A Study On Two Versions Of Pride And Prejudice-from The Perspective Of Lefevere's Manipulation Theory

Pride and prejudice is one of the representative works by Jane Austen, a British novelist in the nineteenth century. This thesis intends to compare two Chinese versions of Pride and prejudice from the social-cultural angel under the guidance of manipulation theory, put forward by Lefevere.Lefevere is an authority in translation studies who states that translation activities should be studied in cultural system. He studies the influence of ideology, poetics as well as patronage on the translator's selection of the original text and translation strategies adopted. In his view, translation is a rewriting of an original text. Different translators live in different social-historical contexts, so they have different ideological and poetological constraints. Translators will invariably manipulate their translations to make them conform to the target ideology and dominant poetics so as to meet more readers'demands. Therefore, for translators in different times, there exist various differences in their diction.This thesis attempts to analyze two Chinese versions within the framework of manipulation and prove that different historical times, ideology, and dominant poetics will exert great influence on translators and strategies, which, in turn, will affect the translations. At the same time, the writer will analyze the versions from their diction, styles and culture. It consists of six parts. Chapter one gives a general introduction to this study, including the aim of this study, significance of the study, methodology adopted, and structural design. Chapter two is the literature review of Pride and Prejudice and its Chinese versions. Chapter three introduces the theoretical framework of this thesis. Chapter four analyzes the dominant ideology and poetics in the target culture respectively. Chapter five makes a comparative study of the two versions, including diction, collocation, Europeanized grammar and sentence structure aiming at finding out the specific influence of ideology and poetics on the translations of Pride and Prejudice by Wang Keyi and Sun Zhili. Chapter six is the conclusion of this thesis.In comparison, the writer reveals the applicability of manipulation theory plus its contribution to establishing translation studies, and proves the impact and guidance on the translation practice from manipulative factors. So, the writer concludes that all versions are acceptable so long as they can meet the demands of different times and express the translators'translation principles. When commenting on a translation, we shouldn't abruptly label it as good or bad, but take the translators'living times into consideration and put the translation product into a particular social-historical context, so as to make an objective judgment.