Universals Of Translation And Zhang Peiji's Selected Modern Chinese Prose Writings

This thesis aims at analyzing Zhang Peiji's prose translation from the perspective of universals of translation. Basing on the theory of translation quality assessment the present study conducts a qualitative research on Zhang Peiji's two volumes of Selected Modern Chinese Prose Writings. Being a case study, this thesis, for one thing, tries to verify the existence of the universals of translation in Zhang Peiji's prose translation; and for another, makes an assessment on the quality of his translations.With the great development of descriptive translation studies, more and more scholars have put their focus on the studies on the universals of translation which are proposed by such scholars as Mona Baker and Sara Laviosa. Both Baker and Laviosa make great efforts in the study of universals of translation from the perspective of corpus-based translation studies. The universals of translation include:simplification, explicitation, and normalization. A number of examples are cited here to prove the existence of the universals of translation. In addition, translation quality assessment on these examples is also conducted at the same time. In the process of analyzing the two volumes of Selected Modern Chinese Prose Writings, examples of resistance to the universals of translation are also found. The resistance to the universals of translation shows the strategies which Zhang Peiji adopts for sake of counteracting the negative effects incurred by the universals of translation.The major findings of this thesis are as follows:First, the analysis of Zhang Peiji's two volumes of Selected Modern Chinese Prose Writings manifests the existence of the universals of translation in his prose translation. Moreover, the strategies Zhang adopts conform to what Baker suggests to achieve simplification, explicitation and normalization.Second, in the process of analyzing the universals of translation existed in Zhang Peiji's Selected Modern Chinese Prose Writings, this thesis makes a quality assessment of his translations. With the universals of translation as assessing criteria, the present thesis makes an evaluation on Zhang's prose translation, including both the success and regrets of his translations. Third, the analysis and discussion of the resistance to the universals of translation show Zhang Peiji's subjectivity in the process of translation. His translations are conformations to the language habits and cultural background of both source and target languages, rather than inflexible faithfulness to the original texts.