A Study Of Two Chinese Translations Of The Importance Of Being Earnest From The Perspective Of Toury's Norms Theory

This thesis aims at the exploration and comparison of the translation norms governing the two Chinese translations of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest from the perspective of Gideon Toury's theory of Norms. In the 1980s when the descriptive translation studies was taking great steps as a new trend, Gideon Toury, one of the representative Polysystem translation theorists, put forth his own theory of descriptive studies which further propels the"cultural turn"in the field of translation studies. Based on a great deal of case studies, Toury's research constructed a multi-dimensional framework for translation studies in which the role of translation norms is highlighted. Toury claims that translation is a norm-governed activity and explains the influences of the target culture upon the translating and translation products from the perspective of translation norms at three levels, namely, the initial, preliminary and operational norms.The thesis introduces the existing achievements in the study of Chinese translations of The Importance of Being Earnest and tries to explore the translation norms behind the two translations (Yu Guangzhong's version and Zhang Nanfeng's version). With a detailed comparative analysis of various translation strategies adopted, the thesis reveals the influence of norms upon the translating and translation products. The translators of the comedy are found to have been influenced by both the source and the target cultures between which they have to make a balance and compromise so as to achieve intended translation effects. Functioning at the different stages of translating, the norms constrain translators'choices of the source text, the literary and linguistic style of the target text as well as translating strategies. These norms are explanatory tools for revealing the causes behind different translations. The purpose of the thesis, however, is not to find or lay down a prescriptive rule for universal application, but to enrich the existing research results regarding the translations of Wilde's comedy from a descriptive perspective and to help facilitate a more thorough and comprehensive understanding of the translation phenomenon.The application of Toury's theory of translation norms provides a new perspective for the study of the Chinese translations of Oscar Wilde's comedy. On the other hand, the case study can help us further testify and reflect upon Toury's norms theory.