During the development of ideology, in 1958, the French literary sociologist Robert Escarpit initially put forward the idea of “creative treason” in his book The Sociology of Literature. He argued that “Translation is always a sort of creative treason. Translation is treason in placing the original in a totally unpredictable reference frame(i.e. another language), and translation is creative in endowing the original with a brand-new visage, enabling it to enjoy a brand-new interchange with a wider range of readers; in not only prolonging the original’s life, but also giving it a second life”. Professor Xie Tianzhen, who introduced creative treason to China in 1992, is believed as the first scholar to study this phenomenon in literary translation.
Since the notion of “creative treason” was introduced into the mainland China, it has sparked vigorous debate in scholastic and intellectual circles, combining positive responses, misunderstandings and even criticism. Some scholars misunderstand “creative treason” as a method of translation, so the focus of their discussion is what kind of creative treason is good and what kind of creative treason is not.
Countering this response, Professor Xie Tianzhen has made his own comments that “creative treason” is not a method used to guide the translation process.(Xie, 2012:34) In fact, it is just a translation terminology deeply uncovering the innate character of translation activity. A translator, especially a responsible translator, aims at ensuring the complete fidelity of the original text and the total reproduction of the original information in his translation from his perspective. But, in fact, this goal can never be achieved. There inevitably exists imparity between the original text and the translated text, which eventually results in the appearance of creative treason in translation. Different from early translation theories, which pressing the limitation upon the translators under the guidance of the principle of faithfulness, creative treason admits the subjective initiative of translators. In conclusion, putting forward creative treason deals with the unavoidable objective phenomenon in translation. According to Professor Xie Tianzhen, “creativity” in literary translation demonstrates subjective endeavors of the translator to approach and reproduce the source text through artistic creativity, and “treason” reflects the objective betrayal of source text in the process of achieving his or her subjective purposes, while practically, “creative” and “treason” cannot be separated in literary translation since they are a harmonious whole .
2.2 Introduction of Omission Out of the Creative Treason
Although omission has become a frequently used translation strategy now, it was regarded as a betrayal to the original text and writer originally. Along with the development of translation theory, increasing emphasis is attached to the translator; hence, there is less and less criticism on omission.
In the early stage, omission means a kind of translation error where the translator fails to render a necessary element of information from the source text in the target text. 论创造性叛逆中的省译以葛浩文的《生死疲劳》和《狼图腾》译本为例 (3):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_28995.html