论文总字数：32161字

摘 要

近几十年，互联网技术迅猛发展，中国网络文学也随之兴起并涌现了一批优秀的作者和文学作品。借助翻译，中国网络文学在全球范围里异军突起，吸引了人们的关注。其中，名为Wuxiaworld的一家专门翻译中国网络小说的英文网站受到了海外读者的热烈追捧。本论文以网站Wuxiaworld为例，从政治、经济、作品特点及传播等方面分析中国网络小说风靡海外的原因。但同时，文化差异、翻译的困难、版权问题、翻译网站的运营模式等诸多问题也制约着中国网络小说的进一步推广。我们相信，解决了这些问题，中国网络文学一定会发展的更好。

关键词：武侠世界；网络文学；文化传播;翻译网站

Contents

1. Introduction....................................................................................................1
2. The Present Situation of Chinese Internet Novel........................................1

2.1 Disseminated Countries...................................................................................2

2.2 Text Types........................................................................................................2

2.3 Dissemination Ways........................................................................................2

2.4 Target Readers.................................................................................................3

2.5 Profit Model.....................................................................................................3

3.Overview of Wuxiaworld.................................................................................3

3.1 Introduction.....................................................................................................3

3.2 Popularity.........................................................................................................4

3.3 Operation.........................................................................................................4

4.Reasons of the Popularity of Chinese Internet Novel....................................4

4.1 Economic Reasons...........................................................................................4

4.2 Policy Encouragements...................................................................................5

4.3 Contents Attraction..........................................................................................6

4.4 Translation Promotion.....................................................................................6

4.5 Platform Promotion.........................................................................................8

5.Problems of Chinese Internet Novel and Suggestions...................................9

5.1 Problems.........................................................................................................9

5.2 Suggestion for problems..............................................................................11

6.Future development of Chinese Internet Novel...........................................12

7.Conclusion.......................................................................................................13

Works Cited.......................................................................................................14

1.Introduction

With the deepening of globalization, China has focused not only on selling products which are cheap and cheerful, but also put forward the strategy of “going out” in many aspects, especially in terms of culture. For a long time, the spread of Chinese culture has been inextricably connected with translation. Literary translation is an important part in the “going out” strategy in which Chinese novel has made achievements in recent years, such as, Mo Yan winning the Nobel Prize in novel in 2012 and Liu Cixin winning Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015. When we face these honors, we can’t ignore the contributions of the translators. However, Chinese novel is not as popularized as American Hollywood culture and Japanese Anime culture because the lack of excellent translators that hinders the transmission of Chinese culture. Fortunately, the appearance of voluntary translation websites and groups has created a new opportunity for Chinese culture transmission. Recently, an unexpected popularity of a website named Wuxiaworld, which specializes in translating Chinese Internet novel has drawn people’s attention.

2.The present situation of Chinese Internet Novels

2.1 Disseminated Countries

The dissemination of Chinese Internet novels began in Asia, and gradually moved to the Europe and the USA. Chinese Internet novels are famous in Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia. In 2012, Korean Paran Media published Treading on Thin Ice, Yunge from the Desert, which were selling well in Korea. From 2009 to 2013, Vietnam published 841 books of our Internet books, and nearly 100 Internet writers’ works have been translated and published. Since 2011, Thailand and Singapore have also cooperated with Chinese literary websites.

2.2 Text types

For a long time, foreigners are very interested in Chinese marital arts. When it comes to China, they may think of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Chinese Kongfu. Long time ago, they may read marital novels of Louis Cha. As the special genre in Chinese traditional novels, there exists many problem of the dissemination in English-speaking countries because the quantity and translation quality are limited. (Ji 112-120) But these have been improved a lot, the types are not just limited in some traditional martial novels. Nowadays, marital novels, fantasy novels, historical, romantic novels are the most popular disseminated types of Internet novel, from the Coiling Dragon to Treading on Thin Ice.

2.3 Dissemination ways

Chinese Internet novel is disseminated in the form of websites, digital publications, and books among which websites are the most basic and the easiest way for foreign readers to read Chinese Internet novels. At present, there are about 100 websites translating Chinese internet novel, such as Wuxiaworld , Novelupdates , Startingpoint China net, the number of people who visits Wuxiaworld is the largest, so it became the most popular Chinese Internet novels website among foreign readers. Startingpoint China net is already the premier online reading website in China, it also launched its international department in 2017. In addition to PC side, readers can also download it on their phones.

2.4 Target readers

Among all the foreign readers of Chinese Internet novel, male readers account for 90%. And the readers tend to be younger, the proportion of student groups is 52.9%. From the perspective of academic qualifications, 51.4% of the readers are undergraduate and above, and 48.6% are undergraduates and below, so we can see it is not relatively connected with their academic degree. In terms of geographic distribution, the region with the highest percentage of users is in Europe with 29.8% , North America is the second which accounts for 27.7%. The top five readership countries are the United States (20.9%), Brazil (7.4%), India (6.7%), Canada (5.5%) and Indonesia (5.4%).

2.5 Profit model

In terms of business model, the profit model of Chinese Internet novel is still not mature, translating platforms needs to explore better business models. From now on, advertisements, rewards and Patreon are the main sources of the profit. Most websites provide translated versions for free, but with some advertisements on the websites, so it differs from paid-for-charpters on domestic websites. What’s more, readers can also give rewards or Patreon to encourage translators’ enthusiasm. Some translators will add some sponsored chapters when the donations reach the required numbers, such as the total amount reaches 60 dollars, they will add a new chapter.

3.Overview of Wuxiaworld

3.1 Introduction to the Wuxiaworld

Among all these translation websites, Wuxiaworld is the most popular.Wuxiaworld.com, owned by Wuxiaworld Limited, was founded by RWX at the end of 2014. RWX is a passionate fan of Wuxia novels. In his words, he said “we are a growing group of translators who bring popular Chinese fiction to the English speaking world.” In addition to RWX, there are many other Wuxiaworld’s translators who began to translated Wuxia classics of novels by Gulong, and then moved on more modern Xianxia, Qihuan novels. Most of translated novels in Wuxiaworld are Chinese Internet novels, and almost all of them are Wuxia or Xuanhuan, such as Coiling Dragon(盘龙), I shall Seal the Heaven(我欲封天), Martial God Asura(修罗武神), etc.

3.2 Popularity of Wuxiaworld

In March,2006, the number of the page visits on Wuxiaworld has exceeded 500 million, and average daily visits reached 2.64 million. It quickly emerged as the world’s largest platform for Chinese-to-English novel translation. With millions of views of the website every day, it ranked 932 in the Alexa ranking in the United States. At the same time, Lego.com ranked 876 in the United States, and the mainstream financial newspaper(FT.COM）ranked 1749 in the United States. From these comparsion, we can say that Wuxiaworld has become a brand name in Chinese-to-English novel translation excellence.

3.3 Operation modes of Wuxiaworld

The founder of Wuxiaworld, RWX, he said that the present operation of Wuxiaworld is quite simple, he would hire some translators who he regarded as the best to translate novels, most of the translators are Chinese. The translators who apply for joining Wuxiaworld should have many years of translation experience or have already updated more than 50 chapters on other platforms. Now, the proportion of contracted full time translators has accounted for half of all the translators in Wuxiaworld. The translators are required to update 7-10 chapters each week.

They have 20-30 novels to translate, and they will set up independent teams for each translation. Some teams may only have one translator, others may have 7 or 8 translators and editors. The selection of novels is currently set by the translators team, some translators will specifically seek translations of works which are not famous.

4.Reasons of the Popularity of Chinese Internet novel in Foreign Countries

4.1 Economic reason

With the development of China’s economy, China’s international status has been increasing, more and more countries have trade relationships with China. (Wang 22) In order to cooperate well with China, they began to know more about Chinese culture.

4.2 Political reason

After 18^th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the government has put forward the policy of developing the Internet novel, the local government departments should give support to the Internet writers and establish organization of the Internet literary writers, what’s more, they should pay attention to manage the ecological environment of Internet novel. In the International market, the government also mentioned the going out strategy of Chinese culture, which aimed to support its development in foreign countries.(Wang 22)

4.3 Content attraction

The pursuit of reading pleasure is the basis for the cross-cultural communication of online culture. Pleasure reading is one of the most important features of current Internet novel. (Ji 22) It is based on the readers’ dissatisfaction with reality, readers read just for killing time. Although Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for novel, Chinese novel still has not entered into the daily life of foreign readers, because they didn’t give the reading pleasure for common readers. The popularity of Harry Potter, Twilight can perfectly prove that the readers prefer such light novels which can relax themselves. What’s more, the Chinese novels are welcomed by overseas people for its Xianxia, Qihuan novels. The background and structure of these novels are similar to the western traditional magical novel, but much wider in the creation of characters and stories, but add Chinese culture elements, which makes readers more interested in it. (Ji 22) So they can build closer relationship with readers, but at the meanwhile, they still retain the freshness and mystery. There are two main features in Internet novels that can attract foreign readers.

(1)Game-styled experience appeals to the readers’ pleasure reading pursuit.

The game-style experience is an important part in pleasure reading.Games are the best way for people to relax themselves, there are also many game-styled chapters in our Internet novel. For example, in Coiling Dragon, the main character Linley began to study magic, he got a coiling dragon ring by chance, this ring that has Holy Spirit of the Demon Mentor Dellin Kowort guides him to be stronger. In all kinds of scenes of constantly defeated rivals, it can obtain treasures, and eventually become the Master of the Universe. The protagonist"s experience in this book is not much different from the ordinary game of constantly playing with the upgraded win outfit. Only the network novel in a narrative language detailed description of the protagonist"s growth experience, this mixed with the game experience of the online novel is easy to capture the hearts of foreign readers.

(2)the personality of the protagonist.

A comment on Quote said that”I believe that the roles in Xianxia series are ambitious and tenacious to achieve their goals, which is stronger than any other types of series.” So compared with foreign novels, the Chinese Internet novels focus on the protagonist, and most of the chapters are centered on the growth of the protagonist. The readers can gain a sense of substitution as if they were the protagonist, and they will have a sense of expectation for the protagonist, and expect the protagonist to grow as their own willing. The most importantly, the protagonists are not indecisive, not as the saying goes”worry before the people fear something will happen, and be happy after the people are happy”, they are not goody goody, they are more likely to be strong who can fight with others. A foreign reader in Wuxiaworld also commented that”The protagonist in Wuxia novels are fighting for what they want with great ambition, so it is much attractive than those protagonist in Korean or Japanese novels.” So we can know that the personality of the protagonist is attracted by the foreign readers.

4.4 Translation Promotion

Compared with translation of traditional Chinese novels, the Internet novels are much easier to translate, the translators and even the writers can interact with the readers. Besides, when the writers finish one chapter, they update it on the website, so the readers can read at any time.

(1) Easy to translate

Compared with traditional Chinese novel, the translation of Internet novel is much easier. (Zhang 1) As to RWX, he translated novels of Louis Cha and GuLong at first, and then turned into Internet literary works, he found that he started from the most difficult ones. For example, the tradition or words in Louis Cha were cited from classics and ancient works, which made him confused. When translated“有常无常，双树枯荣；南北西东，非假非空”，he thought it for two or three hours. He also mentioned that translating some traditional novels like that may need a long time, but he could translate at least three chapters of Internet novel in a day as possible.

(2)Easy to Communicate

In traditional translation, the translator translates the original novels to the readers through his own understanding, and there exists no interact with the readers. While Internet translation provides people the opportunities of mutual understanding and communication.(Wang 21-27) In Wuxiaworld, the translators may also communicate with other translation teams and learn from each other. Generally speaking, the comments under each chapter are also a kind of way to communicate with readers. If readers also have doubts about their translation or want to give some suggestions, readers can find the e-mail address on the website and contact with the translators.

(3) Instant to Read

剩余内容已隐藏，请支付后下载全文，论文总字数：32161字