A Comparative Study Of Two Chinese Versions Of Moment In Peking From The Perspective Of Norms Theory

Moment in Peking, also called "the Western’s Dream of the Red Chamber," is the most influential work of Lin Yutang. Though it is well-known and several Chinese versions have been published, there are only a limited number of studies on its translation. For the moment, the study of this novel mainly focuses on the pragmatic level, it is too narrow to evaluate a translation just from the perspective of language, and it is indeed necessary to take all factors like political, economic, cultural factors and social background into consideration to make a more comprehensive study.The thesis compares two versions—Zhang Zhenyu’s《京华烟云》and the other is Yu Fei’s《瞬息京华》on the base of the Toury’s Norms Theory, that is, preliminary norms, initial norms and operational norms. First, the author compares factors before translating, including the social background and the motive of two translators. Then, the analysis goes to translators’choice between two polar alternatives, that is, adequacy and acceptability. Last, the author studies the operational norms through the arrangement of the source text and the selection of linguistic material. With a detailed comparative study, the thesis reveals that norms exist in every stage of the translation process, and translators’ behaviors have been influenced by both source and target cultures and they need to balance theses constraints to achieve intended translation effect.This kind of analysis is not to show the quality of these two versions, but to analyze how different translation norms in these two Chinese versions affect the translation process to enrich the existing research on the translation of Moment in Peking from a descriptive perspective. The case study is also a practice of Toury’s translational norms and to make a call for other translators’ attention to the translation norms when they do their translation work. The comparative analysis of the two Chinese versions can provide a new angle for the study of this novel and help to understand the characteristics of translation activities under particular background.