A Study On The Norms Of The Chinese Novels In English Translation(2000-2019)

Literary translation has exerted a significant influence on the history of the literary and cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries.The peaks of translating foreign literary works during the late Qing Dynasty,the May Fourth Period and the New Period have accelerated the modernization progress of Chinese literature and culture since the modern history of China.Nevertheless,the number of the translated Chinese literary works and their influence abroad is smaller than that of the translated foreign literary works and their influence on Chinese literature.The 20^thcentury witnessed the sharpest contrast between them.In the second half of the 20^thcentury,the translation of Chinese literature was mainly dominated by the Chinese government,such as Chinese literature and Panda Books Series,which were reduced to termination owing to their poor sales at the beginning of the 21^st century.Chinese culture going-out has become a national strategy since the 21^st century and the Chinese government has resolved to promote the translation of Chinese literature into foreign countries in a market-oriented way,mainly subsidizing the translations of Chinese literary works published by foreign presses.Meanwhile,with the expanding of China’s economic strength and global influence,foreign publishers,especially commercial publishers,have promoted the publication of Chinese literary works translated into English and they,replacing Chinese publishers,have become the leading ones.The existing research on the history of Chinese fiction translated into English has focused on the 20^th century,the translation and communication model as well as its dissemination and influence abroad.In terms of translation strategies,it’s popular to conduct a case study on the representative translators and translations,and yet some of their conclusions are often contradictory.There is no systematic and comprehensive research on the translational behavior of the English-translated Chinese fiction in the 21^st century.Based on Gideon Toury’s norm theory,a systematic study is carried out on the translational norms of the Chinese novels in English translation published between 2000 and 2019,with the purpose of probing whether the English translations of Chinese novels during this period are acceptable,adhering to the English norms,or adequate,embodying the Chinese norms.Theoretically,it will further improve Toury’s norm theory and verify Itamar Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory as well as AndréLefevere’s rewriting theory.Practically,the study will have great significance for“what to translate”,“how to translate”and“who translates”in the translation of Chinese literary works.Based on the 156 Chinese novels in English translation published by foreign presses between 2000 and 2019,three kinds of norms are analyzed in this study,including preliminary norms,operational norms and initial norms.Preliminary norms mainly focus on the factors governing the selection of source texts.Foreign university presses’selection depends on translators’literary interest,research field and foundations’orientation.Poetics is the primary factor constraining their selection and translators as well as the editorial board entrusted by foundations play a major role in it.Foreign commercial publishers’selection consists in the English reader market,and the universal nature,the storytelling nature as well as the market value of genre fiction are the salient features of their selection.Economic factors become the dominant element governing their selection.Editors and copyright agents have a great effect on their selection.Operational norms are composed of matricial norms and textual-linguistic norms.Matricial norms govern the existence of target-language material intended as a substitute for source-language material.According to the statistics of this study,55.13%of the translations add subtitles so as to cater to English book titles’preference,and30.13%of them change the original titles in order to arouse English readers’interest,weaken their Chinese cultural peculiarities and strengthen their intertextual relationship with English book titles.The translation of titles is mainly constrained by economic factors,poetics as well as cultural factors,and editors play a vital part in changing titles.20.27%of the English translations delete or reorder the original chapters or sections and the constraining factors are economic factors,poetics,linguistic and cultural factors as well as composing defects of original works.Editors,authors and translators all are involved in the revising process.The translations with prefaces or postscripts make up 58.78%of the total,and the translations with footnotes or endnotes make up 30.41%of the total.The percentage of using prefaces,postscripts,footnotes and endnotes in university presses is much higher than that in commercial publishers.The use of them is ultimately constrained by economic factors.They are partly decided by editors to meet the needs of different types of readers,and partly decided by translators.Textual-linguistic norms govern the selection of material to formulate the target text at a micro level.At the linguistic level,it strives to be vivid,concise,fluent and elegant.The language of the translations comes close to that of the original English novels,inclining towards acceptability.At the narrative level,when the point of view of Chinese novels clashes with that of English novels,approximately half of them have changed their points of view in translated versions.As for the novels with the intradiegetic level and the extradiegetic level,the extradiegetic level in half of them has been italicized.In terms of character speech,direct speech in original works has switched to free indirect speech without the introductory reporting clause in translated versions and free indirect speech without quotation marks has been translated into direct speech.Free direct thought of original works has been shifted to direct thought,indirect thought,free indirect thought,or just italicized in translated versions.These revisions are made according to the narrative norms of English fiction.At the cultural level,character names in original works have been transliterated in order to meet the English readers’expectation of the exotic culture.The translation strategies of Lao（老）,Xiao（小）,A（阿）and Er（儿）in the name address are primarily liberal translation and omission,which,on the whole,shows an inclination towards the norm of acceptability.In terms of translating cultural images of allusions and idioms in Chinese novels,the translations,whose foreignizing percentage is above 50%,make up 22.92%,and the average foreignizing percentage is 35.13%,showing a tendency towards acceptability.The ideology of Chinese novels,which clashes with that of the anglophone world,has been modified in translated versions.Translational behaviour in the three levels is mainly constrained by poetics,ideology and economic factors.Both translators and editors exert a great influence on the construction of textual-linguistic norms.The initial norm,on the whole,is inclined to acceptability on the grounds of the conclusions drawn from preliminary norms and operational norms,verifying Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory that the translation turns out to be non-adequate when translated literature occupies a peripheral position in the target literary system.The native English translators and non-native English ones show a certain difference in terms of acceptability.The former are superior to the latter in fluency and elegance linguistically.In contrast to non-native English translators,native English translators are more inclined to maintain the Chinese cultural peculiarities of original works.The norms governing the translational behavior of the English translations of Chinese novels between 2000 and 2019,in order of importance,are economic factors,poetics,ideology,which makes a sharp contrast to the order of norms by Lefevere—ideology,poetics,and economic factors,based on his study on the occidental translation history before the 20^th century.The dominance of economic factors can be explained by Bourdieu’s theory.The growing interpenetration between art and money makes the dividing line between the field of limited production and the field of mass production disappear gradually and thus literature cannot maintain its autonomous position,increasingly depending upon economy.Different subjects of translation play different roles in the construction of translational norms,and in order of influence exerted by them,they are editors,authors,translators,and translation critics.The study shows that translation subjects can play an active role and yet their role is rather limited,when translated literature occupies a peripheral position in the target culture.The research findings have some implications for Chinese literature going-out.The selection of Chinese literature to translate can be made on the quality of works instead of the types and it’s advisable to put equal emphasis on serious literature and popular literature.The literary works with both the global and national nature can arouse English readers’resonance.In terms of translation strategies,it’s not common to delete or revise original works on a large scale and the revisions are made objectively.Acceptability is preferred at the poetical and cultural level.As for the translator model,the mainstream translators are native English speakers,and native English speakers collaborated with native Chinese speakers are the second choice.Overseas Chinese translators and indigenous translators in China are seldom selected.Grounded in Toury’s norm theory,the paper conducts an enquiry into the role that subjects of translation played during the construction of translational norms.Thus the study transcends the limitation of the opposition between objects and subjects in Toury’s norm theory.Besides,the paper is not confined in Toury’s linguistic and rhetorical-stylistic norms and injects Lefevere’s ideology,poetics and economic factors into the study of translational norms,increasing the perspectives of studying translational norms.Finally,paratext theory,narrative theory and cultural classification are employed in studying operative norms and a specific and feasible model of studying translational norms in fiction is established in this paper,making the study of translational norms more systematic and objective.