A Study of Domestication and Foreignization in Goldblatt’S Translation of Sandalwood Death

By Guo Binbin

In partial fulfillment of the requirement

For the B. A. degree

Department of English

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

June 2017

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank all the professors for their invaluable instruction in my 4-year B.A. study and their strict requirements and academic guidance. They have helped much to make this thesis accomplished. In particular, I want to thank Professor Xu Xianwen, my academic advisor, who has supervised the whole process of the thesis writing, for his careful reading of the draft and his perceptive suggestions on the first and second versions of this thesis.

Contents

1. Introduction 5

2. Literature Review 6

2.1 Mo Yan and Sandalwood Death 6

2.2 Howard Goldblatt and his view on translation 6

3. Domestication and Foreignization Theories 7

3.1 Definition of Domestication and Foreignization in Translation 7

3.2 The Importance of Domestication and Foreignization 7

3.2.1 Domestication Translation 7

3.2.2 Foreignization Translation 8

4. Analysis of Foreignizing and Domesticating translation in Goldblatt’s Sandalwood Death 9

4.1 Cases of Foreignizing translation 9

4.2 Cases of domesticating translation 10

5. Conclusion 12

References 13

A Study of Domestication and Foreignization in Goldblatt’S Translation of Sandalwood Death

Guo Binbin

Department of English

School of Language and Culture

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

Abstract: Mo Yan, the first winner as a Chinese of 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature for his TanXiangXing （檀香刑）, one of his awarded works, enjoys a high literary achievement. While Howard Goldblatt’s translation from Chinese into English plays a considerable role in the winner’s international reputation. Goldblatt gives the least changes to Sandalwood Death, which, to the greatest degree, is faithful to the original from the viewpoints of either content or form. The thesis aims to explore the application of the domesticating and foreignizing skills in the Goldblatt’s translation of Sandalwood Death, and to share the experience with Chinese translators. Taking a review of the skills of domestication and foreignization translation, brief introduction of the novel and Goldblatt’s view on translation and his works, we find that the translator can merge his principle successfully into translation activities, especially in the field of the name and the sound in the combinations with domestication and foreignization.

Key words: Howard Goldblatt, Sandalwood Death, Domestication, Foreignization.

摘 要：莫言是我国第一个获得诺贝尔文学奖的作家，成就非凡。他的作品在国际上受到认可，翻译有很大功劳。《檀香刑》是莫言获奖后出版的第二个英译本。英文版《檀香刑》由美国翻译家葛浩文完成，《檀香刑》是他变动最少的一部小说，很大程度上忠实了原文。本文旨在探讨葛浩文翻译的《檀香刑》中的异化与归化翻译技巧，给中国译者翻译作品以启示。经过对异化和归化战略的赏析，《檀香刑》小说的回看，葛浩文和该译本的相干内容的论述以及葛浩文的翻译思维，探索译者如何微妙地将其翻译思想融合在《檀香刑》的翻译之中。异化和归化相结合，使得译作惟妙惟肖，栩栩如生。

关键词：葛浩文，《檀香刑》，归化，异化

1. Introduction

Since the translation activities come up, whenever in domestic or abroad, many scholars have put forward diverse strategies, but in general, nothing more important than foreignization and domestication. The so-called domestication refers to the translation of target language culture, that is, the use of acceptable expressions make the translation more easy to understand, more suitable for target readers. The so-called foreignization is based on the source language culture and strives to reproduce the original text in order to better preserve the exotic. Domestication and foreignization strategies with their own advantages and proper applications contribute much to the achievement and improvement of language communication. Many of Goldblatt’s works have been highly recognized by Chinese and foreigners. Sandalwood Death is his second translation of Mo Yan's work after Mo got the Nobel Prize in literature. Excellent combination of domestication and foreignization makes his translation more mature, more approachable or more equivalent to the original.

2. Literature Review

In this chapter, a review of relevant literature will give us a clue to this thesis. Firstly, a brief analysis is given on Mo Yan and his writing style of the rewarded novel-Sandalwood Death. Then, Goldblatt and his view on translation is briefed. After getting the main idea of translator’s translation principle, the comparison is important.

2.1 Mo Yan and Sandalwood Death

Mo Yan plays a decisive role in contemporary literary for the first one who have awarded the Nobel Prize in literature as a Chinese novelist. It reaches the highest peak of Mo Yan's literary creation and perfect work. The unique style has since become a world-wide concern, and the folk and bloody language is fascinating. Sandalwood Death is painstakingly created by Mo, and from form to value orientation, it means to retreat out of folk arts. What’s more, the bold imagination, smooth words, and the conversions between folk arts and western modern novels is worthy of praise.

2.2 Howard Goldblatt and His View on Translation

Goldblatt, an American Sinologist, and translator of Chinese literature, has challenged the translation of Sandalwood Death from Chinese into English, and has gained world-wide cheerfulness in the translation field. The translation of Goldblatt maximally conveys the intention of the original author and the cultural connotation of the source language to the target language readers. According to Susan Bassnett's [1]view of cultural translation, foreignization is an effective strategy that conveys the cultural characteristics of the source language, which is fully proved in the English translation of Goldblatt's Sandalwood Death. Therefore, the translation of Chinese literature into English should be preferred to use foreignizing strategies. This is consistent with the cultural translation of Susan Bassnett, which means that the concept of cultural translation is, to some extent, universally applicable to literary translation. Goldblatt’s translation also reveals that domestication is an indispensable translation strategy when dealing with cultural factors. It can reveal the implicit information of the source language, so that the target readers get the same response to the source language readers, through which to bridge the source and the target between the cultural function of equivalence. Thus, the translator need not only master the source language and target language, but also fully understand the two given cultures, which is the key to successful translation. There is no doubt that Goldblatt is an expert in both.

3. Domestication and Foreignization Theories

In translation field, the use of foeignization and domestication has always been a hot topic. Some scholars discuss it by comparing these two translation strategies’ advantages and disadvantages; some of them give research on it by comparing literal translation and free translation between foerginzation and domestication.

3.1 Definition of Domestication and Foreignization in Translation

The definition of “Domestication” and “Foreignization” appeared in the 1970’s, while the translation study has been liberated to a culture turn. Scholars began to realize that bilingual translation must go beyond two languages themselves and across biculturalism.

The “Domestication” and “Foreignization” translation theory originates from a Germany linguist and translation theorist Mr. Schleiermacher, who mentioned in his paper in 1813 about two ways of translation that the translator can leave the writer peaceful possiblely and bring the reader to him, or he can leave the readers peacefulpossiblely and bring the writer to him. ‘Bring the readers to the original text’ would correspond to requiring him to process the translation in context of the original; ‘the translator’ thus tries to transport ‘the reader’ to its location, which, in all reality, is foreign to him. (Shuttleworth amp; Cowie, 2004: 43-44)[2]. Based on Schleiermacher’s findings, the American scholar Lawrence Venuti was the first one to define domesticating translation and foreignizing translation (Venuti, 2004:101)[3].

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