6. Conclusion 12

7. Limitations 13

References 14

1. Introduction

1.1 The Rationale and the Significance of the Proposal

Mo Yan is the winner of Nobel Prize in Literature of 2012, for which he has paid tribute to the translator, Howard Goldblatt. Goldblatt has translated many of Mo Yan’s works into English, such as Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, Red Sorghum and The Garlic Ballads, which have fascinated the Westerners into Mo Yan’s world of black humor that features the merging of folk tales, history and the contemporary with hallucinationary realism (Kjell Espmark, 2012). It, therefore, serves as a fresh proof of Goldblatt’s art of translating. 

However, a close examination of the above translated English novels will unveil the fact that some parts of the English version differ greatly from the original Chinese text. Over-translations and under-translations exist in quantities, which is a phenomenon rarely seen in the translation works done by Chinese translators. Compliments come for reasons, and these unrevealed reasons become the impetus of the research.

The theory of functional equivalence, developed by Eugene A. Nide, is one of the most widely applied translation theories in today’s world. It summarizes the language barriers ahead of translators when translating, their possible causes and correspondent strategies that are practicable. In the theory, he puts forward four assessing criteria for translators to achieve equivalence when translating: lexical equivalence, syntactical equivalence, semantic equivalence, and stylistic equivalence. The researcher, hence, regards this theory as research guidelines to answer the question: What is the root cause of the expressiveness of the over-translation and under-translation in The Garlic Ballads? This is how the researcher starts this research.

As the research is to find out how the over-translations and under-translations in The Garlic Ballads help to construct the translation’s expressiveness while maintaining the fidelity to the original text, it may contribute to the study of the functions of over-translations and under-translations in translating activities, and the rectification of the misunderstandings of the over-translational and under-translational strategies.

1. 2 Research Background

Works of Mo Yan are emerging as a new focus of research in the Chinese academia of translation recently, since the glory of Nobel Prize in Literature was conferred to the laureate and the translator of most of his works back only in 2012. However, the majority of these studies and researches are about three dimensions: firstly, the outlook of Howard Goldblatt on translation, including the related style and techniques of translation of Goldblatt, etc.; secondly, how Chinese literature goes global; thirdly, theoretical assessment and evaluation from different perspectives. 

For example, an analytical and systematic discussion has been developed about Howard Goldblatt’s outlook on translation in the research paper An Exploration into Howard Goldblatt’s Translation Thoughts (文军, 王小川, and 赖甜, 2007). A critical illustration has been made of Goldblatt’s viewpoint of translators (孟祥春, 2014). The translation ethics of Howard Goldblatt is discussed has also been discussed analyzed (Wang Wenqiang and Guo Shufa, 2014). There are studies and researches than the ones stated above that are about the American translator Howard Goldblatt’s viewpoint on translation. 

Except studies on the views of Howard Goldblatt on translation, there are, as mentioned above, a large number that focus on the issue of how Chinese literature and writers go global, the approaches of which are much enlightened by Mo Yan’s victory in Nobel Prize in Literature 2012. Liu Yunhong and Xu Jun discuss the prerequisites of literary translation models for the dissemination of Chinese literature based on the translations of Howard Goldblatt (2014). Based on the analysis of Howard Goldblatt’s selection of translator model and translating strategies, Hu Anjing points out that the selection of inappropriate translator model and translating strategies is the major problem preventing Chinese literature from going out (2010).