Translator's Creative Treason In Literary Translation

Traditionally translation is regarded as a transformation between two languages. This notion puts focus on the source language text, requiring the target language text to be equal to it. However, in practice, the translator may purposefully alter the form and content of the original out of certain consideration.In the late 20th century, the translation studies took the 'cultural turn'. This new paradigm of translation studies has broken through the traditional paradigm which are highly prescriptive, empirical, confusingly vague. The new paradigm is an orientation towards the cultural rather than linguistic transfer, and towards the function of description and explanation of translated work. Due to this shift, the views on the nature of translation have been greatly changed. It has been widely realized that translation, being one form of rewriting and manipulation, is simultaneously a norm-governed activity and skopos-based action. Translating is not done in vacuum. It is always restrained by quite a few outside factors such as target cultural environment, translation purpose, etc. Therefore, literary translation is no longer understood as mere transference of words and expressions, but as a cultural activity within the whole socio-cultural context and a purposeful operation.This paper, based on translation norms put forward by Gideon Toury, Andre Lefevere's theory of rewriting and the skopos theory in 'German School' functionalist translation theory, and adopting a descriptive-explanatory research method, analyses the translator's creative treason in literary translation, which is defined in this paper as the translator's translation activity deviating from the original work deliberately in terms of form and content in order to serve a specific purpose and perform an intended function by means of addition, omission, reorganization and adaptation to the original work.On the basis of the above theoretical framework, this thesis then explores the manifestation of translator's creative treason in literary translation practice. The influence factors on translator's creative treason such as target cultural norms and purpose of translation are examined through numerous case studies, and the value together with...