A Tentative Study On Lin Yutang And His Art Of Translation

This thesis is intended to make a case study of the great translator Lin Yutang and his art of translation shown in his translation of Six Chapters of a Floating Life. The author tries to investigate the role of translator's subjectivity in the process of translation, by focusing on the analysis of the personal subjective factors-particular the translator's cultural attitudes, translation motivation and translation principles so as to find out how these factors influenced his choice of the source texts and his translation strategies.Through detailed analysis of Lin Yutang's cultural attitudes, which include the analysis of his attitudes towards Chinese traditional culture-Confucianism and Taoism, and attitudes towards Chinese classical literature-the Hsingling(性灵) School, the author also tries to investigate on his early life experiences and educational experiences, which to a large extent lead to the formation of his cultural attitudes and literary conception. Under the double influences of the East and the West, Lin Yutang formed his unique attitudes towards the two cultures and his unique understanding of Chinese traditional culture. Hence comes into being his translation motivation to introduce Chinese culture by translating those works representing the Chinese philosophy of Confucianism and Taoism and those unconventional works such as prose, essay, novel, poetry and drama which agreed with his literary taste. In order to achieve the goals of introducing Chinese culture and appealing to the Western readers' interest, Lin Yutang used both domestication and foreignization, with skillfulness. In short, Lin's Chinese-English translation is faithful to the original in meaning and plain and explicit in language and accords with his standards for translation-"being faithful, smooth and aesthetic".Lin Yutang devoted his whole life to the cultural exchange between the East and the West. He made especially great contribution to the spreading of the Chinese culture to the world, and promoted the studies of translation theories. His contributions are permanent and his art of translation is worth appreciating and learning.