A Study Of Howard Goldblatt’s English Version The Garlic Ballads From The Perspective Of Gideon Toury’s Translation Norms Theory

Tiantang Suantai Zhi Ge is one of Mo Yan’s realistic masterpieces. It was written in 1987. It was this novel that ignited Howard Goldblatt’s enthusiasm for translating Mo Yan’s works. This thesis is a case study of Howard Goldblatt’s English version The Garlic Ballads under the framework of Toury’s translation norms theory.Toury states that translation is an activity that is constrained by norms and he classifies translation norms into three types: preliminary norms, initial norm and operational norms. Preliminary norms consist of two parts: directness of translation which determines whether the text should be translated through a third language and translation policy which refers to the factors that govern the selection of a source text. Initial norm influences translators’ basic choices between two polar alternatives:adequacy and acceptability. Operational norms direct actual decisions made during the translation process, which involve the employment of translation techniques and the rearrangement of paragraphs.According to Toury’s three translation norms, this thesis firstly analyses the translation from the perspective of preliminary norms. It tries to identify the factors that have influenced Howard Goldblatt’s selection of Tiantang Suantai Zhi Ge and explore the social and cultural background and western readers’ expectation in the 1990s. Secondly,based on Toury’s notion of initial norm, this thesis discusses the overall translation strategy that Howard Goldblatt has adopted by analysing the translation of culture-loaded words, four-character phrases, and slang words. Besides, the thesis tries to identify the reasons for which he chooses to adopt domestication as the main translation strategy. They are mainly discussed from the following two perspectives: the position of Chinese translated literature in the world and popular translation strategy in western countries from the 1970s to the 1990s. Thirdly, a more detailed analysis is conducted according to Toury’s description of operational norms. By illustrating with plenty of examples, this thesis explores how the linguistic material is reorganized and how the structure is rearranged in the translated text.After the study of Howard Goldblatt’s The Garlic Ballads, the major findings are as follows. Firstly, Howard Goldblatt’s selection of Tiantang Suantai Zhi Ge originates from his love for Mo Yan’s works and is also influenced by the attitude of publishing houses and western readers’expectation. Secondly, Howard Goldblatt’s translation is inclined to attain acceptability in translation, which is due to the relatively weak position of Chinese translated literature in the world and the popularity of domestication strategy in western countries from the 1970s to the 1990s.Thirdly, in terms of textual rearrangement, Howard Goldblatt adopts three methods to make the translation well-received by target readers, i.e.,omission, division, and merging. In terms of the selection of linguistic material, Howard Goldblatt mainly employs four translation techniques to remove cultural barriers, namely, substitution, adaptation, deletion, and addition.The case study of Howard Goldblatt’s English version The Garlic Ballads under the framework of Toury’s translation norms theory can help get a much more comprehensive and objective understanding of Howard Goldblatt and his translation works, which can provide references for similar literary translation studies in the future.