《妻妾成群》英译本对女性人物形象的改写与影响

Rewriting of the Female Images in the English Translation Version of Raise the Red Lantern and Its Influence

1993年,苏童的中篇小说《妻妾成群》被加拿大汉学家杜迈可译介到西方,题为Raise the Red Lantern。该译本基本上还原了原小说的故事内容,译出了小说的主要情节,但是女性人物形象却发生了一些改变。通过深入解读中英文本,并对小说中女性人物形象进行对比分析,可发现英译本至少在女性人物的人名、对话语言和动作等方面进行了改写,导致原小说所建构的女性人物形象发生改变,一定程度上淡化了女性人物的性格设定特征,进而削弱了女性形象的艺术呈现效果。

In 1993,Su Tong′s novella The Wives and Concubines was translated and introduced to the West by the Canadian sinologist Michael S.Duke,entitled Raise the Red Lantern,which basically restored the original story and translated the main plot of the novel.But some changes were made to the female images in the translation.Through an in-depth reading of the English and Chinese versions and a comparative analysis of the female images in the novel,it can be found that the English translation has rewritten in at least three aspects of the female characters′names,dialogue language and actions,resulting in changes to the female images constructed in the original novel.The translated version to a certain extent diluted the characterization of the female characters,thus weakening the artistic presentation of the female images.