Some critics growled on the mistakes Howard made in translation that caused by rewrite and cultural difference. They insist correspondence in meaning and expression, emphasizing translator’s responsibility in faithful representation. Li jianjun, a literate critic, expressed his doubt that Howard’s translation can’t fully show the “mistake in grammar, recklessness in rhetoric, fake in detail, fallacy in logic, eccentricity in taste”, which in his opinion, are traits distinctive to Mo yan and surely not ignorable.

A number of researchers have studied into the reasons why Howard adjusted the original text. MENG Xiangchun, in his paper A Study of the Translation by Howard Goldblatt as a Glocal Chimerican, regards Howard’s “editing as he translating” technique as a translation method, a practical way that works effectively and reacts efficiently to the need and like of global market. Researcher Jiang Xiaohua, complimented the discriminated use of this principle that keeps the eastern exoticism as well as a concise, explicit and “readable” literate work. Clearly, Howard doesn’t stick to one translating technique, instead tires to strike a balance between the faith and betrayal(周清文 姚琴 高月琴).

Liu hongyun and Xv jun, in their co-worked research Literary Translation Model and Translation of Chinese Literature— On Howard Goldblatt’s Translation, have a grave contemplation on this issue. They incited Professor Xie Tianzhen’s appeal of “changing the translating view” and specified it, which is, changing from the only belief in the word correspondence to full considerations on readers and their understandings, and marketing as well. Based on their analysis on the Chinese literature translation and its current situation, they believes at this specific time it is appropriate and wise to adjust the text in order to cater the readers that are not familiar with Chinese literature habitus.

1.2 Previous study on Culture-loaded Expression

1.2.1 The definition of CLE

Lots of translation analyses on Red Sorghum fall on fragments and chunks with some color of China’s countryside. However, only 40% of Chinese word can be reciprocated (Xu Yuanchong 2003:2), especially those represent the unique Chinese culture. Thus researchers brought in the notion “culture-loaded” expression (term, word etc.) Culture-loaded word is the word vacancy which means that as a carrier of culture, the source language has no counterpart in the target language (Bao Huinan 2004:10). He Xiangjin, a researcher working on the CLE translations of the novel, the Note-taking of graverobber, had concluded two major characteristics of CLEs in his literature review, namely cultural uniqueness, and difficulties to find equivalence. It is these characteristics that make CLE translation challenging and various.

1.2.2 The translation techniques of CLE

Huo Li-rong introduced several translation methods briefly: (1) Transliteration, constructing a new code that sounds similar to the source language; (2) Literal translation, translating mechanically and word by word; (3) Interpretation, explaining something that is not immediately obvious. (4) Analogy, choosing a target analogous to the original (5) Amplification, supplementing extra information to help readers understand. But her work is based on wide everyday corpora. Some researchers applied these translation methods to explain translation, under the category of different types of CLEs extracted from certain literature work. For example, Li Zhaoyan, when analyzing the translation of big Breasts and Wide Hips, arranged her paper under this format. Zhang Caiyan, categorized CLEs used in Red Sorghum into five types: ecological, material, religious, social, and linguistic. At large, the layouts and analyzing methods for researches on CLE translation are quite similar. But the explanation on specific translations varies among different researchers, and there is room for further discussion.