Recreation Of Response-inviting Structure In Lin Yutang's English Translation Of You Meng Ying From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

As an outstanding Chinese literary figure and translator in the twentieth century,Lin Yutang(1895-1976)has successfully introduced Chinese traditional culture to Western readers and made great accomplishments both in translation practice and translation theories.His translations are known for fluent,natural and live expressions.Dreams Shadows,Lin Yutang's English translation of You Meng Ying,consists of 219 essays and has extensive popularity among readers at home and abroad owing to its beautiful language,profound philosophies and the appropriate interpretation.As a special branch of art,proverbial-style essays require that translators should convey the original artistic and aesthetic value in another language and enable the target reader to produce the similar aesthetic feelings or experiences to the original reader.The translation of proverbial-style essay is not only the intralingual communication but also the writer's creative activity.Since aesthetics exerts certain influence on translation both in theory and in practice,it is of great benefit to apply reception aesthetics to the exploration of proverbial-style essay translation so that the target reader can better understand the translation through the act of reading while analyzing the aesthetic and artistic value of the translation.On the basis of reception aesthetics,the thesis conduct a research on recreating the response-inviting structure of Lin Yutang's English translation of You Meng Ying from such aspects as horizon of expectations,fusion of horizons and the implied reader.Taking 33 essays as the research objects and adopting the textual analysis method,the thesis interprets the indeterminacies and blanks of five stratums,covering phonetics,semantics,rhetoric,image and artistic conception as well as thoughts and feelings.The thesis has been divided into five chapters.Chapter One gives a brief introduction to the background,significance,methods and structure of the research.Chapter Two conducts a systematic literature review of reception aesthetics and You Meng Ying at home and abroad.Chapter Three demonstrates the theoretical basis of the thesis,the response-inviting structure of the literary text and the enlightenment of the response-inviting structure to literary translation.Chapter Four makes a comprehensive analysis of the recreation of blanks and indeterminacies in multifaceted stratums of response-inviting structure in Lin Yutang's English translation of You Meng Ying based on horizon of expectations,fusion of horizons and the implied reader from the perspective of reception aesthetics.Chapter Five draws the conclusion of the thesis,in which particular findings,implications and suggestions are indicated.The thesis finds that Dream Shadows is the production of the interaction between the horizon of expectations of Lin Yutang on one hand,and the response-inviting structure on the other hand.Owing to the fusions between the horizon of expectations of Lin Yutang and that of the author,then that of the work,as well as that of the western readers respectively,Lin Yutang maintains blanks and indeterminacies in five stratums of the response-inviting structure in the original text to the largest extent.By this means he appropriately recreates the style and gist of You Meng Ying,Therefore,the translator is supposed to provide an appropriate space for the target readers in order to invite them to participate in the act of reading,actualize the value of the literary work and promote the dissemination of Chinese literature in the Western world.Lin Yutang's English translation of You Meng Ying makes great contributions to Chinese literary translation and is deemed as valuable treasure in Chinese literary translation history.Therefore,it provides a new perspective for the appreciation of Dream Shadows to explore the response-inviting structure in the translation based on reception aesthetics and schematized structure of the literary work.The thesis is of benefit to inspire systematic and comprehensive researches on Dream Shadows in the future.