On Different Ethical Orientations In The Fourchinese Versions Of David Copperfield

Translation ethics refers to the norms that prescribe translators' translational behaviors.On the basis of translation ethics,Chesterman has put forward five models of translation ethics,which provides a new angle for translation studies.These five models are ethics of representation,ethics of service,ethics of communication,the norm-based ethics and ethics of commitment.Charles Dickens' s David Copperfield is a semi-autobiographical novel which is very popular all over the world and has many excellent translations.This study chooses four Chinese versions of David Copperfield from eminent translators,Lin Shu,Dong Qiusi,Zhang Guruo and Song Zhaolin as the research object.The thesis makes a dischronic case study on the four Chinese versions through descriptive,comparative and quantitative methodology,which aims at analyzing the four translators' different ethical orientations from the production strategies that the four translators have adopted in the process of translating.Then the study will analyze the reasons why the four translators have different ethical orientations.The study's findings are as follows: first,the main production strategies that the four translators have adopted are different,and the four translators have different ethical orientations.Lin Shu's translation has retained the main plots but has omitted many descriptions of environment,psychology,behavior,appearance and allusions for he has mainly conformed to the ethics of service.Dong Qiusi's translation is the most faithful to the source text in terms of both meaning and sentence structure for he has mainly complied with the ethics of representation.Zhang Guruo has mainly conformed to the norm-based ethics,hence his translation is very idiomatic which is brimmed with four-character phrases,Chinese idioms,allusions,colloquial words and dialects.Song Zhaolin's translation is very concise,fluent and easy to understand for he has mainly conformed to the ethics of communication.Second,the reason why the four translators have different ethical orientations is that not only they have different translation purposes and translation thoughts but also they have different political and cultural backgrounds.This study not only provides a new angle for translation study on David Copperfield but also enriches the researching scope of its Chinese versions.What's more,it makes a contribution to the study of ethical orientation from the late Qing Dynasty to the early twenty first century.