A Diachronic Study Of Two Chinese Versions Of Lin Yutang's My Country And My People From The Perspective Of DTS

As language has undergone constant changes, readers of different time have strikingly different requirements towards translated works. Therefore, translators have to shift between the continuums of"acceptability"and"appropriateness"in order to meet the demands. However, traditional Chinese translation criticism tends to produce impressionist evaluation with focus on the evaluation of translated work only. Basing on translation norms, and language characteristics of different time, a relatively objective comparison is carried out to analyze the reasons behind translators'distinctive translation strategies.Gideon Toury proposes that"the prospective function of the translation, via its required textual-linguistic make-up would govern the strategies the translator resorted to during the production of the text."(Toury, 2001:13) On the other hand, since translation is a"norm-governed"activity, efforts can be made to draw some generalizations regarding the norms in operation during the translation process.The author makes a detailed diachronic study of two widely-recognized Chinese versions of Lin Yutang's My Country and My People. Instead of evaluating the gains and losses of two versions, the author, from the perspective of DTS, attempts to highlight the significant role of readers'expectation and reception, and to interpret different translation strategies employed by translators of two Chinese versions.