| In recent years, many Chinese translation theorists endeavor to make contributions to the construction of Chinese translation theory through numerous researches. Most scholars made analysis of translated works from the linguistic perspective. But few researchers have done the discussion on the transmutation of the major translational norms of a certain period, which can contribute to the construction of Chinese translation theory. Still this attempt by some scholars can be sensed in a very few sentences in recent studies, such as those findings in A Translation History of Foreign Literature in the 20th Century China by Za Mingjian and Xie Tianzhen.Toury, in his Norm Theory, proposes two major sources for reconstruction of translational norms:"textual sources"and"extratextual sources". What is actually available for observation is not the norms themselves, but rather norm-governed instances of behavior and more precisely the products of such behavior. Of all the translated works, those works written by English novelist Charles Dickens enjoy a great popularity at the first half of 20th century. His masterpiece David Copperfield has several translations at different times. This thesis, based on Gideon Toury's norm theory as the theoretical framework, takes a comprehensive analysis of two translated versions of David Copperfield in terms of preliminary norms, initial norms and operational norms as evidence to observe the transmutation of major translational norms from the period of the 1900s to the 1950s. Based on such a detailed comparative study of the translational norms reflected in the two translations, the thesis tries to explore how the major translational norms in literature translation are influenced and changed by those social and political factors. Furthermore, this thesis is conducted in the hope that it can shed some light on researches on construction of major translational norms as well as its transmutation at the first half twentieth century.
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