On David Hawkes' Translating Of The Story Of The Stone From The Perspective Of Toury's Norms

Hongloumeng, the greatest work in the Chinese literature, epitomizesthe thousands of years of Chinese culture. Different people have differentways to interpret the book. The analysis of the translating process willacquaint us with the way the foreign readers interpret it. The acquaintanceof the foreign interpretations is a way to help us to get a deeperunderstanding of Hongloumeng and the Chinese culture. This paper isdesigned to analyze every stage of the translating process from theperspective of Toury's norms and then to find out the norms that restrictthe translational behaviours at every stage.Translation is a decision-making process. From the right selection ofthe text to the publication of the translation, every decision made by thetranslator is confined by norms. David Hawkes' selection ofHongloumeng is greatly influenced by the cultural status of ST and thetarget cultural norms. The inconsistency of text types determines hisselection from different versions. In order to convey to the readers thepleasure the Chinese novel has given him, he mainly follows the norms oftarget culture, trying to fulfill the expectancy of the readers of the targetlanguage. His translation tends to be acceptable. But no translation can betotally adequate or totally acceptable. He retains some otherness of thisnovel to provide the TL readers with an alien reading experience. In themicro decision-making process, the translator's ethnic and aestheticvalues have an effect on the completeness of the target text and thedistribution of linguistic material. The positions of TL and the translator'sbilingual capacity determine the translator's freedom to interpret. The agreement with Penguin predicts the popularity of the translation before itcomes into print. In real translation, the binding force of some normsgrows weaker. The translator has more freedom to interpret.Through the analysis of David Hawkes translating process, thispaper tends to emphasize the great influence of norms on the translation.Meanwhile it points out that the translator is the real controller of thetranslational behaviour. When we focus our attention on the constraintsgoverning the translation, we can never ignore the subjectivity andcreativity of a translator. The full play of translators' subjectivity willprobably bring about one of the following results: (1)the formation ofnew norms; (2)the peripheral norms being elevated to the dominantnorms; (3)the dominant norms being declined to the idiosyncrasies,namely, the subjective norms with minimum intensity. By following thetranslational norms, the translator can free himself from some constraints.The decisions made to follow or break the norms both reveal thesubjectivity of the translator.