A Study of Howard Goldblatt's English Translation of Mo Yan's Novels: Ballads and Readers' Response

Mo Yan (Mo) was the Nobel Prize Winner for literature in 2012. The majority of his works have been translated by Howard Goldblatt (HG). HG’s translation has been considered successful, but at the same time there are many controversial issues because he made a lot of changes in his translation such as omission, addition and modification. These changes in translation resulted in the possibility that the meaning of Mo’s original words has not been fully conveyed and, as a result, that potentially there are differences in the reception of his works between native Chinese speakers (i.e. NCSs) and native English speakers (i.e. NESs). In addition, there may be different responses from NESs when reading HG’s version and a full translation. Therefore, should HG’s translation approach or a full translation approach be considered the more appropriate, and which version should be used as the primary reference in future literary translation from the perspective of readers? These are questions that are worth investigating.The theoretical basis for this study is centred upon Nida’s “Equivalence Theory” because equivalent effect and readers’ response have been emphasized as two important aspects in his theory. However, not much attention has been paid to an assessment of this theory in the area of literary translation based on readers’ response. It is therefore meaningful to assess equivalence and readers’ responses by using HG’s translation of Mo’s ballads.This research focuses on six of Mo’s ballads selected from his two novels Tiantang suantai zhige (The Garlic Ballads) and Shengsi pilao (Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out). HG’s translation (Version A, i.e.VA) is used plus an equally competent translator’s full translation of the ballads (Version B, i.e. VB). This research aims to assess whether there is any difference between NESs’ responses to HG’s translation and NCSs’ responses to Mo’s ballads and what the difference would be (if there is one). Responses from NESs when reading VA and VB are investigated, as is the question of how HG’s translation strategies affect NESs’ responses and what the consequences may be.In order to achieve the objectives, the researcher designed Questionnaire A in Chinese and English to collect reader-response data from 70 Chinese participants and 70 English participants. Questionnaire A contains an average of four questions for each of the six ballads in three aspects: meaning, musicality and the readers’ overall impressions. The researcher also designed Questionnaire B in order to collect data from the English participants by providing them with VA and VB. Questionnaire B contains four general questions and an average of 10 specific questions for each of the six ballads in several aspects such as the readers’ preferences of VA or VB, reasons for their preferences, linguistic content, accuracy, musicality and readability. The researcher conducted a pilot study to test the feasibility of these two questionnaires. Finally, the researcher conducted interviews with ten of the 70 English participants.The researcher hypothesized that due to HG’s strategies, NESs’ responses to HG’s translation (i.e. VA) of Mo’s ballads are different from NCSs’ responses to the ballads, and that NESs’ responses to VA and VB are also different.From Questionnaire A, it has been found that in terms of meaning, musicality and the readers’ overall impression of Mo’s six ballads and HG’s translation, there are both differences and similarities between NESs and NCSs’ responses[1].Specifically, regarding meaning, for Ballads 1, 3 and 6, there is a vast difference between most NCSs’ and NESs’ responses. For Ballads 2 and 5, there is a high degree of similarity in the responses from most NCSs and NESs. For Ballad 4, there is a relatively high level of similarity in the readers’ responses, though not as high as the degree of similarity about Ballads 2 and 5. In light of musicality, for Ballads 1, 3, 4 and 6, there is a distinct difference between NCSs’ and NESs’ responses. Regarding Ballad 2, there is a high degree of similarity in the responses from most NESs and NCSs. For Ballad 5, there is a marginal difference between NCSs’ and NESs’ responses.In view of the readers’ overall impressions, the readers’ responses were distributed differently. There is only a limited degree of difference in the readers’ responses.It has also been uncovered that HG has used the five translation strategies, i.e. retaining the main linguistic content, omission, addition, modification and free writing to handle the challenges from Mo’s ballads. These strategies have impacted the readers’ responses to a greater or lesser extent. The more the original content was maintained in translation, the higher the degree of equivalence in readers’ responses could be.Findings from Questionnaire B indicate that most NESs preferred VB of Ballads 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 except Ballad 5, because they viewed completeness, faithfulness and naturalness as the top three reasons for their preference. The reason why VB of Ballad 5 was considered less preferable is because it has retained the main linguistic content of the original to a greater extent than VA and thus achieved accuracy at the cost of musicality. A deeper analysis reveals that most NESs would like to have the true content of the original translated. Findings from the interviews also support this outcome.The theoretical implications of this study contain three aspects. Firstly, there is a possibility of achieving a varying degree of equivalent effect in ballad translation (mostly depending upon the translator’s translation strategies) from the perspective of NCSs and NESs in the aspects of meaning, musicality and the readers’ overall impressions. Secondly, translators’ translation strategies can lead to different degrees of equivalent effects between readers’ responses. As such, it is necessary to choose appropriate strategies in order to achieve a high degree of equivalent effect. Thirdly, from the perspective of NESs, strategies such as addition, omission and modification can be used to achieve equivalence in readers’ responses. They can serve as supplementary strategies in translating Chinese ballads on the condition that they do not make significant changes to the original content. Retaining the linguistic content of the original is more preferable than modification, addition and omission. Free writing should be avoided.The significance of this study is three-fold: a) this study has identified a translator’s translation strategies as the main factors influencing the achievement of equivalent effect, and proved that Nida’s equivalent effect is achievable in varying degrees; b) most NESs prefer to read a full translation that reads naturally over a translation that involves significant changes: this finding in particular might help literary translators reconsider or reassess their options from the translation strategies available, in accordance with NESs’ perspectives and expectations; and c) findings in this study have value in helping translators reflect on their translation strategies, and provide an evidence-based foundation for choosing appropriate strategies when translating other Chinese ballads.[1] Please note for reasons of the length of the thesis, only Ballad 1 is included in Chapter 4 regarding the analysis of readers’ responses to Questionnaire A; the equivalent analysis of the remaining five Ballads, 2 to 6, are available from the researcher on request. ​​​​​​​