Rewriting in translation : the case of the China Edition of Lee Kuan Yew Memoir From Third World to First Singapore Story 1965-2000

• Main Author: Tan, Kelvin Thong Boon
• Other Authors: Cui Feng
• Format: Thesis-Master by Coursework
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Humanities::Language
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148815
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The second volume of Lee Kuan Yew’s memoirs titled From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965 - 2000 was first published in two languages, English and Chinese in 2000. After adapting the texts drawn from Singapore’s Chinese Edition, China published its version with certain modifications to address the cultural, political and ideological dissimilarities between the two countries. For China’s readers, even though Lee Kuan Yew does not share a common ideology, the book could provide a first-hand account of the success story of the highly respected politician. The unique case study of the Chinese-to-Chinese textual comparisons aims to investigate the ideology underpinning the China Edition and discuss the Chinese-to-Chinese modification strategies adopted for its publication. Through the comparison of the two Chinese translated Editions of From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965 - 2000, this paper discusses the poetics, patronage as well as the ideological differences, which suggest the reasons for the rewriting in the China Edition with a different readership. Towards the China’s readership, the China Edition serves to address the cultural norms of the target market, and the political ideologies of the Communist Party-led government. To balance between faithfulness to the source texts and in pursuing its political needs, various text reduction strategies were also identified in the process of modification and trans-editing from the Singapore Chinese Edition. Further research can be done on other editions of the same language for a comparison on the modification strategies employed.