A Comparative Study Of Expectancy Norms In Light Of Pierre Bourdieu’s Sociological Theory As In Zheng Zhenduo’s And Bai Kaiyuan’s Translations Of Stray Birds

Translations are usually regarded as the conversions among different languages, as well as the cultural communications among different nationalities. While translating, the translator is involved in two kinds of language systems, namely the systems of the Source Language and the Target Language. Then the Translation Norm is an important concept in Descriptive Translation Studies(DTS) with Toury, Chesterman, Nord and Hermans, representatives of the research on Translation Norms, bearing different definitions and classifications towards these norms.Chesterman classifies translation norms into two categories, namely the Expectancy Norm and the Professional Norm. While the Expectancy Norm, requiring the translated texts to meet some particular characteristics, refers to the expectancies of the Target Language readers. The Professional Norm can be further divided into the Accountability Norm, the Communication Norm and the Relation Norm. Respectively, Expectancy Norms decides Professional Norms, which means Professional Norms is the embodiment of Expectancy Norms. Chesterman holds that the translation activity is restricted by the social and cultural norms together with a variety of factors(internal factors and external factors). At present, the research on Translation Norms mostly focuses on the introduction, the classification, and the application to the concrete translated texts. However, less research on the formation of Translation Norms, especially Expectancy Norms from the perspective of Sociology is made.Since the “cultural turn” in translation studies in the 1980 s, Sociological Translation Studies becomes a new trend in translation studies. The famous sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological thoughts, especially the three core terms, Field, Capital and Habitus are gradually applied to translation studies.In this thesis, the author first introduces Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological theory, defining the three concepts, Field, Capital and Habitus, and analyzing their mutual relationship. Field is a network, or a configuration of objective relations between positions occupied by agents. Capital is an accumulated labor, which is a materialized form or concrete form, Capital including Economic Capital, Cultural Capital and Social Capital. The habitus is a set of dispositions which can be converted. The translators with different capitals do translation in the translation field. Different Fields, different Capital and different Habitus play essential roles in the whole process of the translation activities. By applying Pierre Bourdieu’s Sociological Cultural Theory to analyze the relationship between Expectancy Norms and Field, Capital and Habitus and analyze the impact of Field, Capital and Habitus on the formation of Expectancy Norms, the author of this thesis proposes that Field, Capital and Habitus play vital roles in the translation motivation, the choice of source texts and the selection of translation strategies. In other words, the formation and working of Expectancy Norms can be explained under the sociological framework.In order to testify the above hypothesis, the author chooses the Indian poet Tagore’s Stray Birds and its two Chinese translations as the case study. Through detailed analyses of Zheng Zhenduo’s and Bai Kaiyuan’s translations, the author attempts to explore multiple reasons behind the differences of the two versions under the framework of Bourdieu’s Sociological Theory. Comparative studies are carried out to recognize differences between the two translations, in terms of the translation motivation, selection of Source Texts and different translation strategies, which are actually the manifestation of Expectancy Norms. And these differences are discussed in the social cultural context in terms of Field, Capital and Habitus. Specifically, the translators’ various positions in the Source Language or in the Target Language(i.e., the translators being in different Fields), the translators’ different Capital,(Economic Capital, Cultural Capital, and Social Capital) and their different and continuous Habitus with the long shape of language and culture make the translation motivations diverse and complex(including political motivation, cultural connotation, aesthetic value and artistic quality, etc.), the choices of Source Texts(including source countries and text themes) have multiple standards and tendency as well as the translation strategies are of different trade-offs(Domestication or Foreignization).