| Literary translation is universally acknowledged to be quite demanding.Yet traditional translation theories mostly focused on the language itself,regarding translation as a simple transformation from one language to another.Things changed in the late 20th century when the "cultural turn" began to emerge in translation studies.In 1990 in Translation,History and Culture which was co-edited by Susan Bassnett and Andre Lefevere,the idea of cultural turn in translation studies was formally put forward.Since then,the school of cultural translation has developed.Cultural translation theory has been formed,advanced and perfected as well.Among all those scholars and researchers of cultural translation studies,Susan Bassnett is generally acknowledged as the most representative one.Her cultural translation theory can be very instructive in studies of works that contain much cultural information.As one of Jane Austen’s most representative works,Pride and Prejudice is of great significance in the history of English literature and retains its fascination among readers in the contemporary era.In China,Pride and Prejudice also enjoys considerable popularity.Apart from the attraction of the original work,Chinese translated versions have contributed a lot in the spread of this novel.In a witty,humorous,and ironic tone,Jane Austen reveals a typical English middle class culture from the late 18th century to the early 19th century,which is very different from Chinese culture.Thus how to deal with cultural conflicts or fill the cultural gaps in the process of translation becomes a challenging task for translators and at the same time,it also highlights the importance of comparision in the field of translation studies.From the perspective of Susan Bassnett’s cultural translation theory,this thesis makes a comparative analysis of three Chinese versions of Pride and Prejudice,disclosing the translation strategies that those translators have adopted for dealing with the same cultural barrier,and probing into the root cause of their different choices.So far,there have been more than 30 tanslated versions of Pride and Prejudice on the Chinese market.In particular,among those versions,Wang Keyi’s is regarded as the pioneering work and the most widespread version;Sun Zhili’s version is spoken high of for its similarities to the original work in terms of writing style;Fang Huawen’s version was finished in the 21st century,which carries certain modern features.Thus these three versions are chosen to be the research material in this thesis.Also,to make the research more systematic,cultural characteristics in this novel are stratified into four layers,namely material culture,institutional culture,behavioral culture and ideological culture.Translators have to employ various translation strategies to handle different cultural barriers contained in each cultural layer.After a careful analysis of these translation strategies that three translators have employed,this thesis comes to conclusions as follows:firstly,Susan Bassnett’s cultural translation theory proves to be effective in analyzing the three Chinese versions of Pride and Prejudice Its core concepts could help a lot when the translator deals with problems that are related to cultural barriers.Secondly,the three translators—Wang Keyi,Sun Zhili and Fang Huawen think highly of conveying the cultural information contained in the original text and adopt various translation strategies,such as transliteration,division,conversion and so forth.Thirdly,living in different period of time,the three translators share some similarities but more discrepancies can be witnessed in their translation of cultural elements in this novel.Apart from individual features of every translator,the typical cultural background of each period of time would influence a lot.Actually,there are no absolutely right or wrong translated versions.We can only decide which one is more suitable under certain cultural circumstance.Just as Susan Bassnett holds,every age has its ideal of translation,and aesthetic criteria change,sometimes so rapidly that it is impossible to establish a constant set of norms for good translation practice. |
