A Comparative Study Of Two English Versions Of Fu Sheng Liu Ji From The Perspective Of Descriptive Translation Theory

Based on the descriptive translation theory, the thesis presents a comparative study of two English versions of Fu Sheng Liu Ji. One was translated by Lin Yutang in 1935, and the other was co-translated by Leonard Pratt and Chiang Su-hui in 1983.Descriptive translation theory, put forward by Even-Zohar and Gideon Toury, focuses on the objective description of existing translation phenomena and the comprehensive explorations of factors or norms behind them. Even-Zohar regards literature as a complex and dynamic system and integrates translation into broader social and cultural contexts in his polysystem. Later, Gideon Toury develops Even-Zohar's polysystm and proposes translation norm theory. He believes that from the choice of the source text to the word choice in the course of translating, there are many factors or norms determining the final product. In his eyes, translations are facts of the target culture. Thus, any description and explanation need proper contextualization.Guided by this framework, first, the author provides background information of the comparative study in the thesis, including the original story and its translators. Then, the author presents the comparison of the two English versions of Fu Sheng Liu Ji in two aspects: the macro-structure and the reproduction of cultural terms. In terms of macro-structure, the version of Leonard Pratt and Chiang Su-hui is much more formal. To be exact, in their "Introduction", they regard Fu Sheng Liu Ji as a valuable social document and analyze Shen Fu's tragedy in details from the aspect of the social background. There are some appendixes after their translation, including chronology, weights and measures to introduce the story and Chinese system and institution in the Qing Dynasty while Lin Yutang only expresses his intense love of this couple—Shen Fu, Chen Yün and the Chinese way of life they represent. In respect of cultural terms treatment, the following three respects are dwelt on: mental culture, language culture and other cultural terms. They adopt the same methods in some contexts, but most of time they use different ones. On the whole, Lin Yutang's version is target-oriented while the version of Leonard Pratt and Chiang Su-hui is source-oriented. As for translation strategies, domestication and foreignization are supplementary and indispensable to each other in the two versions. Lin Yutang and the other two translators adopt them flexibly in their translation. But taking each version as a whole, domestication is the guiding translation strategy in Lin Yutang's version while foreignization is the dominant one in the version of Leonard Pratt and Chiang Su-hui.Next, the author analyses further the possible reasons for the differences in four aspects: social background and cultural positions, target receivers, purpose of translation, translation theory and belief. The exploration of the reasons for the differences reveals that translation is not a simple transformation between different languages but is constrained by many objective factors in the target society and some subjective factors of translators. If these factors are taken into account, both of them are satisfying English versions.