Comparing Two Chinese Versions Of Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone

The theory of cultural translation has been widely discussed and gradually developed. However, most of the studies about it focus on the differences between source text and target text and there are less research concentrating on the contrast of the same language. From the perspective of culture, this thesis makes a comprehensive comparative analysis of the two Chinese versions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Through the analysis, it is proved that both the mainland and Taiwanese translators are affected by their cultural background which leading to their own translation styles and different translation behavior such as setting up goals and target reader, understanding the source text, employing translation strategies and choosing

Li Jianjun(2010) concluded that proper nouns like people’s name and place name, which are used to indicate something, usually have the specific demonstrative function. Therefore, foreignization should be employed. In general, as for people or place’ name, transliteration could be used, while we should translate other proper nouns by paraphrasing either their pronunciation or meaning. However, domestication strategy is favored by Taiwanese translators most of time. The possible reason is that Taiwan has done better work in maintaining traditional culture and they put more emphasis on keeping the target language more familiar to Chinese readers. Nevertheless, the mainland China missed the chances to develop Chinese traditional culture due to the Great Culture Revolution that also causing cultural confusion. After that, the mainland China witnessed the great social change and broadened its horizon after the Reform and Opening policy being implemented, making them support foreign culture more. Since then, foreignization have advanced at an equal pace with

In this way, Taiwanese translator has done a better job in understanding some proper nouns that do not have corresponding expressions in the target language, such as “Privet Drive” and “Common room.” Because she has stayed in New York for a long time, she is acquainted with English-speaking country and its culture. However, the first translator of the mainland version, Cao Suling, was born in Russia and she was famous for her Russian ability. When she translated the book, she was 70 year-old. After she finished the first half of translation she doubted whether a book about magic could be published and refused to continue her job. Therefore, most of proper nouns were translated by Cao, who may not so familiar with the English culture as