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Since early 20th century, translation studies gradually broke
away from the marginal status within other related disciplines and established
itself as an empirical science.
From then on, schools of
thought have kept coming out and each claims its legitimacy for existence.
Among these schools is Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS).
DTS approaches translation from
an empirical perspective. Translation is viewed to be a social activity having
significant importance in the receiving culture and for the target community.
Therefore, translation is dealt with beyond the linguistic realization and
language comparison, and is incorporated in social and cultural context.
My attention was first directed
to DTS by its peculiar4 characteristic of observation, description and
eXPlanation. The subject is whatever happens in translation practice, from the
determination of prospective function of translation to the process of
translator’s choice of strategies, brainstorming6 and the revision, to the
final product making appearance in the target community.
The method of DTS is basically
descriptive. The prescriptive tendency and the problem-solution pattern is
abandoned. Translation phenomena are noted down. With accumulated data, some
underlying truths about translation will come out which will prove to be
instructive not only for theoretical probe but also for applied translation
practice. I will apply this descriptive method in the case study of this thesis.
A convenient tool has been set
up to conduct DTS. “Norm” is operative at every stage of description and
eXPlanation. Function, process and product and their relationship as well are
skeletal structure of what constitute descriptive studies. Translation
phenomena are accounted for with the help of norm.
The case taken in this thesis
is the Chinese classic The Dream of Red Mansions. Two English versions
translated respectively by Yang Hsien-yi and David Hawks are compared and
observations are made in regard to their translation approaches.
In this regard, my observations
are limited to several aspects, I hope in-depth observation and eXPlanation
will done in light of DTS.
Development and major
concepts of DTS
In this part I will describe
Holms’ basic map of DTS and the relationship between function, process and
product. I will also discuss some important concepts such as
pseudo-translation, multiple translation, translationese, norm etc.
Methodolgy
I will in this part discuss the
methodology of DTS before I apply the same to the case study in this thesis
with emphasis to be placed on semiotic approach and the concept norm.
DTS in contrast to other
theories
A contrast study will be
conducted here with the objective to find the difference of DTS from other
theories such as equivalence theory and the Chinese Xin Da Ya criteria. Some
advantage will possibly be shown in this study.
Case study
In this part, translation of
The Dream of Red Mansions (also translated as The Story of The Stone) will be
under investigation in light of DTS. Translation samples to be quoted here will
be selected at random.
Conclusion
Based on the above elaboration
of DTS and the case study, possible conclusion will be on the advantage of DTS
in specific study of translation. Suggestions on further research efforts will
be made also.
It is therefore pointless to
try to make TC more scientific than is sensible in view of its complex
subject-matter and available methods. Translating is a mental, multi-factorial
activity which cannot exhaustively be investigated within a linguistic
framework ignoring the person of the translator.”
