A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Versions of On the Road based on Retranslation

Translation practice is closely related to language development and social advances. The change in all aspects of society will promote translation activity. In addition, some translation texts need to be renewed especially in literary translation, due to social progress, and readers’ demands. Therefore, many scholars around the world turn to retranslation and its hypothesis and give their definitions or express their views. The book, On the Road, written by Jack Kerouac and published in 1957, is one of the representative works of America in the 1950s, primarily reflecting the condition of the Beat Generation. After its publication, three Chinese versions of the early period in China emerged and the translators are: Chu’an Wen (Wen’s version, 1998), Yongnian Wang (Wang’s version, 2006), and Yueqing Tao and Xiaoli He (1990 version). In 2020, the works of Jack Kerouac entered into the public domain. Therefore, a couple of translation versions emerged, such as Xianghui Yao’s version, Ang Wu’s version and Wei Yang’s version. This paper analyzes the four Chinese versions (respectively Tao and He’s version, Yao’s and Wu’s and Yang’s versions) from different dimensions in order to examine certain scholars’ opinions on the phenomenon of retranslation.