A Study Of The CE Translation Of Fortress Besieged From The Perspective Of Translation Norms

Fortress Besieged, the English version of Wei-ch 'eng meets many depreciative criticisms, which, with the criterion of "domestication", put forward their comments mainly from the perspective of the TL readers and aesthetic effects, totally leaving out the consideration of external factors' influence on the translator and their choice of translation strategies. Based upon the norm theory proposed by Gideon Toury, the present paper analyzes the data collected from Fortress Besieged and investigates the reasons for translator's choice of translation strategies. Findings of the research show that: 1) The C-E translation of Fortress Besieged failed to meet the expectations of ordinary Anglophone readers; 2) The translator gave priority to adequacy of the ST, thus adopting foreignization as the major strategy; 3) The translator's choice of translation strategies and approaches is the result of joint influence of such factors as translation purpose, text type, readers' acceptability, and norms on textual organization, etc.Based on the findings, the present paper concludes that: l)The translator did not target at ordinary readers; 2)The translator's choice of foreignization as the major strategy in deviation of initial norm is the result of various external factors; 3)Academic purpose and the ST author's status are the major factors which influence the translator's decision making.