| My Country and My People is a prose book written by Lin Yutang in English,designed to introduce Chinese cultural traditions and local customs to western society.As soon as the book was published,it caused great repercussions at home and abroad.Huang Jiade’s translation of My Country and My People is widely circulated and it is enduring in China.Under Toury’s translational norms theory,this thesis studies the Chinese translation of My Country and My People and analyzes the factors that affect the translator’s choice of the translation materials,the translation methods and the translation tendency from the perspectives of the preliminary norms,the operational norms and the initial norm.It is found that the social background,the mainstream literary genres and language style,the publishers and the patrons’ preferences,and the translators’ personal factors govern the translator’s choice of the translated text,seen from the perspective of the preliminary norms.From the perspective of the operational norms,in terms of the matricial norms,the translator uses addition,omission,division and combination methods to enhance the readability of the translation.In terms of the textual-linguistic norms,at the lexical level,the translator uses the translation methods such as cultural substitution,transliteration,free translation to make his translated text in line with the graceful language characteristics of prose,and at the syntactic level the translator uses substitution,supplement method,literal translation method to enhance the acceptability of the translated text.When translating the poems,the translator uses the rhythmic rules of Chinese poetry,the translation methods of word order conversion,the same rhythm,and the lyric art of repetition showing the aesthetics of rhymes of classical Chinese poems.From the perspective of the initial norm,the translator is more inclined to make acceptable translation in his translation of My Country and My People.The research shows that the study of the translation of My Country and My People from the perspective of Toury’s translational norms theory not only helps the readers better understand the connotation of the original work,but also provides a methodological reference to translation practitioners. |
