| Previous researches on the renowned American translator Howard Goldblatt and his translations involve translation strategy,translation method,translator’s subjectivity,and translation thought to name a few.Among them,studies of Goldblatt’s translation thought are conducted either by a pure discussion,or from his translational behavior.Few of researches combine the two and offer reasons for the formulation of his translation thought,thus,the relevant research conclusions are often one-sided.Under the framework of Gideon Toury’s Translational Norms,the thesis takes three steps to inspect Goldblatt’s translation views.Firstly,Goldblatt’s translation views are summarized from his explicit statements about translation to reconstruct his initial norm from the extratextual aspect.Secondly,a case study on the idiom translation in Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out is carried out to reconstruct the operational norms abided by Goldblatt from the textual aspect.Thirdly,Goldblatt’s initial norm and operational norms are compared to explore whether the gaps exist between them.Then the textual socio-cultural reasons related to his preliminary norms that exert impact on Goldblatt’s translation views are explained to underscore his individual translational norms,namely his unique translation views.The integration of Goldblatt’s translation views is based on his translation thoughts presented in his own books,articles,translation prefaces,as well as interviews with others,which can be summarized as reader-orientation,faithfulness and rewriting,role of translator,function of translation,and relationship between translation theory and practice.The study finds that Goldblatt’s initial norm deduced from his overall translation views is inclined to target norms,that is acceptability,but his perspectives on idiom translation tends to source norms,i.e.adequacy.Tendency to acceptability is affected by the mainstream poetics in the target culture and longings for the circulation of his translation.Disposition towards adequacy is due to Goldblatt’s enthusiasm for Chinese literature and culture,respect for the author’s idiosyncrasy,hankering to be an anti-cultural colonist and defense of the translator’s role.Meanwhile,the idioms in the original novel are collected and classified into four categories,namely,set phrase,idiomatic expression,proverb and two-part allegorical saying.Through the close reading and comparison of the source text and target text,the research finds that Goldblatt adopts three translation methods to translate those idioms,viz.literal translation,free translation including omission and borrowing,together with literal plus free translation,among which literal translation is mainly used.Therefore,operational norms reconstructed from Goldblatt’s translational behavior adhere to source norms,that is adequacy.The thesis holds that Goldblatt’s idiom translational behavior coincides with his perspectives on idiom translation,but is inconsistent with his overall translation views.The descriptive studies of Howard Goldblatt’s translation views underline his distinctive translational norms against the mainstream norms in the current western literature system,which help us understand better his translation and further the “Going Out” of Chinese literature and Chinese culture. |
