An Examination of Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang’s Translation Behavior in Their Rendering of the Peking Opera The White SnakeAn Institutional Translation Perspective

In the 1950s, Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang were commissioned by the Foreign Languages Press to translate The White Snake, a Peking Opera play. Their translation practice thus bears the hallmarks of institutionalized translation. This study investigates how institutionalized translation shaped their behavior, and finds that under the combined influence of institutionalized poetics, ideology, and patronage, their translation behavior manifested in three ways: the selection of works with revolutionary narrative, the faithful reproduction of character images, and the domesticating translation of religiously and culturally loaded terms. Notably, while faithful reproduction is generally characteristic of the Yangs’ translation practice, the faithful rendering of character images in The White Snake proves to be distinctly institution-driven rather than a reflection of their habitual approach. This study thus reminds us that identical translation behavior exhibited by a translator across different periods may stem from different underlying factors, and should not be attributed simply to habitual practice.