A Comparative Study On Two English Versions Of The Sing-Song Girls Of Shanghai From The Perspective Of Toury’s Theory Of Translational Norms

The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai,as the pioneering work of modern popular novels,has high literary value.Eileen Chang’s translation of the first two chapters was published as a journal article in 1982 in Renditions.Invited by Columbia University Press,Eva Hung made many revisions to Chang’s draft manuscript.The full English version revised by Hung was then published in 2005.Overall,researches on the novel’s English translations number considerably,yet they usually touch upon one of the two versions.Few scholars make a comparison between the two versions and explain related reasons.Under the framework of Toury’s translational norms,the thesis conducts a descriptive case study between Chang’s translation and Hung’s revision.By exploring the similarities and discrepancies between the two versions from the perspective of preliminary norms,operational norms,and initial norms,the thesis attempts to summarize Chang’s and Hung’s choices of the novel and translation strategies.The findings are as follows.1)In terms of preliminary norms,Chang chooses the novel due to her genuine love for the novel and her passion for delivering traditional Chinese literature to the world.As a translation historian,Hung accepts the invitation of Columbia University Press in order to promote collaborative translations.2)As for operational norms,Chang and Hung favor semantic translation when translating the names of characters and places.Chang tends to follow the original textual arrangement,whereas Hung focuses more on dynamic correspondence.Additionally,Hung usually simplifies Chang’s footnotes.3)When it comes to initial norms,the actual choices of Chang and Hung show a compromise between adequacy and acceptability.Hung is more inclined to acceptability because she aims to make the English version more reader-friendly and spread Chinese culture.