Study On The Chinese Translation Of Harry Potter In Light Of Translation-oriented Text Analysis

In the past couple of years, Harry Potter—J.K. Rowling's series about a young wizard and his years at Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, has swept the world with astonishing popularity. In China, Harry Potter also achieves great success. If the English-speaking readers are attracted by the fantastic plot, the vivid characters and the plain language of the original, then Chinese readers enjoy its plot, characters and language through the wonderful Chinese translation of the book.Because of the popularity of Harry Potter throughout the world, people have begun to do some research work on this novel; but compared with its commercial success, this series of Harry Potter still lacks systematic researches in the academic area. Though some work has been done on its literary significance of its original, little research work has been done on its Chinese version.The most outstanding characteristic of Harry Potter is its simple language, but beneath the simple language, there are complex characters and countless cultural and social elements, which set difficulties for the translation. The Chinese translators of Harry Potter have paid attention to the unity of text and structures; emphasized the transferring of information of language itself and the conveyance of information out of language. Their wonderful work has brought a good Chinese translation of Harry Potter and achieved the enthusiastic welcome among the Chinese readers.Translation-oriented text analysis is a hot topic in present translation research field. It regards the text as the basic unit of translation and studies elements both inside and outside language of the text. In the case of English-Chinese translation, the method, proposed by western researchers, is mostly adopted in the researches of the English original but rarely in the study of the Chinese translation, though translation-oriented text analysis is used to analyze the translation process of literary works. In this thesis, the author intends to analyze the Chinese translation of Harry Potter in light of translation-oriented text analysis. This thesis is divided into six parts.In Chapter I, the author first discusses the popularity of Harry Potter series throughout the world, then points out the necessity of studying the Chinese translation of Harry Potter in the academic field, as well as introduces the research method adopted in this thesis.In Chapter II, the author first states the background, significance of the original Harry Potter with the introduction of its writer, Chinese translators and the main story of the book, and then gives a literature review to the Chinese translation of Harry Potter.In Chapter III, the author mainly focuses on the method adopted in the thesis—translation-oriented text analysis, from the origin of text analysis to the specific approach used in this thesis. In the Chinese translation of Harry Potter, the translators pay attention to the elements both inside and outside the text. Their translation reflects the requirements of translation-oriented text analysis and deserves research efforts from the viewpoints of translation-oriented text analysis. The thought put forward by De Beaugrande & Dressier (1981) is adopted in this thesis. De Beaugrande & Dressier believe that a typical text should have the following features or standards: cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability, informativity, situationality, and intertextuality. All of them should be taken into consideration in the course of translation.In Chapter IV, the author analyzes the Chinese translation of Harry Potter according to the thought put forward by De Beaugrande & Dressier in 1981. This chapter will be divided into seven parts according to the seven standards. The examples will be provided from both the novel in the original and mainland Chinese version. By the comparison of the original and the Chinese version, we can see how the translators achieve the final good Chinese translation of Harry Potter with the seven standards.In Chapter V, the author mentions some inappropriate translation examples from the Chinese translation of Harry Potter. The Chinese translation of Harry Potter is not a perfect version, but it still brings the enjoyable reading pleasure to Chinese readers as the original series of Harry Potter to the English-speaking readers.In Chapter VI, the author concludes that through the analysis of the Chinese translation of Harry Potter with the seven standards, a better understanding of the series of Harry Potter and its Chinese translation is achieved in light of translation-oriented text analysis, and this study result might be extended to the translation of modern novels.