On Moss Roberts’ Translation Of San Guo Yan Yi From The Perspective Of Socio-translation Studies

Sociological perspective is a new perspective which has attracted the attention of translation scholars since the end of the 20^thcentury,and now,combined with translation studies,it is developed into socio-translation studies.This perspective views translation practice as a social practice and emphasizes the influence of social factors on translation practice and translated products.Moss Roberts’version of San Guo Yan Yi represents two major characteristics:adequacy and acceptability.The translation activity of the whole novel,initiated by Foreign Languages Press,signifies that this version is affected by many different social factors.However,few scholars notice the influence of social factors.This thesis,therefore,studies it from the perspective of socio-translation studies.With Pierre Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology as its major theoretical framework,it attempts to explore the influence of social factors on Roberts’translation and investigate the translation methods Roberts adopts specifically.Based on an extensive literature analysis and deep research on the source text and the target text,i.e.,Roberts’version,and Yu Sumei’s one in some cases,this thesis produces several findings.In general,judging from the perspective of Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology,Roberts’version is completed under the influence of translation field,capital and Roberts’translation habitus.First,the initiator（Foreign Languages Press）in the translation field establishes general translation principles for the translation activity,i.e.,to translate the novel faithfully and adequately.Second,social and economic capital guarantees the normal operation of the activity.Among all forms of capital,Roberts’cultural capital exerts a great influence.Third,Roberts’translation habitus influences his selection of translation methods.Affected by habitus formed from the practice of teaching and academic research,Roberts tends to explain things adequately and informatively,so when translating culture-loaded words,he prefers translation methods of literal translation,amplification and annotation;due to his deep research on Chinese language structure,he tends to adopt the method of literal translation when translating the typical language structure of Chinese;in addition,he emphasizes the rhyme and the image of poems,so he tends to preserve them by choosing methods of amplification,explicitation,restructuring,conversion and adaptation.Therefore,Roberts’version is both adequate and acceptable.