Norms In Translating Fictional Proper Names From English To Chinese

This paper is a descriptive study of norms in translating proper names of fictional people, places, etc, which is mainly inspired by Toury and Chesterman's theory and methodology with adaptation and combination. Through careful observation and examination within the domain of novels about the magic world, this paper intends to find certain norms in dealing with certain problems in a given period of time.In this connection, the subjects of study in this paper are the most popular fantasy book Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings. They make perfect cases for the investigation of name translations with various original names of people, places, gadgets, even spells, which are heavily loaded with cultural implications that are not so easy to convert into Chinese because there are no existing standard versions as referent. Hence the translators are confronted with many options with how to deal with the names, namely transliteration, paraphrase (or literal translation), creating new terms, and the combination of transliteration and paraphrase. In identifying those methods with representative names translations in the two book series respectively and in calculating the proportions or weights each of the methods take, we could hopefully discover one or two norms based on the study.In order to seek deeper sight into the regularities, some corresponding versions in Taiwan would also be taken as comparison. Furthermore, some external references would also be brought into consideration in the process be accounting for the reasons behind the choices. Those discoveries of regularities about the translators' choices are eligible for becoming norms, which would be helpful in instructing future translations.