On Translation Standard And Criticism From The Perspective Of Translation Preface

Translation standard has always been the focus of discussion in translation studies. The search for a universal translation standard that can guide all kinds of translation practice has long been the pursuit of scholars of translation studies. This thesis analyzes a few typical and influential translation standards in the history of translation studies, discovering that "faithfulness" and "fluency" are the common ground of these translation standards. However, there are numerous translations which violated the two basic standards are still regarded as successful. The reason is that translation is first of all a commitment and responsibility which requires a translator's "sincerity" as the prerequisite for all translations. Though some translators choose to violate the two popular standards, but they are definitely "sincere" in their work. This phenomenon leads us to the discussions of the criteria of translation criticism. Through a review and discussion of various translation criteria, this paper finds out that most criteria use whether the translation is being "faithful" or not as the translation criteria to evaluate a translation. The thesis argues that the philosophical basis of translation criticism shall be based on "Value Theory" rather than the "Correspondence Theory of Truth" in epistemology.After examining the real practice through the analysis of translation prefaces and postscripts, the thesis discusses the reasons behind the translator's deliberate violations of the popular translation standards, and "faithful" in particular. Through a close reading of various translation prefaces, the paper finds out that the factors including translator's subjectivity, translation purpose, the target readership, social historical backgrounds and cultural differences will influence a translator's observation or violation of those dominant translation standards, which will form the translator's individual translation principles. These translation principles may not be always applicable in other cases, but can be the best choice of one particular work. These translation principles with translator's individual characteristics are most often presented through translation prefaces and postscripts. which is a stage for translators to explain and justify his choices. The thesis argues that the writing of a translation preface is a responsible gesture in itself and the best embodiment of "sincerity".After a further analysis of translation prefaces, based on the implicatons of Value Theory, the thesis summarized a few references that translation critics shall refer to in translation criticism: the target readers; the translation's special features; the horizon of the translation criticism; the criteria of translation criticism and the critic's subjective factors.A translation preface is a great summary of a translator's practical translation experiences, which is not only a significant source of translation studies, but also can provide us some practical guidance for translation practice and at the same time shall be regarded as an important source of reference for translation criticism.