A Study Of Three Chinese Versions Of Shakespeare's Hamlet Viewed From The Perspective Of Toury's Theory Of Translational Norms

This thesis will be launched in the light of Gideon Toury's theory of translational norms, which was formulated in 1980s. This theory greatly propels the"cultural turn"in the field of translation studies. Toury, who is the first one to launch the translation studies from the perspective of translational norms, bases his research on a great deal of case study, and constructs a multi-dimensional framework for translation studies with the concentration on the research of the influences of the target culture upon the translating behavior and translation product. Toury divides the translational norms into 3 categories: initial norms, preliminary norms and operational norms. Initial norms refer to the overall choice on the inclination to the source cultural norms or the target cultural norms. Preliminary norms, including translation policy and the directness of translation, are the macro factors constraining translation affecting the translator before the translating behavior. While operational norms, including matricial norms and textual-linguistic norms, can be regarded as the micro ones affecting the translation of the source text. Toury also mentions in his theory of translational norms the influence of the cultural status of translation on translating behavior. That is, the translator tends to adapt the different translating strategies as the status of translation alters. This descriptive translation studies help us to analyze the translation activity from more expansive and more objective angles of view.By analyzing the various manifestation of the influences caused by the translational norms in the three Chinese versions of Shakespeare's Hamlet (Liang Shiqiu's version, Zhu Shenghao's version and Fang Ping's verison), it can be drawn that the translation process is affected by norms from its very beginning. The different effects by different norms in different phases on the translation result in the distinct versions. These norms constrain the translator in choosing the source text, the literary style and linguistic style, as well as translating strategies. While the purpose of those choices is to minimize the distance between the version and the readers of the target culture so as to make the entering of the version into the target cultural system easier.The whole thesis is composed of five parts:Partâ… , the introduction, makes a brief statement on the main points of the current research, and points out the significance of the research on Shakespeare's Hamlet from the perspective of Toury's theory of translational norms as well as offers the structure of the thesis. Partâ…¡introduces the situation of the medio-transaltion of Hamlet in China, mainly about ten famous versions. Also, the research achievements on the Chinese versions of this play are included in...