A Study On Translation Criterion: Toward Pluralism And Complementarism

It is said that 20th century is the century of translation and 21st century is the century of translation theory. Translation criterion is of paramount significance for translation theory. Translation criterion functions both as a plumb-line for measuring the professional level of translation and as a good set for the translator to strive for. However, translation criterion seems to have become a deadlock, and no consensus has been reached concerning the translation criterion so far.This thesis is a theoretic study on the paramount yet debatable problem of translation criterion. Initially, the thesis makes an analysis of an avalanche of translation criteria at home and abroad, only to find all the criteria fail to find the truth of translation criterion in spite of their contributions. The landing point of this thesis is the theory of Plural Complementarism of Translation Standard (PCTS) which succeeds in resolving the endless arguments on translation criterion. Then, this thesis makes a detailed exploration of many aspects of PCTS. Special attention is paid to the approaches which Gu Zhengkun adopts, the content and the characteristics of PCTS, the significance of PCTS in theory and practice, and the enlightenment of PCTS to modern Chinese translation study. In order to test the validity of this epoch-making theory, this thesis undertakes a contrastive study of two versions of translated Mao Zedong's poems under PCTS. In the end, this thesis draws a tentative conclusion that PCTS symbolizes the trend of translation criterion and invites combined efforts to substantiate this epoch-making theory.