An Analysis Of Two Chinese Versions Of Charlyotte’s Web With Chesterman’s Models Of Translation Ethics

Ethics, as a widely penetrating subject, studies basic interpersonal relationshipconventions and their corresponding moral principles in a certain society, which aremanifested in almost every human activity. Being a kind of interpersonalcommunicative activity, translation can be regarded as an ethical behavior to someextent, which needs the guidance of ethics.Since the beginning of the1980s, it is generally considered that Antoine Berman,a French translator and ethicist, is the first scholar to put forward the concept oftranslation ethics. Thereafter, Lawrence Venuti, Anthony Pym and AndrewChesterman also brought forth their own perspectives on translation ethics, amongwhich Andrew Chesterman, a Finnish scholar, first classified the abstract translationethics concept into five models, namely, ethics of representation, ethics of service,ethics of communication, norm-based ethics and ethics of commitment. For decades,translation studies have gained great development and progress. However, it isregrettable that translation research for children’s literature has attracted much lessattention from scholars in the translation field than that for adult literature at home. Assome translation scholars pointed out:“the translation of children’s literature in Chinahas an extremely unbalanced development in theory and practice. The translatedworks of children’s literature are emerging in an endless stream, while the specificresearches on children’s literature translation are rather sparse.” Therefore, there is apressing and urgent need for in-depth translation research out of the need of children’sliterature.In this paper, the author adopts a descriptive research method, based on atheoretical foundation of his translation ethical models, to make a comparativeanalysis of the two Chinese versions of Charlotte’s Web, so as to highlight theinfluence of translation ethics on children’s literature translation. The thesis beginswith the illustration of translation ethics theory. Make a review of the development of translation ethics at home and aboard, and Chesterman’s five translation ethics models.Chesterman’s models of translation ethics crystallized and synthesized many existingthoughts about translation ethics, providing a multi-dimensional perspective for thestudy of translation ethics and translation practice.Then it introduces the development of children’s literature at home and aboard,and the original as well as the two Chinese versions of Charlotte’s Web. The third partis the core of the thesis. Based on Chesterman’s quite comprehensive models oftranslation ethics, this paper tries to analyze ethical problems existing in the twoChinese versions of Charlotte’s Web with descriptive research method. The forth partis the comments on translation ethics models. It proposed that the translation ethicalmodel is not absolutely good or absolutely bad. Not any kind of translation ethicalmodel is suitable for all occasions. Translation ethical model should be determineddue to specific situation. Give a comprehensive consideration of one or more ethicalmodel(s) after taking a full account of the texts, the reader, and the social culturalenvironment, etc.The last part draws a conclusion. Following the analysis of two Chinese versionsof Charlotte’s Web with Chesterman’s translation ethics models, it concludes that allChesterman’s translation ethics models have an effect on children’s literaturetranslation. The translator should elect one or more appropriate ethical model(s) dueto the comprehensive consideration of the texts, the reader, and the social culturalenvironment, etc to present a good work to children readers. Besides, by exploring theembodiment of translation ethics models one by one as well as the relationship amongthem in children literature translation, this paper is devoted to open a newer andbroader view for translation research of children literature translation, meanwhile, tooffer practice support for translation ethics.