On Howard Goldblatt’s Translation of

Mo Yan’s Red Sorghum

From A Historical View on Translation

By

Liu Ying

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of Bachelor of Arts

Department of English

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

June, 2017

Acknowledgments

Here I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to all those who have ever supported me in the process of writing this thesis.

My most sincere thanks go first to my supervisor, Professor Zhao Yamin, for her patient guidance and insightful academic suggestions. From the topic selection, the writing, the revision to the final completion of the thesis, my supervisor has always helped me with painstaking effort. Besides, I also want to thank all the teachers who have ever taught me before for their intellectual guidance.

Secondly, I would like to thank all the friends who have helped me a lot in the process of completing the thesis. Supported by them, I have a more positive attitude towards the every difficulty that I met during this process.

Last but not least, I want to thank my family for so many years, I wouldn’t have been able to complete my studies without their support and encouragement. And it was their concern both in material and spiritual that let me have the courage to move on in the future.

Contents

1. Introduction 2

1.1 Introduction to Mo Yan…… 2

1.2 Introduction to Red Sorghum 2

1.3 Early researches on Howard Goldblatt’s translation 3

2. Theoretical framework 4

2.1 Definition of historical view on translation 4

2.2 Characteristics of historical view on translation 5

3. Text analysis of Red Sorghum and the translation strategy 6

4. Analysis of Howard Goldblatt’s translation from the perspective of historical view on translation 9

4.1 The change of translation strategies in Modern China 9

4.2 The rationality of Howard Goldblatt’s translation 11

5．The significances for the exporting mode of Chinese literature 12

5.1 The status quo of Chinese literature translation 12

5.2 The necessity of Chinese literature going out 13

5.3 The significance of Chinese literature going out 14

5.3.1 Strategies of Chinese literature going out 14

5.3.2 Talent training of translation 15

6. Conclusion 15

References 16

On Howard Goldblatt’s Translation of

Mo Yan’s Red Sorghum

From A Historical View on Translation

Liu Ying

Department of English

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

Abstract： Mo Yan became the first Chinese writer to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 2012. Howard Goldblatt, the famous American sinologist and the English translator of his works, had made great contributions to the spreading of Mo Yan’s works in English speaking countries. Howard Goldblatt advocates that the "faithfulness" of translation does not lie in the language level, but in the sense of meaning to serve the readers. But Howard Goldblatt's translation strategies have drawn mixed reviews. This thesis mainly focuses on Howard Goldblatt’s translation strategies and translation thoughts of the novel Red Sorghum. Based on the historical view on translation proposed by Anna Lilova, this paper dialectically analyzes the reasons why this English version succeeds, which will provide some inspirations for the exporting mode of Chinese literature and the direction for personnel training.

Key words： Howard Goldblatt; Mo Yan; Red Sorghum; historical view on translation; Chinese literature going out

摘要： 2012年莫言作为中国作家首次获得诺贝尔文学奖。其作品的英文译者，美国著名汉学家葛浩文为其作品在英语国家的推广做出了不可磨灭的贡献。葛浩文主张翻译的“忠实性”不在于语言层面，而在于意义层面，要为读者而译。但针对葛浩文的翻译策略，国内外学者的评价褒贬不一。本文主要以莫言的小说《红高粱家族》为例，着重分析葛浩文的主要翻译策略与翻译思想，以安娜·利洛娃的翻译历史观为理论基础，从宏观视角解析葛浩文成功的原因，探讨其翻译策略为中国文学走出去战略及我国翻译人才培养的借鉴意义。

关键字：葛浩文；莫言；《红高粱家族》；翻译历史观；中国文学输出

Introduction

• 1. Introduction to Mo Yan

Mo Yan, born in 1955, the famous contemporary writer in China, has attracted much attention since the 1980s because of his series of native soil novels. His works full of “nostalgia” and “resentment” are deeply influenced by the magic realism, describing those legendary stories happening in Gaomi Township in Shandong Province, such as Red Sorghum, Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, The Republic of Wine. And thus, Mo Yan was classified as “root-seeking literature” writer. From the perspective of history and society, Mo Yan created a reminiscent of the combination of reality and fantasy in his works. His magic realism combines folk tales, history and contemporary society. Mo Yan's literary works, with bold and perverse description, shape the original life and strike emotional chord with people. There exists not only doubting and rebellion on the existing traditional values, but also a profound analysis on the feudal ethics and human nature (Zhang, 2014: 5).

Moreover, his novels are translated into English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Hebrew, Spanish, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese and other languages.

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