On Translators' Choice Of Translation Strategies

Domestication and foreignization are two key terms in translation research. In 1813, Schleiermacher proposed,"The translator leaves the author in peace, as much as possible, and moves the reader towards him or the translator leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author towards him"(Wilss, 1977: 33). On the basis of the above statement, in 1995 Venuti proposed"domesticating method"and"foreignizing method"in The Translator's Invisibility which were later called as"domestication"and"foreignization". From different perspectives, scholars in translation field did much on the two translation strategies and reached different conclusions.In this thesis, owing to their various addresses, definitions of domestication and foreignization are firstly given a detailed analysis so as to clarify their connotation and address. Then, from macro perspective their relation to free translation and literal translation is analyzed to indicate the differences and connections between them. Secondly, referring to the Source Text of Wuthering Heights, this paper compares and analyzes the transmission of culture-loaded terms, cultural phenomena, transformation of the sentence structure and discourse organization in Liang Shiqiu's and Yang Yi's versions to explore the two translators'tendency in choosing translation strategies. We find that although they tend to be different in choosing translation strategies, there exist three occasions, which are the application of domestication, the application of foreignization, and the integration of domestication and foreignization. Seen from macro perspective, being a form of literature, translation literature has its special identity and peculiar function, which determine the co-existence of domestication and foreignization in translation practice. In another aspect, domestication and foreignization play a different role in different occasions, which also determines the co-existence of the two translation strategies. After the comparison, analysis of the two translators'applications of domestication and foreignization is carried on to clarify the relationship between them and finally the factors affecting the choice of translation strategies are discussed and analyzed.