Different Responses Conditioned By Norms To Newman's And Legge's Foreignizing Translation

This study investigates the reception of the foreignization translation within the framework of norms, on the basis of the comparison of the contrasting feedback of the British readers on Newman's and Legge's foreignizing translation in the 19th-centurty Victorian England. The purpose is to reveal the constraints of norms on the reception of foreignizing translations, supplemented by the study on the relationship between norms and translator's subjectivity in Victorian England.The thesis expounds on the feasibility of the comparison of these two translations, assumes that norms take effect in the reception process of them and then describes their similarities and different destiny. Of the seven similarities, three are elucidated: the translations were published in the mid-19th century when England was powerful and prosperous; the originals respectively took up a high position in the source culture and foreignization was employed as the major translation strategy. The translations, however, received different responses from readers—the British academic elites. Newman's Iliad was fiercely attacked while Legge's Analects of Confucius had been considered authoritative since its birth.The interesting phenomenon is due to three norms: literary norm, social norm and reader's expectancy norm. Literary norm refers to the inherent classical conception of the literary works or literary research approach, which allows no sub-stream interpretation. Social norm requests that the translation motivation be in accordance with the social climate. Reader's expectancy norm means that reader's directional expectation has to be met before creative expectation, so the translator is expected to appropriately use both foreignization and domestication. Newman violated these norms due to his own intentionality and ultimately lost his readers while Legge conformed to the norms even when he brought into full play his subjectivity and reaped a friendly response. Therefore, we may conclude that when the critical and prescriptive translation studies prevails and the society lacks in the recognition of the social and cultural functions of translation, the translator's intentionality cannot afford to go against the norms and their subjectivity can only be unleashed under the guidance of norms.