| Nathaniel Hawthorne, the most influential novelist in American literature during the Age of Romanticism in the19th century, gained his good reputation through his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter. Since the publication of The Scarlet Letter in1850, it won great success and became the best-selling novel at that time. There are several translated versions of The Scarlet Letter in China, among which Yao Naiqiang’s version published in1985and Shi Heng’s version in2002have enjoyed great popularity among readers. Both versions are worthy of being explored and studied.This thesis is a case study of these two Chinese translations of The Scarlet Letter from the perspective of expectation horizon. The purpose is to find out how literary translation as well as translator is influenced by reception aesthetics and how the translated version embodies this effect by making a detailed analysis of the style, image and connotation of the two versions.The thesis begins with the purpose of the thesis and a brief introduction to The Scarlet Letter and its translation, including the author—Nathaniel Hawthorne. Then it deals with the previous research findings in "Literature review" on the study on the novel—The Scarlet Letter and its translation in China and goes over previous application of the reception theory to the comparison of literary translation. The body chapters of the thesis attempt to explore how translators deal with the relationship between the original text, translator and the potential readers by making a comparison with the style, image and connotation of the translations from the angle of expectation horizon and summarize how translators satisfy the readers’ expectation horizon and even surpass their horizon in the process of translation. At last, the paper points out the limitations of this research. On the whole, this paper aims at bringing about a new perspective for translation studies, attempting to make it referential to translation research and practice. |
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