A Comparative Study Of The Two Chinese Versions Of The Great Gatsby

In the 80s of the last century, Toury carried forward, developed Even-Zohar's Polysystem Theory and Holmes'translational studies, put forward the theory of translational norms. His theory has three parts: the importance of descriptive study in translation, the target-oriented research method, and the study of translational norms. The third part is the core of his theory and covers the first and second parts. The aim of his study is not to make rules for translation but to find the norms followed by the translators in translation practice, and to build the complete system of constraining factors in translation. His theory breaks through the traditional translational theories'faithfulness and equivalence standards and prescriptive characteristic, which broadens the concept of translation and provides a new and more complete perspective for people to consider and explain the translational phenomena. Under the background of society and culture, he investigated the process of translation and divided the constraining factors into three types which form three parts of translational norms: the preliminary norms, the initial norms and the operational norms. The first two types of norms influence the production of translation on a macro level, and the last one forms the micro-level influence. Preliminary norms which can affect the selecting of source text include the translational policy of a certain times of a certain culture, such as the types of works, writers and schools, and the directness of translation—if the target readers can accept indirect translation from a third language. Initial norms decides the whole tendency of translation by following the source language and culture's norms or abiding by the target language and culture's norms. Operational norms affects the whole structure of the text, the choice of words and the organization of the linguistic material.Under the same background of times, translating the same work, different translators have the different versions of translation; even the same translators will have different versions in different periods of life time; facing different readers the translator will also produce different versions. These situations fully show the translator's subjectivity. Different translators have different life experiences, literary culture, ideology, aesthetic standards, translational ideas, personal environment and so on. As the direct conductor of translation activity, these factors will have influence on translation which cannot be ignored.This paper starts from Toury's translational norms, studies and compares the two Chinese versions of The Great Gatsby by Wu Ningkun and Yao Naiqiang, probes into the influence of them on the production of translation, from selecting source text to choosing translational policies to adopting concrete translating skills. Translation is a process of making choices between two sets of norms. Translator's subjectivity is also an important factor in translational practice. When a translator follows the translational norms and at the same time exerts his translator's subjectivity, a good translation may be produced.This paper is divided into five chapters:The first chapter is introduction which briefly introduces the main points of the thesis, the methodology, the structure and the meaning of analyzing the versions from the two perspectives. The second chapter is literature review. It introduces The Great Gatsby and its author, their influence, the translation of it in China, and the evaluation of the translation. The third chapter introduces Toury's theory of translational norms and the study of translator's subjectivity. The fourth chapter is the analysis of the two translational versions and many examples are extracted from the texts to analyze the influence of translational norms and subjectivity. The fifth chapter concludes the whole paper: Toury's translational norms and translator's subjectivity have great influence on the production of translation and when the translator abides by translational norms and fully exerts his subjectivity, a successful translation may be produced. And the shortage of this paper is pointed out.