A Descriptive Translation Study Of Howard Goldblatt's Version Of Red Sorghum From The Perspective Of Translational Norms

As the only Chinese writer(ethnic Chinese excluded)who has won the Nobel Prize in literature,Mo Yan's works have been the focus of debate and attracted much attention.In his literary palace,Red Sorghum Family,as the first novel written by Mo Yan and the first novel translated into English,has extraordinary significance for Mo Yan and even his whole literary career.Red Sorghum translated by Goldblatt has been widely acclaimed abroad.,which has laid a good foundation for Mo Yan's works to go out.Through research and analy ses,it can be found that there are a few studies on the English translation of Red Sorg,hum from the perspective of skopos theory,relevance theory,metaphor,cultural translation and poetics etc.However,when it comes to descriptive translation studies(hereinafter referred to as DTS),it is few.As the mainstay of the international translation studies.DTS has enlarged the scope of translation study,liberated translation studies from static texts as well as a closed system,and made up for the limitations of former prescriptive translation studies.At the same time,it is conducive in improving the position of translation studies,contributing to the establishment of the discipline of translation studies.It is certain that the combination of DTS and Red Sorghum is endowed with great theoretical and realistic significance,which will turn out to provide certain ideas and inspiration for subsequent researches.Based on the core of DTS.namely the translational norms,this paper finds out that in the process of translation.Goldblatt always puts the needs of readers in the first place,and tries to make his translation closer to the requirements governed by English norms.Specifically,the selection of the translated text is determined by the preliminary norms.Goldblatt's selection is mainly influenced by the translation policy.i.e.a good translation environment,the expectations of western readers,the attitude of the publishing house and his personal preference.The initial norms determine Goldblatt's translation tendency,Goldblatt obviously favors the latter between the adequacy of the source language text and the acceptability of the target language text,but on the whole,he achieves a good balance between the two.As for operational norms which dominate various practical choices in the process of translation,readers can have a better grasp of Howard Goldblatt's translation techniques in practical translation via a contrastive analysis of parallel corpus where the translation of proper nouns,idioms,cursing words and the like are involved.And the findings here are corresponding to the conclusions of the above two norms.To be elaborate,Goldblatt takes great care of his readers,and he goes to all lengths to optimize the readers'reading experience.Although there are still some mistranslations in the English version,it should be admitted that the demerits do not outweigh the merits.The translation of Red Sorghum by Goldblatt is still very successful,which is worthy of further study.The theoretical significance of this research dwells on the fact that the combination of DTS and a specific translation interpretation helps us to know about and explain translation phenomena better,providing a wider research vision in terms of the Red Sorghum translation.Meanwhile,it opens a window for more comprehensive and objective understanding towards Howard Goldblatt and his translation,providing reference for similar literary translation studies.In practical sense,it reminds translators to attach importance to the social and cultural norms of the target language in their translation practices,and the study of English translation of Red Sorghum also sheds light on Chinese literature s going out.