Abstract

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a realistic book mainly about the abolition of slavery, is a masterpiece of the American novelist Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe. This paper begins with a brief introduction of the author and this novel, and also some Chinese translators of this novel. Then it puts forwards some theories on translation. Based on the theories of translation, it compares two Chinese versions of this novel by analyzing their similarities and differences from diverse aspects.

Key Words: comparison, similarity, difference, translation theories
 
摘 要

《汤姆叔叔的小屋》，一部关于废除奴隶制度的现实主义小说，是美国著名的小说家斯托夫人的著作。本文从简要介绍该小说及其作者以及翻译过此书的中国翻译家入手，然后提出了一些翻译学家的翻译理论，并且在这些理论的基础上，对选取的两本中文译本进行了比较，通过不同方面的分析，比较这两个译本的相同点及不同点。

关键词：比较； 相同点；不同点；翻译理论

1. Introduction
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a novel written by an American author and abolitionist Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe and was published in 1852. Stowe had written more than 20 books all her life, including novels, memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the most popular one among them.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the bestselling novel of the 19th century. Because of its popularity, it was translated into more than 40 languages and even adapted into drama and films. Since the appearance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in USA in 1852, it has brought an enormous impact on social status, especially on abolitionism and even on American history.
There are many Chinese versions of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Among them two Chinese versions, given by Huang Jizhong and Na lanlan, are selected as the basis of analysis of their similarities and differences in translation. Huang Jizhong translated Uncle Tom’s Cabin around 1982 and named it《汤姆大伯的小屋》. He translated Uncle Tom’s Cabin twice. He did the work for the second time because his first version was burnt in the Cultural Revolution. Another version was given by Na Lanlan in 2010 and published by Harbin Publishing House, entitled《汤姆叔叔的小屋》.