A Comparative Study Of English Translation Of Nicknames In Shui Hu Zhuan From The Perspective Of Translation Ethics

Ethics is the study on the conventions of interpersonal relationship in a certain society and their corresponding moral principles. All the cultural exchanges are without exception based on a certain value, moral and ethics, translation is no exception. Therefore, study of translation ethnics is the need of translation itself. The correct guidance of ethnics is helpful for coordinating sorts of cultural relationships and resolving cultural conflicts, it can be said that ethics is the key factor of deciding the quality of translation. Against the background of globalization, translation ethics has become a hot point in the translation research field, the research in this field can make us deal with the relationship between Self and Other more successfully in cultural communication.The study of translation ethics in the circle of translation theory began in the1980s, marked by the Proposal of the concept of translation ethics by French translation theorist Antoine Berman. Afterwards, Lawrence Venuti, Anthony Pym and Andrew Chesterman also brought forth their own thoughts on translation ethics, among which Chesterman’s idea can be regarded as the most representative. Chesterman clarifies his idea by elucidating five current models of translation ethics, namely, ethics of representation, ethics of service, ethics of communication, norm-based ethics, and commitment ethics. His concept crystallizes the existing ideas about translation ethics, thus providing us with a multi-dimensional perspective for studying diverse translation thoughts and practice.By exploring the embodiment of the five ethical models and the analysis of the ethical differences reflected in the two English versions of Shui Hu Zhuan through comparison between translations of nicknames, the thesis aims to enhance the translator’s ethical awareness of respecting differences in the process of translation, guide them how to deal with cultural peculiarity of the source text appropriately and prompt the development and dissemination of national culture. With Chesterman’s theory of translation ethics as the theoretical guidance, the thesis takes All Men are Brothers translated by American writer Pearl S-Buck and Outlaws of the Marsh translated by American Chinese literature translator Sidney Shapiro as the examples, and analyses ethical differences reflected in translations of nicknames. The author points out that the translators are supposed to abide by different modes of translation ethics and adopt different translation methods because they are influenced by some social culture, ideology, values and other factors.The thesis firstly introduces current situation and problems of studies on Shui Hu Zhuan at home and abroad, makes a review of translation ethics and a brief introduction of domestic and overseas studies. Then, the thesis focuses on the analysis of Chesterman’s five models and points out the conflicts among them. Finally, it discusses different models reflected by translation strategies when translators deal with cultural difference by applying the five models to the analysis of translations of nicknames. The author believes that the translator should not be extremely inclined to foreignization but strike a reasonable balance between foreignization and domestication strategies so as to preserve maximum cultrual peculiarity, it is necessary to adopt domestication moderately to transmit the source culture faithfully and keep the translated version fluent and cohesive.The thesis attempts at applying translation ethics to the English translations of the nicknames in Shui Hu Zhuan to figure out the best translation strategy to preserve cultural differences by making a parrallel comparison. The purpose of this study is to arouse the translator’s ethical awareness and thereby enable the theory of translation ethics to play its due role in cross-cultural communication, especially in disseminating traditional Chinese culture.