A Comparative Study Of Two Chinese Versions Of Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire From The Perspective Of Toury’s Translational Norms

The novel, Harry Potter and the Goble of Fire is the fourth book of Harry Potter series by the British writer, J.K. Rowling. This thesis selects Peng Chien-wen’s version from Crown Publishing Company and Ma Ai-xin’s version from the People’s Literature Publishing House, and designs to apply Touiy’s translational norms into the comparative study of these two versions. The comparative study will center on the treatment of the magic elements, culturally-loaded words and language varieties etc., which are frequently employed in Harry Potter and the Goble of Fire based on the huge gap between eastern culture and western culture and are unfamiliar to Chinese readers. The treatment of the alien between the original and the translated works, are not only challenges for translators but also more importantly, beneficial to find the translational strategies by the translator and the socio-cultural influences upon translators and their translations.Through the comparative study of translating names, magic incantations, magic creatures, magic places, magic tools, magic games, magic food, pun, figurative usage, language varieties and making notes on choice of words and textual formation from the original and the two Chinese versions together with the introductions, comments, cover design and illustrations etc. related, this thesis analyzes translators’strategies, compares the similarities and differences to reconstruct the operational norms behind, and tries to explain the influences from socio-cultural factors upon translators’behavior by means of descriptive approach. On the bases of reconstructing operational norms, this thesis investigates the Chinese publishers and their market positioning, the relationships among the original, Chinese versions and readers, reconstructs the preliminary norms, and analyzes the differences:Crown Publishing Company designs Harry Potter and the Goble of Fire as children’s literature to translate and the audience are planned to be children, while the People’s Literature Publishing House designs it as classic literature to translate, and the audience are supposed to be wider. After that, this thesis reconstructs the initial norm and further analyzes the differences of the translators and the translated works related with the initial norm:Peng Chien-wen is much more influenced by source text and source culture and her version is more oriented to adequate translation, while Ma Ai-xin is much more influenced by target culture and her version is more oriented to acceptable translation. The differences of the preliminary norms and initial norm exert great influences upon these two translators’translational strategies and their adherence to operational norms, which contributes to explaining the differences of the two translated works.Therefore, the achievement in this thesis is that:the application of translational norms and the searching of translational strategies and their explanations help us to understand more translational phenomena related with Harry Potter series. The conclusion from the thesis is that Toury’s translational norms provide a new perspective for the study of translators’ translating behaviors, target readers and the influences from socio-cultural factors upon translators’ decision-making process and their translations. Finally, as to the limitations in the thesis, suggestions for future study including more translation study in Harry Potter, translation history study for literature translation and the application of complex Chinese are put forward by the author.