Abstract

From the perspective of history, literature and translatology, this article discusses in depth the translation of Bosson and holds that: (1) his selection of source language text (SLT) should be timely—his adaptation to the social and historical context of the United States and the theme of the era; (2) his interpretation of SLT is much accurate since Bosson has devoted all his life to Tibetan and Mongolian studies; however, there still exists some under-translation—the translation carries less information than the original, Bosson fails to reproduce the deep meanings of SLT related to Tibetan culture; (3) his literal translation or foreignization, making the version featured by a purely linguistic translation method, in order to help the intended readers to insight into the laws how to render the Mongolian, or Tibetan into English; and (4) his expression in the version tends to be colloquial, and be rich in foreignized expressions. All these reflect the subjectivity from Bosson, as a linguistic translator, non-literary translator. Furthermore, Bosson’s subjectivity is not only an adaptation to the social and historical context, the theme of the era, but also a limited transcendence of these constraints.

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