| Considering the heterogeneity in literary translation, which is notoriously known as hard to transfer or totally untransf errable, the circles of tran slation and translation studies over the past two thousand years have been do minated by a series of disputes centering on “literal translation” or “free translation”. In other word, th e essence of t hose debates is nothing but faithfulness(otherwise known as loya lty or fidelity). However, in the current context of globalization where cultural plur alism, economic diversification exist, Intercultural communication have b een prevailing. The tradition al criteria of tran slation can't adapt to the chan ging demands of the modern times. Therefore we are now at a critical juncture when the old criteria are losing their legitimacy but the new ones have not been established yet. Facing such a situation, what should the translator com ply with in translating? As is the case with society, a citizen will have to guide his behaviors by ethics if written laws have lost effect. That also holds true for the activity of translation. Once the criterion has lost its legitimacy, the translator has to beh ave by eth ics. This is where translation ethics come in. Traditionally, translators only hold the origin al work and author in awe, while nowadays they tend to focus on the context of reception and the reader 's acceptability and apply various tran slation ethics to realize the goals of serving the tar get language readers, being faithful to the or iginal works and achieving cross-cultural communication. In a nutshell, translation ethics play a guiding role for translation, at least temporarily, while a practical and highly ope rational criterion is still in its em bryonic period.In recent years, sinologists have become the main force in translating China to th e outside world. Am ong the m any sinologists, Ho ward Goldblatt is the most outstanding figure. He has translated a handful of Chin ese writers, of whom Mo Y an is th e most influential and worth researching. With the overwhelming success of Goldblatt's translation, a large corps of scholars jumped on the Goldblatt bandwagon, studying his translation from a multitude of perspectives. This thesis is one of the researches, which studies Goldblatt's translation from the viewpoint of ethics. This thesis an alyses Goldblatt version “Big Breasts and Wide Hips” from the perspective of Chesterm an's models of translation ethics in an attempt to sum up the factors contributing to his translation and provide reference for the Chinese going-out drive. The study has found that all the five tr anslation ethics are reflected in the translation, but the focus varies here and th ere. Howard Goldblatt gives priority to e xtra-text translation ethics, namely ethics of service, eth ics of comm itment, ethics of communication and norm-based ethi cs(focus on non-linguistic norm s) while he also adopts textual translation ethics for supplementation–ethics of representation, ethics of communication and norm-based ethics(focus on linguistic norms). At the preliminary stage of Chinese literature's going out, W estern readers have little background knowledge of Chinese literature and traditional culture, Therefore Howard Goldblatt gives priority to the extra-textual translation ethics to accommodate the interest of publishers and recep tion of Western readers. The adoption of the extra-textual ethics makes the translation transparent, making it easier for the Western readers to understand and arousing their interest in reading. At the same time, Howard Goldblatt also supplements by adopting textual translation ethics to make a balance between acceptability of Western readers and faithfulness to the original to the greatest degree possibl e, which ultimately contributes to dissem inating Chinese traditional culture and literature to the Western world. Finally, to promote Chinese literature go out better, this thesis comes up with the followi ng recommendation about two models concerning the agent o f translation: the Si nologist-agented Translation Model and the Sinologist and National Cooperation Model. These two models are idealized these days and the reasons go as f ollows: Sinologists are familiar with receptivity and reading interest of Western readers, while national translators have a good command of the Chinese language and Chinese traditional culture. Sinologist-agented Translation Model reflects extra-textual translation ethics while the Sinologist and National Cooperation Model has the double advantages between extra-textual translation ethics and textual translation ethics. Therefore, the cooperation between a sinologist and a Chin ese national may produce the best result in the long run. However, temporarily at the preliminary stage of national culture's going out, the Sinologist-agented model gains the upper hand considering the fact a Sinologist' s bilingual and bicultural background m ay help him tremendously and ef ficiently in producing a highly acceptable translation to Westerners. To sum up, the Sinologist-agented model prevails at the preliminary stage while the Cooperation model will finally take over.The complexity of the language environm ent requires that tran slators know how t o treat properly the limitations of the theory of translation ethics and select the most workable model to guide his translating T herefore as to avoid cultural misunderstanding and contradictions. In this regard, Goldblatt has made a successful example of himself.Based on a case analysis, this thesis aims to expound how Goldblatt, at the preliminary stage of Chinese literature's going out, flexibly adopts effective models of translation ethics to overcome the limitations of the extant theo ry itself(of translation ethics) and thus set a good example for other translators in or outside China. |
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