On Norms In The English Translation Of Homecoming?And Other Stories By Martha P.Y.Cheung

Han Shaogong(1953-)is the recipient of “National Short Story Award”,“Lu Xun Literature Prize”,“Newman Prize for Chinese Literature” and others,and is also an advocate of “Root-seeking” Literature.He is one of the most influential writers in contemporary Chinese literature and his works have been translated into many languages.Martha P.Y.Cheung(1953-2013),the translator of Han Shaogong's works,believed that the two short stories “Homecoming?”,“The Blue Bottle-cap” and the two novellas “Pa Pa Pa” and “Woman Woman Woman” represent a “crucial stage” in his writing career.Later,Cheung,with the aim of introducing outstanding contemporary Chinese literary works into the western world,translated the four stories into English versions which were edited into a book Homecoming? And Other Stories.It was published in 1992 by the Research Center for Translation of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.The original stories in this English book had long been famous in China,and after the publication of the English book,they were paid attention to in the western world.Based on the above facts,this thesis,with the guidance of descriptive translation studies,conducts a case study of Cheung's English version Homecoming? And Other Stories from a perspective of Toury's translational norm theory.Based on a comparative close reading of the original stories and the translated book Homecoming? And Other Stories,this thesis gives an deep investigation into what translational norms Cheung conformed to from three aspects: preliminary norms,initial norms and operational norms.Translation is a norm-governed activity.Cheung is subject to different norms at different stages of her translation.First of all,before Cheung translates,the selection of the source text is restricted by preliminary norms,which are embodied in the following three aspects: Cheung's educational and working experiences,the artistic value of Han's stories and the overall literature climate the source text exists in.Secondly,the overall translation tendency of the translator is affected by initial norms.The translator takes acceptability and dissemination of the translated text into consideration,thus adopting domestication as her main translation strategy that tends towards the target language and its culture,and foreignization as a complementary translation strategy.Finally,the structure and linguistic material of the translated text are governed by operational norms.The translator reshapes the structure of the translated text by omissions,additions,segmentation of the paragraphs and so on so that the translated text is more suitable for the norms of the target language,which enhances its readability.In the meantime,when translating specific language material such as appellations,names of characters and places,common sayings,local vernacular,culture-loaded words and so on,the translator adopts foreignization,domestication and the combination of the two as her translation strategies so as to make the translated text more readable,and keep the flavour of the source text.After a study on Homecoming? And Other Stories guided by descriptive translation studies,the following conclusion can be drawn: since both Chinese and English belong to different cultural systems,Cheung is subject to different translational norms in the process of translation.She strove to strike a balance between adequacy and acceptability--to allow the translated text to retain heterogeneous cultural elements and to be readable and acceptable--in order to achieve the goal of introducing excellent contemporary Chinese literary works into the western world.