Universality & Diversity Of Hybrid

Under the background of cultural turn in translation studies, this thesis borrows from cultural school of translation the conception that translation studies should not only focus on language, but also take social and cultural context into consideration; it also borrows from postcolonial theories the conception of hybrid.In this thesis, a descriptive approach instead of prescriptive approach is adopted in order to properly analyze how religious culture is handled in three selected Chinese versions of The Scarlet Letter.First, the writer of the thesis compares the two religious circles to which the original text and the target text belong. After comparison, she finds The Scarlet Letter was written in Christian culture, while the Chinese translated version was transmitted into Chinese religious cultures composed of Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Islamism and folk religious believes. That is to say, only small parts of the two religious circles are similar, while most of them are quite different. Second, to analyze whether the time factor influences the religious culture translation in this novel, this thesis selects three representative Chinese versions of different historical phases. These versions are 1) Zhang Mengling's version published in 1934; 2)Si Hen's version published in 1954; 3)Hu Yunhuang's version published in 1990.Why do we choose these versions? The reasons are as follows:first Zhang's version is the first complete Chinese version; Si's version is the only version in 1950's and 1960's; Hu's version is one of the most popular version in 1990's and 21st century. Among these three, the first two are taken into research for the first time in China.After that, to analyze clearly, we divide religious culture into three levels and make a chorological comparison in order to emphasize historical context's influence on translation. Thus a problem arouses:why has every Chinese version have the vocabulary of Buddhism, Taoism, folk religious believes, but not Islamism? Why does this kind of hybrid exist universally but at the same time diversely?Last, this thesis discusses some factors that may cause hybrid in translation. Universality of hybrid may be caused by the "inbetweeness" quality of translation, while diversity of hybrid involves many factors, such as the original text, translator and reader.In a word, such a systematic analysis of religious culture translation in the Scarlet Letter provides a new perspective and also helps to understand some phenomenon about religious culture translation in other literal texts.