A Comparative Study Of Two Chinese Versions Of Uncle Tom’s Cabin From The Perspective Of Translation Norm

It is generally acknowledged that different translations of the same original work wereand will be created during different ages. Different versions owns different characteristics.There is no doubt that different versions, especially created before or after great socialchanges, have greater verities between each other. The famous English novel Uncle Tom’sCabin was translated into classical Chinese by Lin Shu (named Hei Nu Yu Tum Lu) and byHuang Jizhong (named Tang Mu Da Bo De Xiao Wu). Both versions were created in typicalhistorical periods, namely, cultural turn. We can safely come to the conclusion that Lin Shu’sversion was created in a contemporary cultural transition period from the Opium War to theNew Culture Movement, while Huang Jizhong’s version was created in a modern culturaltransition period from the year of1978till now. By applying the norms theory, this thesisgives a diachronic description by comparing the two translations through the aspect of thelinguistic and cultural perspectives, analyzing the factors of the differences and demonstratingan crucial role that socio-cultural factors can caused in the process of translating.We can not doubt that the translation norms theory has an important role in translationstudies. By the approach and the description to translation norms, the thesis attempt to providea method to the whole process of translation as well as translation related action; and tosupport Gideon Toury to apply the theoretical system of translation studies. There are threecategories of translation norms from Toury’s point of view: initial norms, preliminary normsand operational norms.This thesis is a case study of two Chinese translation versions of Uncle Tom’s Cabin fromthe aspect of Toury’s translational norms. By discussing the process of the question that howthe translational norms affect translation activity and how the translators may take to differenttranslational norms. This thesis attempts to describe the reason why there are so manytranslations version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. We can gets the conclusion that Uncle Tom’s Cabincan not be fully worked by a single translation. It is not reasonable that one version of UncleTom’s Cabin can not satisfy the need of every reader in every period.