A Study Of The Translated Version From The Perspective Of Chesterman's Translation Norms

The theory of translation norms tries to reveal norms in translation through descriptive translation studies.It forcefully stimulates the cultural turn of translation studies,thus serving as a good guide for both translation theory research and translation practice.Gideon Toury,as a renowed scholar in the studies of translation norms,has distinguished 3 kinds of translation norms:preliminary norms,the initial norms and operational norms.Based on Toury,Andrew Chesterman puts forword another set of translation norms,which includes expectancy norms(also known as product norms) and professional norms(also known as process norms).Professional norms operate at a lower level than expectancy norms.Here professional norms fall into 3 categories:The accountability norm,the communication norm and the relation norm.Under the framework of translation norms put forth by Chesterman,this thesis conducts a full and comprehensive research into the three versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin with an view to probing into how the theory of translation norms influences translators and their translations and how these influences are reflected in these translated versions.As we know,there are many Chinese versions of the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. The thesis picks up three of them as examples.They are:Lin Shu & Wei Yi's A Chronicle of Black Slave's Appeals to Heaven,Huang Jizhong's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Lin Yupeng's Uncle Tom's Cabin.Because these three versions are translated in quite different times and circumstances,they are highly representative of the rest. From Lin &Wei's version to Huang's version then to Lin's version,it is clear that three translators and their translations are under the influence of expectancy norms and professional norms.In expectancy norms,such factors like the prevailing translation traditions in the target language,ideological factors and reader's expectations and so on can exert great effects on translators and their translations alike. In professional norms,the demand for translators' accountability and optimal communication in their versions and so on also have its constraints for translators. However,translators still have initiatives and their own choices.They would adopt different translation strategies and sloutions to react to these norms,thus resulting in totally different translated versions.After the research,some conclusions have been reached in this thesis:1. Translation norms are historical and dynamic norm systems.The theory of translation norms can help us probe into translation process and the translated works more thoroughly.2.Generally speaking,the translators will try to conform to translation norms(especially expectancy norms) when conducting translation activity.As translation norms are governed by different values,thus,translators' conforming to translation norms will help promote these values.However,translators still have initiatives in the process of choosing how to conform to translation norms.Therefore, the difference in the three translated versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin is the result of translators' different ways of conforming to translation norms.3.The differences in translated versions of the original in different times reflect the historical variations in contents of translation norms,which,to some extent,interprets the rationaltiy of retranslation.