A Tentative Study Of Lin Yutang's Aesthetic Translation

This thesis unifies the Chinese traditional translation theories to make a thorough study of Lin's translation from the aesthetic perspective, with a tentative exploration into his"beauty"standard in his Six Chapters of a Floating Life, and to discuss the valid approaches to translate Chinese classics.This thesis begins with the study of Chinese translation aesthetics and analyses Lin's aesthetic thoughts reflected in his translation of Six Chapters of a Floating Life, with his On Translation as the theoretical basis. As a translator, Lin Yutang not only translated a large number of Chinese classical literary works, such as Six Chapters of a Floating Life, Chuangtse, A Nun of Taishan and Other Translation, etc, but also wrote many articles concerning translation, such as An Urgent Proposal to the Uniformity of Translated Forms, On Translation, On Poetry, etc. Among these articles, the most systematic and comprehensive one about translation theory was his On Translation written in 1933, with the total words of almost ten thousand. In this article, he creatively put forward that"translation is a fine art"and stated his three translation criteria, namely"faithfulness, fluency and beauty". Lin Yutang was the first translator who adopted aesthetically oriented view in his translation in Chinese translation history. His translation thought played an important role in Chinese translation area. The focus of this thesis is on Lin's translation aesthetics embodied in his version of Six Chapters of a Floating Life. Such a conclusion can be drawn: Lin's version fully represents the original beauty from three levels: linguistics, context and culture, perfectly reflects his aesthetically oriented view in translation.With profound bilingual and bicultural competence, Lin made immeasurable contributions to Chinese translation theory, especially in the translation of aesthetics. His aesthetically oriented view of translation provided guidance for Chinese activities, which is worthy of deep exploration and deliberation.