| With the emergence of descriptive translation studies, scholars began to treat translation inan objective and all-round way, but not to be constrained by the ideal of “faithfulness†intranslation. Since the1970s, the descriptive translational norms study has transcended thelimitation of traditional translation standard and broadened the view and research field oftranslation studies, resulting in the flourishing phenomenon of translation studies. As one ofthe most important representatives of translation norm theory, Gideon Toury firstly set uptranslation studies from the perspective of translational norms and centered his researcharound the influence of the target culture on translation activities and translation products.Basing on a great deal of case studies, he pointed out clearly that translation was anorm-governed activity and categorized three kinds of norms: initial norms, preliminarynorms, and operational norms. From the choice of a text to translate, to the translation strategyto adopt before translation, then to the skills adopted in the actual process of translation, atranslator is without exception influenced and constrained by various factors or norms.Recently, therefore, there have been various studies of the English translation of China’sNational Defense White Papers. These studies have undoubtedly obtained some achievements,but have also suffered from certain limitations in their methodologies, scope of study andother aspects. The English translation of China’s National Defense White Papers, therefore,needs further investigations that may reduce such limitations. With the studies alreadyconducted in sight, therefore, the present thesis intends, by adopting Gideon Toury’stranslational norms as the theoretical basis, and using a descriptive method, to make a studyof norms in the English translation of China’s National Defense White Papers with sometranslational phenomena, such as literal translation, omission, addition, changes of sentence structure, so as to obtain a more systemic understanding of the role of norms in translation offoreign publicity materials in particular and translation in general. What’s more, throughexplorations of the norms found in the English translation of China’s National Defense WhitePapers, the study indicates that Toury’s translational norms are powerful to explain thetranslational phenomena in the English translation of China’s National Defense White Papers,and the author finds out some implications for the improvement of translation practice andteaching. |
