A Case Study Of Howard Goldblatt’s C-E Translation From The Perspective Of Translation Ethics

Translation literature is the carrier of the “difference” of the source languageculture, which is regarded as the “Others”. The cultural “Others” tries to approachfrom the periphery to the center of the poly-systems of the target language culture, inorder to achieve respect and equality in intercultural communications. However, thetarget language culture absorbs the “difference” and meanwhile resists the threat thatthe “difference” brings so as to maintain its central status. In this sense, the translatorshould exert some translation ethics to mediate the relations between the source andthe target cultures, eventually to achieve the intercultural communications. Among thewestern Sinologists, Howard Goldblatt, namely the foremost translator ofcontemporary Chinese literature in the West, makes great efforts to introduce Chineseculture to the West. Goldblatt and his translation activities have attracted manyscholars’ research at home and abroad. Many scholars have made their analysis fromvarious angles, including textual analysis, translation thoughts, translation practice ortranslator’s subjectivity, etc. From a different perspective, this thesis makes adescriptive research on Howard Goldblatt and his translations in an attempt to expandthe research scope of C-E literary translation. The concept of Translation Ethics isfirst put forward by Antoine Berman, and is further developed by Andrew Chesterman.Chesterman classifies translation ethics into five models, that is, the ethics ofrepresentation, the ethics of service, the ethics of communication, the norm-basedethics and the ethics of commitment. Based on Chesterman’s Five Models, this thesisconsists of five chapters: Chapter One is the introduction of the thesis; Chapter Two isliterature reviews, which includes two parts: previous studies on Translation Ethics athome and abroad, and previous domestic studies on Howard Goldblatt and histranslations; Chapter Three is the theoretical framework; Chapter Four is the caseanalyses, an investigation into Howard Goldblatt’s translation ethics; Chapter Five isthe conclusion and suggestions for future research.