A Study Of Xue Qiying’s Translation Of An Ideal Husband From The Perspective Of Translation Norms Theory

In the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China when the nation encountered national crisis, various political and cultural forces began to seek effective means to save the nation. Translation of foreign literary works was regarded as a tool to enlighten and instruct the public and was advocated with enthusiasm by the intellectuals. Academic researches on translators of foreign literary works during this period mostly focus on male translators and male translators have long been the hot subject of the translation studies. However, few people have noticed female translators who actively devoted themselves to the translation career. Just like male translators, female translators also made contributions to the cause as well as the social transformation. Some female translators answered the call of the male intellectuals to shape new women and translated foreign works with issues on western marriage, courtship and family life as well as works with typical western female images, attempting to reshape females’images and enlighten the public. Oscar Wilde’s comedies often centered on the marriages and family life of the upper class and stressed the vital role of women with independent personalities in maintaining the happiness and harmony of the families, which catered to the taste of the female translators. It is worth mentioning that Xue Qiying followed the historical trend and translated Wilde’s An Ideal Husband, and serialized it on the New Youth magazine. Xue’s translation focused on such hot issues as couple’s love, marriage, courtship and women’s independent characters and expressed much concern about women. Xue exhibited females’experiences and cognitive style in her translation and reshaped women’s fine images, which somewhat affected people’s views on marriage and love. As a social behavior, Xue Qiying’s translation activities aiming at enlightening the public would be governed by some norms. Toury holds that translation is a norm-governed cultural activity, hence his translation norms theory can provide a certain perspective for the study of Xue Qiying’s translation activity.In the1980s, Gideon Toury, one of the representatives of the polysystem translation theorists, advanced the cultural turn of translation studies by bringing forth his own translation norms theory. Translation is a complicated social and cultural activity and norm, a key concept in descriptive translation studies, connects translation and social cultural factors. Translation norms theory places translation activities in social and cultural background and employs the descriptive paradigm to generalize translation norms influencing translators’ decision-makings in literary translating activities, which broadens the field of literary translation studies.This thesis analyzes the social background, translation aims, strategies and linguistic style of Xue’s translation governed by translation norms from the perspective of Gideon Toury’s translation norms theory. Meanwhile, this thesis also discusses such issues as Xue’s significant involvement in promoting the translation heat of Wilde’s drama as well as the Vernacular Movement and Xue’s critical role in reshaping women’s new images and transforming people’s views on marriage and family. This thesis finally makes the following conclusions:firstly, Toury’s translation norms theory objectively recreates the influential factors and norms in Xue’s translation activity; secondly, Xue is governed by different norms at different translation stages; thirdly, Xue’s translation makes a good balance between the source culture and target culture and highlights female consciousness, which has a certain impact on people’s attitudes toward courtship, marriage and family and guide them to reconsider women’s role in society.Based on Toury’s translation norms theory, this thesis can figure out the norms influencing the translation process as well as the translation product, providing a new theoretical approach to Xue’s translation of An Ideal Husband and somewhat extending the application scope of Toury’s translation norms theory. What’s more, the thesis can arouse the attention of translation studies to Xue’s translation. In addition, the thesis can captivate the interest of the academic circle in Xue Qiying’s historical contributions and Toury’s translation norms theory, thus providing some clues for their further study.