Examining Two Chinese Renditions of Alice Walker’s Everyday Use: A Translator’s Approach to Modeling Critique

Abstract

Although recent developments in the field of translation studies have brought theory building to a new level unrestrained to comparative textual analysis by incorporating system cultural theories, the lack of a consistent model for descriptive translation studies is still a problem not to be overlooked. In light of the theories of quality assessment proposed by scholars such as Toury and House, this paper seeks to lay the groundwork for the construction of a systematic model for literary translation review, in specific hope to provide a solution to the chronic issue of exaggerated foreignization in Mandarin translation of English works. It begins by reviewing and evaluating the theories of ‘equivalence’ as well as ‘targetoriented’ and ‘source-oriented’ translation proposed by major theorists over time, and then on such basis, stating its own methodology which combines descriptive and register analysis. This paper then bases its discussion and paradigm building on Alice Walker’s short story, Everyday Use. It proposes, after a thorough case study, a possible solution to the above-mentioned problem: lexical chunk theory. The paper closes by providing an overview of the theoretical initiations embedded in it and pointing to new directions of further investigation.