An Analysis Of Two English Versions Of Tao Te Ching From The Perspective Of Norms Theory

Tao Te Ching,being one of the representative masterpieces of the East,exerts far-reaching and actually on-going influence on the oriental world.Attracted by its special charm,numerous translators took pains to translate it.Since its first English translation in 1868 by the Englishman John Chalmers,it was translated and published successively,which makes it the most widely translated text except the Bible,This thesis is intended to explore the English translation of this Chinese classic from the perspective of norms theory.Translation norms theory is an important part of translation studies.By the application of and the description to translation norms,the approach intends to provide a way to construct the theoretical system of translation studies and to guide the whole process of translation as well as translation related activities.Gideon Toury promotes and contributes a lot to the study of translational norms.He divides the translational norms into three categories:initial norms,preliminary norms and operational norms.Initial norms refer to the overall choice on the inclination to the source cultural norms or the target cultural norms.Preliminary norms including translation policy and the directness of translation are the macro factors constraining the translator before the translating behavior.While operational norms,including matricial norms and textual-linguistic norms,can be regarded as the micro ones affecting the translation of the source text.This thesis is a case study of two English translation versions of Tao Te Ching from the perspective of Gideon Toury's translational norms.By analyzing how translation is influenced by translational norms and how the translators may react to different translational norms,this thesis aims at probing the causes why there are so many translations of Tao Te Ching.It concludes that Tao Te Ching can not be fully. excavated by a single translation.One version of Tao Te Ching can not satisfy the need of every reader in every period.