A Tentative Study Of The Ethical Approach To Translation Studies

Reviewing the various kinds of approaches to Translation Studies from the discussion of Cicero in the first century BCE to the deconstructive tendency in contemporary translation theories, this thesis demonstrates the necessity of establishing a new, rational approach to Translation Studies and aims at exploring an ethics-oriented approach.The thesis is first of all devoted to the relationship between ethics and translation and the feasibility of the application of ethics to Translation Studies. In light of the present study of the question of translation ethics, the thesis will borrow the five models of ethics proposed by Andrew Chesterman to conduct a tentative study that combines theoretical research with the translation practice.The thesis then focuses on the analysis of translation ethics and the translator's obeying and violating. It uses Lin Shu's intentional mistranslation with respect to ethical cultural differences as a case for study, the reason for which lies in the fact that Lin's mistranslation took place in a strikingly distinctive socio-cultural background and that the distinction between ethics of a culture and ethics of translation is thereby to be clarified. Through detailed analysis based on Chesterman's five models of ethics, the thesis points out the inherent conflicts of translation ethics and demonstrates the voluntary mediation on the part of the translator. While violating the ethics of representation on the one hand, Lin Shu objectively obeys the norm-based ethics, the ethics of service and the ethics of communication. Further, by comparing modern and contemporary re-translations with the mistranslated examples of Lin Shu cited before, the thesis points out that translation ethics is in nature a diachronic concept, and so is the translator's ethical consciousness. In terms of Lin Shu's mistranslation, the thesis re-evaluates it from the perspective of ethics.Finally, the thesis discusses the ethics of translation in the context of globalization, pointing out that cultural globalization poses a new situation to the translation practice and therefore highlights the ethics of translation in the new context. It also provides some hints for increasing the translator's ethical consciousness.