Translating With The Translator's Idiolect In The Polysystem

LüShuxiang (1904-1998), a distinguished linguist, made great contributions to the establishment of conventions and grammar system in modern Chinese language. At the same time, he also translated many works from English to Chinese. Although Lü's translations are much less concerned by commentators and critics than his linguistic works, his translations are considered "idiomatic and natural". This is not only because of his command of a large vocabulary as a linguist but also for his subjective employment of an idiolect as a translator. How does he display a translator's subjectivity in his translations? What are the idiolectal features of his translations? Are his translation also subjected to the regulation of the conventions and norms of the Polysystem? This thesis intends to address to the questions by taking a close study on one of his most appreciated and admired translations, the novella Ethan Frome, written by the American female writer Edith Wharton. Furthermore, as there exist two other Chinese translations of this novella, a comparative analysis is devoted to the differences of these three translations in the Polysystem.The thesis consists of three parts: the first part is an introduction to the background, motivation, scope, methodology, and significance of the project. The second part consists of four chapters. Chapter One describes the theoretical background of idiolect, Even-Zohar's Polysystem Theory and Toury's proposal of norms in translation. In the light of Lü's idiomatic diction, the second chapter deals with his translation with individual characteristics at the lexical level from three aspects: 1) Lü's employment of dialect in diction; 2) his idiomatic translation of noun modifiers and noun phrases; 3) and the technique of converting part of speech to domesticate the language in his translation. Chapter Three presents Lü's translation at the sentential level. It provides a detailed examination of the features in his translation of subjects; his strategy of shifting between the negative and affirmative forms, and between long sentences and short sentences. Furthermore, readers can find his strategy on deletion and amplification within the sentences as a translator's subjective choice. The fourth chapter investigates Lü's translation at the textual level on his translation of referent words and their senses, differences on translating punctuations, conjunctions and relatives from English to Chinese, and his conflicting notion of two sets of translation norms- adequacy and acceptability- displayed in sentence order.In the last part, an assessment is made about the employment of an idiolect as a balanced activity between the presentation of the source text and the translator's subjectivity. The function of the governing Polysystem is evaluated and the significance of the research work is estimated.