teristics of a translationand helps to reveal reasons. To be specific, in examining the deep influence of socialand cultural elements on translation, Toury’s norms theory can be of special help. Inpresenting the parameters of his norms, Toury himself paid great attention to culturalfactors. His initial norms are referring to the general strategy a translator takes withhis translating purpose on mind and under the virtual social and cultural constraints.There are perfectly good reasons for choosing the three English versions of thenovel Luotuo Xiangzi. This book, the representative work of the acclaimed Chinesewriter Lao She, was translated into many languages and well received on many soilsin the 20thcentury. Among them, Evan King’s Rickshaw Boy in 1945, Jean M. James’Rickshaw: the novel Lo-t’o Hsiang Tzu in 1979 and Shi Xiaojing’s Camel Xiangzi,three popular English versions, informed numerous readers across the world of thisgripping novel. These three translations, generated by translators of differentnationalities at different period of time and against diverging social backgrounds, arewonderful materials for us to appreciate the overt as well as covert features indifferent versions of the same translated work due to their own social and culturalconstraints. By analyzing the reasons behind, we can see that these three Englishversions of Lao She’s Luotuo Xiangzi, one produced by an American in the 1940s, theother one by an American in the 1970s, and another one by a Chinese in the early1980s, form a terrific case for us to understand the profound bond between societyand translation.The Purpose and Scope of the ThesisInstead of a simple claim of the merit or superiority of one version amongseveral English translations, this thesis aims to analyze the impact sociological andcultural factors have on a translation by comparing three influential translated works.In the essay, a thorough examination of the differences in the three translations ismade and for a clearer demonstration and more systematic analysis, this essayapproaches those differences along the line of Toury’s initial norms, preliminarynorms and operational norms.
Chapter Two Norms in Gideon Toury’s Descriptive Translation Studies ... 13
2.1 Initial Norms.................................. 14
2.2 Preliminary Norms .............. 15
ectness of Translation...................... 16
2.3 Operational Norms ............... 16
Chapter Three Three English Versions under the Initial Norm.. 18
3.1 Three Translations’ Same Choice of being “Acceptable” Translations .. 18
3.1.1 Evan King’s Rickshaw Boy as an “Acceptable” Translation...... 20
Conclusion
After the traditional linguistic-centered translation researches around “fidelity”and “equivalence” reached a stalemate, the culture-oriented descriptive translationstudies opened up a brand new sight and injected much fresh blood. For a betterorganized descriptive study, Israeli scholar Gideon Toury suggested translation norms,which came from the shared values and ideas of a community, to guide translationpractice as well as translation theoretical research. In presenting those norms, Touryconsidered the general choices a translator had to make, such as the predominance oftarget language or source language norms, to make his translation acceptable oradequate. He paid attention to the actual factors a translator was compelled to face,such as translation policy and directness of translation. Furthermore, he alsoconcerned himself with the virtual formation of a translated work, the matricialpresentations and the textual-linguistic realizations.The three influential English versions of the Chinese novel Luotuo Xiangzimanifested th
