A Study Of David Hawkes’ Revisions In The Manuscript Of The Story Of The Stone From The Perspective Of Toury’s Translational Norms

Academic research has been productive in the translation studies of Hong Lou Meng.The majority of them have focused on the translations themselves,notably their cultural content and different translated versions.With the advent of the "cultural turn",studies of the translators and translation process have increasingly risen in translation studies.The translation manuscript of Hong Lou Meng,which can demonstrate translators’ decisions directly,is a crucial translation product in the translation process,but it has not received sufficient attention.This thesis studies the translator’s revisions in David Hawkes’manuscript of The Story of the Stone.This is to improve the classification and analysis of translators’ revisions in manuscript studies and to enrich the translation process study of Hong Lou Meng;also,to investigate Hawkes’ revision decisions and to give new insights into the English translation of ancient Chinese classics.First,using sampling and quantitative analysis,this research randomly selected eight chapters from Hawkes’ manuscript as the sample,and classified all discernible revisions in the sample into ten types:At the lexical level,there is lexical replacement;at the syntactic level,there is syntactic restructure,paraphrase,and cohesive devices;at the discourse level,there is segmentation,paragraph relocation,and paragraph rewriting;at both the lexical and syntactic levels,there is omission,addition,and culture-loaded expression.Based on statistics,the findings are as follows:All revisions amount to 1,243,with their percentages in descending order as lexical replacement,addition,paraphrase,omission,syntactic restructure,cohesive devices,culture-loaded expression,paragraph relocation,paragraph rewriting,and segmentation.855 revisions are made at the lexical level,377 at the syntactic level,and 11 at the discourse level,indicating that Hawkes pays more attention to lexical-level revisions.Second,supported by examples of revisions and extra-textual sources,this research,using qualitative analysis,reveals the reasons for Hawkes’ revisions from the perspective of Toury’s translational norms in a bottom-up pattern.The findings are as follows:Regarding operational norms,Hawkes’ revisions are to add missing information,omit redundant expressions,amplify the translation,and make the discourse structure target-oriented,influenced by matricial norms;his revisions are to avoid repetition,increase the precision of expressions,delete cultural annotation within the text,and adopt the Pinyin system for name translation,influenced by textual-linguistic norms.Additionally,matricial norms have a greater influence on his revisions than textual-linguistic norms do.Regarding preliminary norms,Hawkes benefited from favourable social and cultural conditions created by the development of British sinology and the scholarly turn in translation activity,which enabled him to consult numerous scholars and revise meticulously throughout the translation process.Deeply interested in Hong Lou Meng,he was determined to accomplish its complete English version to fill the gap in the English world and bring its charm to English readers.Although the 1964 edition of Hong Lou Meng from the People’s Literature Publishing House was used as the source text,he also referred to other editions to present readers with the most readable and coherent translation.Regarding initial norms,Hawkes changed his previous academic translation strategy to "make a good story" for the English readers rather than for the academic value of the translation,showing a target-oriented revision strategy.