A Multidimensional Study On The Chinese Translation Of L.M. Alcott’s Little Women

Published in1868, Little Women is the most famous and successful novel of Americanwriter Louisa May Alcott. For more than one hundred years, the fiction has been translatedinto more than10languages. It has also been adapted into drama, films, animation, and TVseries, and is played throughout the world. And up to now, there are sixteen Chinesetranslated versions of it. Lots of researches have been made on the original fiction both athome and abroad. However, there is only one paper focusing directly on the fiction’s Chinesetranslation. This paper only makes a simple comparison between two translated versions.Therefore, it is necessary to make a comprehensive and profound research of the translatedversions of Little Women.In order to make a deep and comprehensive study of the Chinese translated versions ofLittle Women, Dr. Yu Lianjiang’s “multidimensional literary translation criticism” is taken asthe theoretical basis of this thesis. This theory tries to avoid the wrong tendencies of beingtoo macro or too micro in traditional translation criticism. In his theory, Yu Lianjiang believesthat literary translation criticism should be made simultaneously on macro dimension(elements of society, history, culture and so on), intermediate dimension (elements oftranslators’ objectives, translation philosophies, translation strategies and so on) and microdimension (language elements).By applying Dr. Yu Lianjiang’s “multidimensional literary translation criticism” theory,the thesis made a comprehensive study of three Chinese translated versions of Little Women,which aims to probe into the primary Chinese translation of Little Women over the past years.At first, the thesis makes a brief introduction of the novel from four aspects: Alcott’s lifeand literary career, the plots and writing features of the novel, the translation of the novel inChina and previous studies. Chapter Two introduces Dr. Yu Lianjiang’s “multidimensionalliterary translation criticism” theory. In Chapter Three, the versions by Shanghai TranslationPublishing House, Yilin Press, and People’s Literature Publishing House are picked out asprimary ones for analysis within the theoretical framework of the “multidimensional literary translation criticism”. The thesis discussed the merits and defects of each version andanalyzes the reasons, which will provide reference for readers’ selection of better versionsand do some help to the improvement of quality of translated version. The thesis also puts the“multidimensional literary translation criticism” into practice thus provides new perspectivefor the research of Chinese translated versions.