| In 1970 s,the rise of the school of translation study and the “cultural turn” of translation studies brought a revolutionary transformation to the Western translation scholarship.Many scholars have shifted from traditional linguistic perspective to cultural perspective in translation studies.Translation activities and translation works are regarded as products of the social and cultural environment.Under this background,the Israeli translation study scholar Gideon Toury developed James Holmes’ s DTS and Itamar Even Zohar’s “polysystem theory” and then proposed three norms of translation,namely,the initial norm,preliminary norms and operational norms.In the methodology of DTS,Toury abandoned the one-to-one correspondence and the concept of literary or linguistic equivalence,and put the ST and the TT in the symbolic network of intersecting cultural systems,which laied a solid foundation for DTS.Luotuo Xiangzi is the most popular work among Lao She’s novels,which tells the tragic fate of a rickshaw puller called Xiangzi in Beijing in the 1920 s.Once published,it has attracted widespread attention in society.The first English version of Luotuo Xiangzi was translated by Evan King in 1945.So far,Luotuo Xiangzi has four complete English versions,and the latest version was translated by Howard Goldblatt in 2010.Based on the translational norms theory,the thesis conducts meticulous comparative analyses of the two English versions of Luotuo Xiangzi by Evan King(1945)and Howard Goldblatt(2010)from perspectives of the initial norm,preliminary norms and operational norms.From the perspective of the initial norms,both the King and Howard’s versions follow the target-language norms and have the characteristics of “acceptability”.As far as the preliminary norms are concerned,both versions have chosen the edition of Luotuo Xiangzi originally published in Cosmic Wind magazine,but the edition is slightly different.From the point of view of operational norms,the two versions have different changes to the original works,while the main translation strategies and methods adopted are the same.According to the framework of Toury’s translational norms theory,the thesis analyzes the main factors affecting the translation of the two English versions in different times,social ideologies and cultural backgrounds,as well as the main translation strategies and methods adopted.It is found that King and Howard mainly adopt the method of “free translation” and “domestication” strategy in their translation of Luotuo Xiangzi.Moreover,in order to meet the psychological needs of American readers after World War II,King changes the tragic ending into a rather romantic one,while Howard retains the plot of the original story.Various social and cultural factors influence different translators at different times.The translation of the same work is bound to show different stylistic characteristics.The thesis holds that translators should pay attention to the linguistic factors of the translated text as well as the social and cultural factors besides the writing in their translation activities. |
