A Report On The C-E Translation Of At The Bend Of River (Except) Under The Guidance Of Toury’s Norm Theory

At the Bend of River is not an autobiography of a famous writer in the traditional sense,but an autobiographical essay.Its author,Mr.Chen Xingjia,once held the post of Badong county party secretary.Divided into seven chapters,the book records the story of Mr.Chen from his birth to his resignation to engage in public welfare work.The language is easy to understand and highly infectious.Mr.Chen’s past life experience may be of reference and inspiration to today’s young people.In the 1980 s,Gideon Toury,a famous Israeli scholar,proposed the theory of translation norms.In traditional translation theory,equivalence is regarded as the standard to measure the equivalence between the target text and the original text.According to Toury,the focus is on the conventions and norms of the target language.Norm is a kind of social behavior criterion,is the product of social interaction,and is very important to the establishment and maintenance of social order.Through norms,people can predestine certain ways of behaving.Early normative studies falls under the category of comparative linguistics and textual linguistics.Toury divides the norms into three kinds: preliminary norms,initial norms,operational norms.These three kinds of norms play different roles in the selection of the translation material and the translation strategy adopted in the process of the translation.Guided by Toury’s theory of translation norms,this report discusses its various roles in the translation of At the Bend of River.It mainly discusses from three aspects.The first is the selection of the source text under the guidance of the preliminary norms.The second is the choice-made between the adequacy and acceptability of the target text under the guidance of the initial norms.The translator gave priority to the domestication with foreignization in necessary.The third is the adoption of various specific translation methods under the guidance of the operational norms,including application,omission,conversion,voice change and combination.