| George Bernard Shaw is a famous British playwright, critic and social reformer. He created 51 plays in his whole life, most of which focus on social problems. Mrs Warren’s Profession was created in 1894. When it was firstly published, the play was denied by the censorship immediately because of its sensitive topic related to prostitution. The ban on performances of the play was not canceled until the year 1924. Among Shaw’s works, the first play that was completely translated into Chinese is Mrs Warren’s Profession. It was fulfilled by Pan Jiaxun and then published on the magazine The Renaissance in 1919. Pan Jiaxun is a modern-play translator of China, who is famous for translating the masterpieces of Ibsen, Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, and makes great contribution to the development of the new play in China.In recent years, translation ethics has been widely concerned by domestic and foreign scholars. The translation theorist Andrew Chesterman, one of the most important pioneers, divides the translator’s ethics into five current models. Among them, the model of norm-based ethics derives from descriptive translation studies and norm theory, which mainly studies the norms that determine or affect the production and acceptance of translation. And it has unique significance on the research and description of translation process. In allusion to the whole translation process of translation activity, Chesterman points out the norms that restrain translating activity: accountability norm, communication norm, relation norm and expectancy norms. Taking the translator’s ethics as theoretical background, focusing on the translation norms, and being combined adequately with cultural context of the May 4th New Culture Movement, the thesis endeavors to demonstrate that Pan’s translation process presented some features of the norm-based ethics.This thesis takes the norm-based ethics as theoretical reference to study translation motivation, translation behavior and the fulfilled expectations in this Chinese version of Mrs Warren’s Profession. The thesis aims to prove that the translation norms are embodied in the process of Pan’s translation. The dissertation consists of five parts: The introduction of the play, literature review, theoretical background, thesis structure and its feasibility analysis are given in the first part. In chapter one, Pan’s translation motivation is analyzed. His motivation of meeting the cultural need of the New Culture Movement and enlightening the common people revealed his sense of responsibility as well as his professional qualities. In chapter two, his translation behavior is analyzed. He applied the translation strategies that kept the exotic style of the original text and made the Chinese version easy to be understood by the readers. Furthermore, he established and maintained the relation of “optimal similarity” between the two texts in the aspects of content, form and ideological implication. In chapter three, the author analyzes the fulfilled expectations on the Chinese version of Mrs Warren’s Profession. The Chinese version, as the outcome of translation, corresponded to the expectation of the target reader, because it did not violate the prevalent ethical values. And it also met the expectation of the translator, in that it promoted the development of the new play in China. In addition, the translation not only introduced the play of Shaw, but also introduced his political stance and his viewpoint on the issue of woman. Hence, the play corresponded to the potential expectation of Shaw.Based on the analysis of Pan Jiaxun’s translation of Mrs Warren’s Profession, the thesis endeavors to expound that Pan’s translation process coincides with the norm-based ethics model to a certain extent. The translator’s translation motivation reflected his sense of responsibility, which embodied the accountability norm and promoted the ethical value of “trust” between the translator and other parties. His translation behavior manifested the communication norm and relation norm, which facilitated the “understanding” of the readers and represented the “truth” of the original work. And the product of the translation incarnated the expectancy norms and the ethical value of “clarity”, for the reason that it corresponded to the expectations of the reader, the translator per se and the author. Therefore, his translation process complies with the connotations of the translation norms and the corresponding ethical values to a higher degree, which in a certain sense confirms the validity of Chesterman’s norm-based ethics model for the analysis of translation process. |
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