The Influence Of Cultural Factors On The Choice Of Translation Strategies

This thesis, utilizing Lefevere's theories, deals with the correlation of cultural factors with the translators' choice of translation strategies and the extent to which cultural factors exert influence on the translators' choice of these strategies. The famous American novel, Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, is used as the source text and the two Chinese versions of the novel are used as comparative target language texts.The two Chinese versions are 《飘》 (Piao)by 傅东华 (Fu) and 《乱世佳人》 (Luan Shi Jia Ren) by 陈良廷 (Chen). Fu's translation, the first Chinese version of Gone with the Wind, was published in 1940 in Shanghai. Since this edition is unavailable, the author uses the reprinted edition by Zhejiang People's Publishing House as the original translated text. Chen's translation was published in 1990. These two translations were published 50 years apart and, during this time, Chinese social and cultural factors have changed dramatically. According to the concept of cultural translation theories, the cultural background of the target language has a direct impact on the translators' choice of translation strategies. Therefore, these two translations will be used to provide typical examples to illustrate the relationship between the cultural context and the choice of the translator's strategies. By analyzing the two translations, in particular, the poetics, ideology and patronage under which the translation works were done, the author tries to explain the reason why the translators chose different translation strategies.Through text comparison, the author first analyses the translation strategies employed in the two translations and then discusses some specific issues, including the translation of proper names, cultural practices, religious terminology and readers' influence on the translators and publishers. This comparative study of the two versions leads to the following conclusions. Translators are affected by the social-cultural context in which they are living. Due to the changeability of the social-cultural factors, translators may use different translation strategies even if they are translating the same source text; translator more or less conforms to the mainstream poetics and ideology. Meanwhile the author points out that the present highly commercialized social environment in China may exert an unfavorable influence on the translations of literary works.