A Study Of Two Chinese Translations Of Pride And Prejudice From The Perspective Of Toury’s Norms Theory

The thesis aims at exploring the translation norms governing the two Chinese versions of Prideand Prejudice under the framework of Toury’s translation norm theory. In the 1980s, enlightened byEven-Zohar’s Polysystem theory and Holme’s translation studies, Gideon Toury put forward thetheory of translation norms, in which three issues are mainly highlighted, the importance ofdescriptive study in translation, the target-oriented method, as well as the study of translation norms.Based on a great deal of case studies, Toury carries out a multi-dimensional research in which thefunctions of translation norms are underlined. Toury claims that translation is a norm-governedactivity and explains the significance of target culture upon translating as well as translation productsfrom the viewpoint of translation norms at three levels, the initial, preliminary and operational norms.The thesis gives a brief introduction of related studies of Pride and Prejudice and attempts tosearch for the translation norms behind the two Chinese versions by Wang Keyi and Sun Zhilirespectively. By analyzing and comparing the different translation strategies and cultural background,the thesis probes into the influences of norms upon translation activity and translation products. Eachnorm influences the translation at different periods. Initial norm determines the whole inclination oftranslators by subjecting to the source norms or target norms. Both of the translators are found tofollow the source or target cultures which they need to keep balance between adequacy andacceptability. Preliminary norms relates with such factors as selecting source text, the translationstrategies as well as directness of translation. The two norms influence the production of translation atmacro-level. Operational norms affect the distribution of texts as well as the specific translation skillsin micro-level, including the diction, and the arrangement of linguistic segmentations.The purpose of the thesis is not to make rules for translation activity and translators but to findthe norms behind both of the translators during their translation process, which facilitates acomprehensive understanding of translation.Toury’s translation norm theory is applied to analyzing the two Chinese versions of Pride andPrejudice, which is an innovative attempt. On one hand, a different viewpoint brings a boost to theChinese versions of the work. On the other hand, Toury’s norm theory is furthermore testified by thecase study.