A Comparative Study On Norms In The Two Chinese Versions Of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows--A Descriptive Translation Studies Approach

From the theoretical perspective of Gideon Toury's Descriptive Translation Studies, by adopting a descriptive analyzing method, this paper tries to conduct a comparative study on the norms in the two Chinese versions of the seventh installment of the Harry Potter series.Norms are an important concept in Toury's Descriptive Translation Studies Theories. By describing and studying the translator's behavioral trends, a theoretical system can be constructed and be employed in the translating practice and related activities as a theoretical guide. Toury classifies norms into 3 categories:preliminary norms, initial norms and operational norms. Preliminary norm includes the choice of translation policies and the directness of the translations. It is the macro element that affects the translators before the translating starts. Initial norm refers to the macro choice made by the translator him/herself. It determines whether the translation is source-norm oriented or target-norm oriented. Operational norms concern the actual choice of translation strategies, and they can be divided into matricial norms and textual-linguistic norms and are thus the micro elements affecting the translation.The two Chinese versions of the seventh installment of the Harry Potter series, published by People's Literature Press in Mainland China and Crown Publishing House in Taiwan, are chose as the material for the text analysis, and the norms on different levels are studied and compared from the view of the three kind of norms. The comparison between the two Chinese versions aims not to judge the quality of a version, but to analyze the differences between the two versions, trying to find out the causes and how these causes affect the translation.The paper consists of five chapters.Chapter 1 provides a general introduction to the study. It gives a brief theoretical review of Descriptive Translation Studies and the theoretical background of Norms. It also provides the aim of the research and the methodology.Chapter 2 conducts a comparative study on preliminary norms and initial norms by introducing the novel, its author and the translators of the two Chinese versions.Chapter 3 conducts a comparative study on different levels of operational norms in the two versions of the novel and tries to get a summary.Chapter 4 analyzes the differences between the norms of the two versions from three aspects, trying to find out the causes for the differences.Chapter 5 is a summary; it draws conclusions of the whole thesis, points out the limitation of this study and gives suggestions for future research.