper aims to provide a new research direction for exploring the translation of The Last Quarter of the Moon and draw corresponding insights in the international promotion of Chinese literature.