Hybridity Of Domestication And Foreignization In Two Chinese Translations Of Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair is the masterpiece of William Makepeace Thackeray who is known as a critical realistic writer in the19th century. In this novel, the writer, with a good command of writing techniques, shows us a panorama of the upper class in the19th century. Vanity Fair has won great popularity across the world and has been translated into different languages. In China, various versions have come out since its introduction in the1930s, among which the most outstanding two are Yang Bi’s version and Peng Changjiang’s version. Yang’s version enjoys a pretty high status in China’s translated literature, and has been labeled as "one of the best translated novels"(孙致礼,1996:153). Peng’s version has been included by The Library of Classical Literary Works in the World in2005. However, current studies on the Chinese versions of Vanity Fair mainly center around the linguistic level and little attention has been paid to the hybridity in the two versions.The word "hybridity" derives from biology. In translation studies, it refers to a characteristic of a translated work which blends organically the linguistic and cultural elements of the original work with that of the target language. On the basis of the theory of hybridity, this thesis combines close textual analysis with diachronic cultural description, so as to solve the following questions:1) How is hybridity manifested in the two different versions?2) What factors account for the different degrees of hybridity in two versions?Through analysis, this thesis concludes that the two versions are characterized by hybridity; however, due to various internal and external factors, the degrees of hybridity in each version are different:while Yang’s version is domestication-oriented hybridity, Peng’s version is foreignization-oriented hybridity. This conclusion has enriched translation studies on Chinese versions of Vanity Fair. What is more, hybridity, with its unique advantages in respecting differences and helping to construct culture identity, sheds new lights on English-Chinese literary translation in the context of cultural globalization.