A Study Of The Goldblatts' English Translation Of Qingyi From The Perspective Of Translation Ethics

Translation is not only a behavior of language reformulation, but also a kind of cultural and social activity. And ethics is the measurement used to judge human behaviors. Therefore, all translation behaviors should be retrained and guided by ethics. The five models of translation ethics summarized by Andrew Chesterman is the most representative one during the research wave of translation ethics. He makes specific demands on the translator and the translated text at five different levels, which breaks the limitation of traditional study of text fidelity, exerting significant influence on later translation researches. Qingyi, having received numerous rewards, is an excellent Chinese contemporary literary work with a large number of professional terms of Peking Opera and Chinese proverbs in content. It was translated into English by world-renowned translators Howard Goldblatt and his wife Sylvia Li-chun Lin, enjoying great popularity in the western world. Unfortunately, the writer of this thesis has found only a few domestic Master's dissertations via http://www.cnki.net/which study the English version (namely The Moon Opera) from the perspectives of eco-translatology, reception aesthetics and so forth. Therefore, it is of great significance to analyze it from more perspectives.This thesis attempts to verify the embodiment of the five models of translation ethics in the Goldblatts'The Moon Opera, and analyze the adopted translation methods in light of translation ethics. It is found that the Goldblatts have followed all the five ethical models of translation in The Moon Opera. The translators adopt the strategies of transliteration and annotation to represent cultural connotations of Peking Opera when translating those professional terms, which conforms to the ethics of representation; For those obscure expressions, they would like to delete words difficult to understand or add some supplementary explanations to satisfy the requirements of the editor and meanwhile respect the original writer, which accords with the ethics of service; Taking the cultural background of target readers into consideration, they choose to add annotations or literally translate Chinese proverbs needing reams of explanation that promotes the communication and understanding between target readers and the source writer, namely, target culture and source culture, and corresponds with the ethics of communication; With regard to sentences with rhetoric device of repetition, the Goldblatts prefer to use the translation method of omission to ensure the conformity of their translation to the grammatical mode of English, following norm-based ethics; Their rich experience in literary translation, responsible attitude and the persistence in practicing English and Chinese all make the Goldblatts fulfill the requirements of the ethics of commitment. Though there are conflicts and overlaps among the five models of translation ethics, the Goldblatts have made some coordination and adjustment to guarantee the readability of The Moon Opera. This study points out the theoretical applicability of Translation Ethics and the translation ethicality of the Goldblatts so as to emphasize the necessity of this theory in regulating transaltors'behaviors in translation practices and thus achieving the cultural exchange between China and the West in their translations.