Translation Norms and Davis' Translation of Chinese Novels Translated from the Originals

The translation of John Francis Davis, a British sinologist, was represented by Chinese Novels Translated from the Originals that was based on The Three Dedicated Chambers, The Twin Sister and The Shadow in the Water from LI Yü's Twelve Towers. At every stage of his translating event, Davis was restricted by translation norms. His selecting Twelve Towers as the original was influenced by preliminary norms; his adoption of domestication as the major translation strategy to reduce strangeness was affected by initial norms; his employment of concrete methods, like omission, addition and rewriting, in dealing with the story plot reflected that he was limited by operational norms in his translating process. The wide spread of Davis' Chinese Novels Translated from the Originals is the result of the translator's active conformation to translation norms and is of referential value in advancing Chinese literature's going abroad.