A Report On The Translation Of Ways And Means Under The Guidance Of Toury's Norm Theory

The report is formulated on account of my translation of the short story Ways and Means authored by Sana Krasikov.Sana Krasikov is a Jewish American fictionist who was born in the former Soviet Union and brought up in the United States.Her multicultural background pushes her to choose short fiction as a main weapon against inner conflicts as a female.Ways and Means,from the perspective of a female,manifests the great pressure and confusion facing the protagonist.The story itself is a quite new release on the 2018 issue of The New Yorker.However,evidence shows that the radio version of the story has been downloaded for half a million times and most of the listeners are among the eighteen-to-forty-fives.This echoes with Krasikov's name as one of “Granta's Best Young American Novelists”.Typical of literary translation,the translation of Ways ans Means necessitates the translator's efforts in thinking under different cultural contexts.In the process,Toury's norm theory acts as a great helper for the translator,according to which,translation activity is governed by three translational norms,i.e.,initial norms,preliminary norms and operational norms.After getting an overview of the source text,the author chose initial and operational norms as the main direction of the translation project.In the light of this theory,discussions are conducted on how and why specific translation strategies and methods are employed.To be more specific,the author's main focus is on the choice between foreignization and domestication,the translation of syntactic repetition,as well as the implementation of conversion and addition in translation.It is wished that the translation of Ways and Means can give an extra choice of entertainment for Chinese readers.Most importantly,the report itself may provide a unique perspective on how to narrow down translation methods and on how to deal with specific problems in translating short fiction.