Comparison Of Two Chinese Versions Of Oliver Twist From The Perspective Of Pragmatic Translation

Oliver Twist is one of Charles Dickens’s masterpieces. Numerous readers and translators have focused on it since it was published in1838.In China, the first Chinese version Zei Shi was rendered by Lin Shu and Wei Yi in1915, and then followed by Jiang Tianzuo’s Ao Lie Fo Er in1948, Wu Du Gu Er by Xiong Youzhen in1953, Ao Li Fu Tui Si Te by Rong Rude in1984. Later, many Chinese translators continue to focus on it, such as Qin Yuanjie, Long Bing and Zhe Bo,etc. And there are thirteen new versions appeared in21st century so far. These versions enrich China literature translation field. Nevertheless, many translated works are worth studying for their differences because of the translators’times and background no matter in life or culture.This thesis analyzes two Chinese versions of Oliver Twist translated by Jiang Tianzuo and Rong Rude based on pragma-liguistic equivalent translation and socio-pragmatic equivalent translation from the pragmatic perspective. Pragmatic translation is a sort of equivalent translation which consists of pragma-liguistic equivalent translation and socio-pragmatic equivalent translation(何自然,1997:185-186).As for pragma-linguistics, the author analyzes the versions from words&phrases aspects and sentences aspects respectively. As for the socio-pragmatics, the author discusses the versions from five aspects:language variation, style, culture, aesthetics and multidimensional dynamic translation.The thesis comes to the conclusion in the end that in the process of translations, these methods and techniques are usually interlaced with each other. In addition, the author indicates pragmatic translation is not a perfect method, nevertheless, it is a new breakthrough in the future studies of translation.