On The Diversity And Unification Of Translation Criteria

This thesis attempts to figure out a way to reconcile the contradiction of diversification and unification among translation criteria. With this end in view, it begins with a brief review of the research patterns, the evolution of the Western and Chinese translation theories and the status quo of the relationship between different translation criteria. Through this review it is revealed that among numerous translation theory schools there are two representative ones—the linguistic school and the cultural school, which are to be taken as a breakthrough point for thesis. In terms of translation criteria, the linguistic school pursues the rule of "equivalent transposition" featuring "unification", while the cultural school squints towards "diversification". Thus a contradiction of "unification" and "diversification" arises between the two schools. Further study reveals that the cause of the contradiction is the disequilibrium between their emphases upon the "subject" and "object". Therefor a "balanced model for the subject and the object" is suggested so that an explanation is derived of the cause of why it is easy to be diversified and hard to be unified in today’s translation community. On this basis,"a model for the diversification and unification of translation criteria" is set up, by which the relationship between different translation criteria can be coordinated. But to some deeper problems, a quantitative analysis has to be made. To this end, a concept of "the best angle of observation" is proposed on the theoretical basis of the principle of projection and views in engineering cartography. After a comprehensive analysis of the correlation among "the best angle", the multi-viewing angles and various text styles, the message from the original to the target language is transformed into mathematical language, and a set of "quantitative analysis system" compatible with different translation criteria is deduced. Then, with the combination of "the quantitative analysis system" and "the model for the diversification and unification of translation criteria", a full set of multi-but-unified "qualitative and quantitative analysis system" of translation criteria is eventually formed.In order to keep our fingers on the pulse of how the "qualitative and quantitative analysis system" works, this paper goes on to take the three translated versions of a Chinese poem as an example, of which a detailed evaluation is made in the light of the system. As to the deviations or measuring errors, this thesis has also made an analysis of their causes and essence, and provided a method of how to cope with them.At last, through discussion of the development and the prospect of translation criteria, this thesis holds that we are in want of a multi-but-unified translation criteria system to keep pace with times. But how to finally achieve this goal is still a question of which a further study is needed.