A Descriptive Study: A Comparison Study Between Two Chinese Versions Of Lady Chatterley's Lover

Based on the theories of the target/culture-oriented translation and adopting a descriptive and comparative approach, the thesis aims at exploring the correlations between translators' decision-making in literal translation and the socio-cultural contexts in which translations are produced.To illustrate the author's point better, a comparative study will be made between two versions of Lady Chatterley's Lover from linguistic and cultural perspectives. The two versions were produced in different times, with a long range of 70 years between them, one in 1930s, and the other in 2000s. The study lays emphasis on revealing the diachronic differences and exploring what lies behind them. The linguistic and cultural environments, the requirement of the ideologies and poetics and TL readers of the times in which the two translations separately produced will be restored to analyze the differences in language styles and the translation strategies.Instead of dealing with local, linguistic issues in the translations and thereby making judgment, the major concern of this study is to provide certain explanations to such questions as what makes the wide differences in various versions of the same original, what determines translators'choice of different strategies in different times, what causes the different styles when the same text is translated in different times. The thesis consists of five parts:In the first part, the author will give the elaboration of the theoretical basis: target/culture-oriented descriptive translation studies theory; and will probe into social, cultural and historical factors which can influence the translating process. The theory is suitable for studies of different translations of the same original work under different social and historical conditions, describing and explaining translation phenomena.In the second part an introduction to the original author and the work will be given. The third part will present an analysis of the two translations from the linguistic and cultural perspectives. In the linguistic perspective, reproductions of words, syntax, text, reproduction of characters and themes will be concerned; while in the cultural perspective, reproductions of cultural intents, cultural and artistic conceptions, viewpoints on aesthetics and the description of sexual love will be dealt with.The fourth chapter will provide an analysis of the reasons for differences of the two translations through four aspects, social and historical background, attitudes towards foreign culture, intervention of the translators and the influence of patronage, poetics and aesthetics. The analysis shows how the translation is influenced by the society, culture and history.The fifth part is a conclusion. Besides the influences coming from the inner structure and horizon of expectation of translators, translation is restrained by the social cultural forces (such as aesthetic reception, poetics and ideology etc.). Translators adopted different strategies to produce translations to meet the requirement of TL culture and TL readers of that time, the requirement of the dominant ideological and the general poetic tendency. Descriptive translation studies theory can effectively interpret and explain some translation phenomena influenced and determined by social, historical and cultural context, and therefore is particularly suitable for the studies of different translations produced in different times of the same original work.