A Comparative Study Of Two Chinese Versions Of The Gadfly From The Perspective Of Toury's Translational Norms

The Gadfly was written by Irish authoress Ethel Lilian Voynich. It vividly narrated a soul-stirring story about the Italian revolutionaries fighting against Austrian rulers for independence and successfully created a typical revolutionary image—the Gadfly. After its publication in England in 1897, this novel remained in obscurity. However, it has countless worshipper readers in China, a country with the largest population in the world and the former Soviet Union, a country with the widest territory in the world. Among the Chinese versions, Li Liangmin's Chinese version in 1953 and Qing Xuexian's Chinese version in 1999 exerted a far-reaching influence. What Qing Xuexian narrated was quite different from Li Liangmin's revolutionary story. It was about some conflicts between the hero, the Gadfly vs. Montanelli and the Gadfly vs. his lover, Gemma.Why are the two Chinese versions of the same original so different from each other? Where do the essential differences lie? What can be proven by the differences? The author of this thesis will compare the two Chinese versions produced in different times to find out the norms governing the translators'job during the process of translation from the perspective of Toury's translational norms. As Toury pointed out, translation is a norm-governed activity. Different norms in different societies and cultures control translators'jobs. There is no wonder that different translators produce different translated works of the same original by adhering to different translational norms. Under the guidance of Toury's translational norms, the thesis will carry out a comparative study of the two Chinese versions (Li Liangmin's version in 1953 and Qing Xuexian's version in 1999) of The Gadfly from the facets of the translators'choices of the source text, the different times they were in and their adoption of different translating techniques, aiming at finding out what types of elements in the source language and the target language influenced the two translators in the process of translation and what different kinds of norms they consciously or unconsciously adhered to and how the norms affected the translators at different stages of the translation.The conclusion is educed that different translational norms adopted by the two translators under different backgrounds in the translating process resulted in the production of different translated works. Thus, it can be seen that the application of Toury's translational norms not only helps us know about the traits of the translators'job under special historical background in a more systematic and comprehensive way but also offers us a new perspective to understand the impacts on the translator, translated works and even the target readers which are imposed by the social and cultural factors.