Three Chinese translations of Cranford: a study of variation in literary images

Abstract

From the 1920s, the publication of Gaskell’s Cranford has witnessed the transformation from politics-orientated to independence in China’s publishing history. There was a huge gap between the historical and cultural background of nineteenth-century Britain and that of China as it was put into translation. With the differences between westernized vernacular Chinese and modern Chinese, the three Cranford versions show the development of the modern Chinese language: Woo Kwang Kien’s Cranf in 1927, Zhu Manhua’s the Forbidden City for Women in 1937, and Xu Xin’s 1985 version published with the original name Cranford. When translators in different periods reconstruct its meaning, due to reasons such as personal cultural capital and the influence of the social environment in which each translator lived, the original text would inevitably be deleted, modified, or added what they think is necessary for readers to understand. Therefore, it is inevitable that the images in the translation works differ from Gaskell’s. Generally, Woo’s and Zhu’s translations are rich both in classical Chinese elegance and western style, embracing deep personal emotions, while Xu’s shows well-developed Chinese language quality. As far as the character images are concerned, Woo’s translation sees the greatest changes, Zhu’s comparatively less and Xu’s the least.