A Comparative Study Of Three Chinese Versions Of The Treasure Island From The Perspective Of The Polysystem Theory

Translation strategy selection of translators has a strong relationship with historical and cultural background at their time.If researcher only analyzes translated text literally,ignoring other factors that may affect translation,it is hard to get a suitable judgement on translated text.Even-Zohar put forward the polysystem theory,leading the translation research into cultural level.According to the theory,the position of translated literature in polysystem in translator's time has a large influence on the translation strategy adoption.The purpose of the thesis is to explore the cultural and historical elements which may affecting different translation strategies adoptions by translators,through comparison of the three versions of Treasure Island.Under the guidance of polysystem theory,the thesis will have a comparative study on three Chinese versions from different periods of Treasure Island,which respectively are Xi Shizhi's version in 1934,Xin Ruo's version in 1980 and Ren Xiaohong's version in 2016.A text illustrating analysis is made on the three translated versions to explore the translation strategies adopted by the three translators.After reading related articles,from the perspective of polysystem,the thesis analyzes the positions of translated literature within literary polysystem in three translators' times,and the reason why the three translators apply different translation strategies.The times of the three versions belong to the three most representative eras of modern Chinese history.They are 1934 when China was experiencing semifeudal and semicolonial society,1980 when the Cultural Revolution was just ended and the reform and opening up was launched,and 2016 when the reform and opening up made a great achievement.According to polysystem theory,because of different exterior background,the positions of translated literature of the three translated versions are different.Both Xi Shizhi and Xin Ruo lived in a period that translated literature took central position with different reasons.So they mainly adopted direct translation and foreignization.However,Ren Xiaohong's version published in 2016,when translated literature was back to peripheral position.Readers require better reading experience under this circumstance,so Ren Xiaohong more tends to free translation and domestication.Finally,the thesis gets to a conclusion that different translated strategies adoptions by the three translators are not at random,but closely related to the social,historical,andcultural background of their times,which bears clear characteristics of times.And the position of translated literature largely influences the translation strategies selection and standards of translation.Through the comparative study,the findings of the thesis accords with hypothetical results of polysystem theory.