A Study On Lin Yutang’s Translation Choices In The Wisdom Of Laotse: A Perspective Of Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory Of Practice

Since the late 1990s,the translation studies introduce a new translation perspective that translation is more a social behavior than a linguistic and cultural one.The basic theoretical mode is Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice,in which the key concepts“field”,“habitus”,“capital” are of great avail in the study of translation and translators.Both a famous Taoist work and a marvelous traditional Chinese classic,Tao Te Ching exerts a significant influence both at home and abroad.Therefore,it has been translated in many languages and its popularity hasn’t declined at all.Lin Yutang,a productive Chinese-English translator,contributes his English version of Tao Te Ching in 1948.The Wisdom of Laotse is a creative production with great popularity abroad,especially in America.The Wisdom of Laotse has been recognized as a valued production in recent years,and recent focus has been on Lin’s translation strategies of it.By drawing support from Bourdieu’s sociological theory—Theory of Practice as theoretical foundation and the three key concepts--“field”,“habitus”,“capital”,the present thesis is to find out the sociological causes of Lin Yutang’s translation choices of the source text and his translation strategies in The Wisdom of Laotse.At the macro level,this thesis discusses both the external factors,namely,the “field” and “capital”,and the internal factor,namely,his “habitus”,which affect Lin Yutang’s translation choices in The Wisdom of Laotse.At the micro level,this thesis concentrates on text analysis and literature analysis to highlight the translation purposes and translation strategies of Lin Yutang.Additionally,the author is attempted to attest the feasibility of applying of Bourdieu’s sociological notions to translation studies and to further dig out Lin’s translation strategies in The Wisdom of Laotse from a social perspective.