A Comparative Study On The Four English Versions Of Liao Zhai Zhi Yi From The Perspective Of Imagology

Pu Songling’s Liao Zhai Zhi Yi is an excellent collection of literary and fantasy tales,in which the author fully presents all aspects of Chinese society and culture at that time through various fantastic tales.In addition,the English translation of Liao Zhai Zhi Yi spans several historical stages,with a wide variety of translations and a diversity of translators,making the English translation of Liao Zhai Zhi Yi of high comparative research value.This thesis explores the textual image,the images of China constructed by the translators,and the motivations behind them by employing a comparative close reading of four English translations of Liao Zhai Zhi Yi（Giles’,Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang’s,Minford’s,Sondergard’s）.For intrinsic textual part,based on the three major components of image construction（lexical,hierarchical,plot）proposed by Pageaux,this thesis proceeds to investigate the images of China recreated by the four English versions through the interpretation of the narratives,characterization,cultural elements,and paratext of the translations;for extrinsic textual part,the thesis delves into the information about the translators themselves and the collective Western imagination at each stage of translation,in order to understand how they relate to and influence the image of China reconstructed by the translators.Through detailed analysis,it is found that Giles’translation has changed the Western society’s imagination of China to a certain extent through his detailed portrayal of the Chinese social environment,people’s life,folklore and religion.However,his translation as a whole was still deeply constrained by the social context of“Western with strength and Chinese with weakness”as well as Victorian values,and the translation presented a feudal and backward image of China with sharp social contradictions,greedy,cunning and superstitious people,showing a certain degree of Orientalism.Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang’s translation was born in the early days of China’s reform and opening up,and the selection of stories and the conveyance of the theme were more restricted by the social context and the patronage,and the translation focused more on the criticism of feudal society and customs and the promotion of traditional moral qualities;the translation of Minford,influenced by the modern consumerism context,placed more emphasis on the popularization and fluency of the story,and its translation reads more like a fantasy novel with exotic flavor,which fully showed the characteristic of“strangeness”of Liao Zhai Zhi Yi,and constructed a mysterious eastern country full of superstition and unknown.Sondergard’s translation,which was created at the start of the 21^st century amidst cultural diversity context,focused on the cultural connotations and imagery of the original text.It did this by giving readers a more accurate representation of the society,folklore,and culture of an ancient country by authentically portraying China as possessing a magnificent civilization and a vast and intricate socio-political system.This thesis is expected to offer a new view on the English translation of Liao Zhai Zhi Yi from Imagology perspective,and to provide a reference for the construction of Chinese cultural image and the practice and research of foreign translation of classical literature.