A Descriptive Analysis Of Zhou Shoujuan’s Translation

This paper discusses Zhou Shoujuan’s translation of A Collection of Short Stories byRenowned European and American Writers in the perspective of Descriptive Translation Studies,focusing on the norms underlying his rendition. Generally acknowledged as “master ofsentimental fictions”, Zhou is one of the representatives of the Mandarin Duck&ButterflySchool. The amount of his translation back then is second only to Lin Shu. To learn about thetranslational norms and atmosphere of the late Qing Dynasty and the early years of the Republicof China, Zhou’s translation can never be neglected. As the highlight of his translation career, theCollection can best represent Zhou’s translation style.I compare31of the stories and their source texts, thus creating a self-built corpus of ZhouShoujuan’s translation. Under the perspective of DTS, the relationship between the translationand its socio-cultural environment is examined. By using corpus tools and qualitative analysis,the research summarizes the major characteristics of Zhou’s translation. Launching out with thepoetic tradition and socio-cultural environment, the causes of these translation phenomena arethus postulated. After analyzing the preliminary, initial and operational norms of the translation, Icome to the following conclusions:Firstly, from the perspective of preliminary norms, the translator chooses short storiesbecause they are more suitable to be published on newspapers and magazines with their shortcontent and recreational function. As a drastically different style compared with traditionalChinese short stories, western short stories take the “intersecting surface” as their narrativecontent and caters to the needs of the readers at that time. Though his preference of tragicromantics has much to do with his fruitless first love, Zhou’s selection of family, patriotic andghost stories runs in parallel with the conditions of the nation and people.Secondly, from the perspective of initial norms, I find out that Zhou domesticates the STmost of the time. His top concern is the successful entrance of his stories into the target languageculture in order to enlighten his fellow people. It also reflects his concern about sales volume andhis inheritance of the traditional literary translation style. One thing that merits attention is thatwhen translating in classic Chinese, Zhou often maintains the images and expressions of theoriginal texts. This has much to do with the stylistic difference between classic Chinese andvernacular Chinese.Last but not least, from the perspective of operational norms, the translation skills in theCollection can mainly be classified into five categories: addition, omission, rewriting,transliteration and annotation. The skills are used according to the consideration of target readers’ acceptance, the imitation of story-telling scene, the inheritance of the characteristics ofChinese classics, the influence of Zhou’s personal aesthetic preference and his activeintroduction of western culture.The thesis tries to describe Zhou Shoujuan’s translation as systematic and complete aspossible, attempting to figure out the socio-cultural factors and poetic traditions behind theseseemingly irregular and free translations. To study a reproduction like this, one cannot ignore itsbackground and tag it as “disloyal” arbitrarily. I hope to provide a more acceptable researchmethod towards other literary translations in late Qing and early Republican China like Zhou’s.