A Study On Xu Yuanchong’s English Translation Of Chinese Classical Poetry From The Perspective Of Chesterman’s Translation Ethics

Ethics is a discipline that studies the norms of interpersonal relationships and the corresponding moral standards in a specific society.Translation,as a kind of social behavior,involves interpersonal relationships among the original author,translator,reader,and other subjects.Therefore translation can be regarded as ethical behavior and needs ethical guidance.Andrew Chesterman’s translation ethics comprehensively summarized the existing translation ethics and provided a variety of perspectives for studying various translation ideas and practices.Based on Chesterman’s translation ethics,this thesis examines Xu Yuanchong’s representative translation of Chinese classical poetry.It is found that some of Chesterman’s translation ethics models are well reflected in Xu ’s translation.Representation ethics requires translators to be faithful to the original,without adding,deleting or changing the original works,while Professor Xu strives to represent the beauty of the sound,meaning,and form of the original poem,which is similar to Chesterman’s representation ethics.Communication ethics emphasizes that translators should avoid obscure language styles and incomprehensible cultural factors in translation,to achieve better communication with other subjects.Xu Yuanchong’s "Three Transformations" theory also requires translators to adopt appropriate translation methods,to promote readers’ understanding of the target text and achieve communication,which also reflects Chesterman’s communication ethics to some extent.According to service ethics,translated texts must consider the reader’s feelings,so that the target readers can enjoy the same reading experience as the original readers.Xu’s "Three Levels" requires translator’ works to be accepted and then serve the target audience,which closely follows Chesterman’s service ethics.Through the combination of Xu Yuanchong’s translation theories,this thesis makes a detailed analysis of Xu’s English translation of Chinese poetry from the perspective of Chesterman’s translation ethics,which further enriches the research and application scope of Chesterman’s translation ethics to a certain extent and provides a reference for the multi-angle study of Xu Yuanchong’s translation theories.