A Study Of Howard Goldblatt’s Translation Of Honggaoliang Jiazu From The Perspective Of Toury’s Translation Norms

Since the1970s, the dynamic descriptive translation studies have won its popularity inthe translation field. With the development of the descriptive study transcendental commenton translation such as “equivalent” and “good or bad” are replaced by the term “adequacy”.Among many scholars who have made contributions to the development of the descriptivestudy, Gideon Toury is no doubt the most outstanding. His research is not to formulatestandards on translation works, but to describe the translation process, to analyze thedifferent translation works during different historical periods to conclude the actual choicesmade by different translators in order to draw some rules which control translation behavior.He proposed that there are three kinds of norms: the so called preliminary norms, initialnorms and operational norms which restrict the translation behavior. The norm theoryprovides us with a more objective perspective in studying translation behaviors.Based upon Gideon Toury’s norm theory, the thesis makes a comparatively overallstudy of Howard Goldblatt’s translation of Honggaoliang Jiazu, describing not only theselection of the source text, but also the actual adoption of translation strategies and methods.The purpose is to make a thorough and objective analysis of translational norms and helpreader to better understanding of Toury’s norm theory. It is also hoped that the present casestudy will throw some light on the translation of Chinese literary works into English.