On Literary Translation During The Cultural Revolution From The Perspective Of Translational Norms

The “Cultural Revolution”(1966-1976)is a special period in the Chinese history,and translation activities during this period reached the lowest point in the history of Chinese translation,and studies of translation in this period are far from enough in the translation circle,however,it never means that there is no significance in this.Zhaiyi(Foreign Literature and Art)is one of the few translation journals published during the Cultural Revolution,and provides valuable materials for the study.Therefore,based on Gideon Toury's theory of translational norms,the thesis takes Zhaiyi(Foreign Literature and Art)as a case study and attempts to reconstruct its preliminary norms,operational norms and initial norms by analyzing its translation characteristics in this journal during the Cultural Revolution.The preliminary norms are reconstructed based on the analysis of the publishing house and principle as well as the selection of translated works.This thesis classifies three themes of the selected works in the journal: works on hegemonism,works on revisionism and capitalism and works on people's struggle in capitalist countries,which conformed to the national politics at that time and satisfied the translation purposes for target readers.Operational norms are reflected in the translation strategies,which are observed from translation forms,translation techniques,critical words and collaborative translation in this thesis.The translation forms adopted in Zhaiyi(Foreign Literature and Art)can be classified to full translation,selective translation and abstract translation in general.By observing the translated texts,annotation and deletion were widely used in the translation process.The remarks in translated works,such as prefaces,postscripts and criticism,came from then translators and critics,who led target readers to interpret the works to realize the translation purpose.Collaborative translation was the typical work way during the Cultural Revolution.Based on the analysis of above two translational norms,the initial norm is explored following the bottom-up principle,and it reveals the acceptance in literary translation for the purpose of translating foreign works was to provide information of foreign literature and art for target readers to criticize and study,so the target culture was the primary choice.The translational norms of Zhaiyi(Foreign Literature and Art)are consistent with the mainstream political ideology of that time.The study of Zhaiyi(Foreign Literature and Art)serves as a revelation of the translational norms of translated texts during the Cultural Revolution.And the observation of translational norms followed by the translators provides a new way of understanding the literary translation during the Cultural Revolution.