Interpersonal Affordances in Literary Translation: A Case Study of Nicky Harman’s Translation of Jia Pingwa’s Novel Happy Dreams

A translator’s network with the author and editor can provide valuable affordances in the process of translation. This paper examines how the translator utilizes interpersonal affordances through collaboration with the writer and the editor in the case of the translation of Jia Pingwa’s 賈平凹 novel Happy Dreams 高興 by Nicky Harman, a renowned British translator of contemporary Chinese literature. Jia Pingwa is one of the most prominent contemporary Chinese writers, and his novel Happy Dreams depicts the lives of migrant workers in Xi’an with extensive use of Shaanxi dialect expressions. These expressions pose a great challenge for translation, as they are often obscure or unfamiliar even to some native Chinese speakers. This paper explores how Nicky Harman collaborated with Jia Pingwa during the translation process and how she resolved the linguistic and cultural difficulties presented by the dialect. The paper also investigates the choice of using American English in the translation, despite Nicky Harman being a British translator, and how she collaborated with the editor to adapt the translation from British to American English. Through detailed analysis of first-hand research materials, including interviews and correspondence, this paper demonstrates the important role that interpersonal affordances play in the process of literary translation.