A Study Of Stephen Owen’s Translation Of Wen-hsin Tiao-lung From The Perspective Of Translation Shifts

With the enhancement of comprehensive national strength, China has toshoulder the responsibility of making itself well understood by other countries.Without any doubt, translation is one of the powerful media in introducing Chineseculture abroad. It is worth noting that overseas translators have been an importantrole in this career. Stephen Owen, a world renowned scholar, is one of the dedicatedsinologists, whose translation of Wen-hsintiao-lungis influential in Chinesetranslation circle. As one of the representative works,Wen-hsintiao-lung’s translationis worth studying, from which more translation phenomena can be found outespecially when the translation is done by the overseas scholars. The study of itwould be meaningful in exploring the world of translation studies and helpful inpopularizing Chinese culture.“Translation shifts” is one of those translation phenomena, and the core termand research perspective in this dissertation since all those shifts shown up in thetranslation are key points which can expose changes occurred between the sourcetext and the target text and provoke consideration over factors influencing all theshifts in the translation. In this paper, the introduction states the study’s backgroundand Wen-hsintiao-lung’s translation condition. Chapter one is an introduction to theconcept of “translation shifts” and the review of its development progress. Chaptertwo is a description of translation shifts in Owen’s translation of Wen-hsintiao-lung,in which linguistic shifts and non-linguistic shifts are distinguished and studiedrespectively. Chapter three is an analysis of factors influencing the occurrence of allthose shifts. Conclusion is the summary of the whole paper and more “translationshifts”, which are worth further academic attention and pursuing in translationstudies, have been mentioned in the end.