An Ethical Study On The Translation Of Vulgar Language In The English Version Of Hong Gao Liang Jia Zu By Howard Goldblatt

The conceptual meanings of vulgar languages are characteristic of being rude, obscene,indecent, and unpleasant, but they are usually provided with functions of attacking others,protecting oneself, and expressing emotions of annoyance, surprise, insult, resistance, or emphasis, etc. In addition, vulgar languages can reflect differences of nationality in morality,culture, the mode of thinking, customs and so on. Although they exist in the negative form of languages and have always been rejected by people, vulgar languages constitute one organic part of the language system, and being a kind of common social phenomenon, they contain unique cultural connotations, thus, they deserve being taken seriously by related scholars.However, in the process of sorting study data the author finds that the relevant researches on the translation of vulgar language are few and far between compared with other research fields. And when translators are required to translate vulgar languages, the most common practice adopted by them is “evasion” or “purification”. In fact, in many literary works, vulgar languages play an important role in portraying character’s personalities and images. The practice of so-called “evasion” or “purification” will most likely weaken the expressive effect of the original languages and make the original meanings distorted in the target version more or less. Therefore, any questions about the translation of vulgar languages deserve more researchers’ attention; what’s more, researchers themselves should also try to study vulgar languages from different theoretical perspectives.Ethics refer to the behavior principles of right and wrong that are accepted by a certain social group, which usually involve the interpersonal relationships. And ethical issues are always present as long as the interpersonal communication happens. Since translation belongs to a kind of cross-linguistic and cross-cultural human communicative activity and behavior, it will certainly be affected by various ethical concepts. As for activities concerning translation,Finnish scholar Andrew Chesterman specifically categorizes five models of translation ethics based on the previous researches, namely, ethics of representation, ethics of service, ethics of communication, norm-based ethics, and ethics of commitment. These five translation ethics models can not only explain the nature of translation ethics in detail but also provide the translator with some relatively instructive and practical reference standards in their translation practices.In this thesis, based on Andrew Chesterman’s translation ethic models, the author has analyzed the translation process of vulgar languages presented in Mo Yan’s novel Hong Gao Liang Jia Zu, aiming at exploring the specific influences of these ethics models on Goldblatt’s work and the corresponding translation measures Goldblatt has adopted in his work.This thesis employs qualitative analysis as the major study approach to expound the feasibility or inadequacy of Goldblatt’s translation. The major research objectives are as follows:(1) to find out some effective translation methods or strategies for vulgar languages;(2) to explore the tension of Andrew Chesterman’s translation ethics theory;(3) to draw some useful enlightenments on the possibility of realizing a better communication between different cultures. The author hopes that the present thesis is able to provoke researchers’ interests in the relevant studies of translation ethics as well as arouse their deeper ethical reflection on their own translation behaviors.