Text Translation, Cultural Encounter And Literary Relations

In the translation history of China, late Qing Dynasty was in the second climax of large-scale translation-introduction of foreign literature. Although the research on translated literature of late Qing Dynasty is getting increasingly attention recently, it hasn't been fully developed because the focus of most researchers are narrowed down to the great masters such as Liang Qichao, Yan Fu, Lin Shu. It is the research on translated works in novel periodicals of late Qing Dynasty, however, that are far from enough in that area. The novel periodical, as one of the main media of translated works of late Qing Dynasty, was a new kind of modernized and socialized communicating way of literature, which became the most recognized literary and cultural phenomenon in the cultural life of the society at that time. Its emergence symbolized a historical conversion in the communication of literature. The translation -introduction in novel periodicals of late Qing Dynasty is a unique way by which foreign literature entered into Chinese culture and got contact with Chinese ordinary readers, making itself a basic and representative part of translated literature of late Qing Dynasty for us to get a general idea of translated literature at that time.The thesis attempts to make a research on hundreds of translated works in five main novel periodicals of late Qing Dynasty as a kind of independent literary texts and puts forward some new concepts in research on translated literature of late Qing Dynasty such as "target genre", "yanshu", "yishu" etc. by combining with media-translatology of comparative literature, translation studies, reception aesthetics and the fact of translation-introduction in novel periodicals of late Qing Dynasty. Through an in-depth analysis of how the translated works in novel periodicals of late Qing Dynasty became a "cultural product of target language" in terms of genre, translating-introducing ways, translating-introducing strategy and concept of translation etc., the thesis reveals its significance in its contribution in the establishment of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literatures and cultures as a kind of common "translated literature". Chapter 1 reviews and differentiates the concept background of translation-introduction in novel periodicals of late Qing Dynasty and then classifies the translated works with reference to the genre and characteristics of China's classical novels from the angles of target language and target genre. The network of genre makes these translated works classified and reorganized, reflecting the general situation of genre of the translated works in novelperiodicals of late Qing Dynasty. Chapter 2 classifies the translated works into two main kinds according to their length and checks one by one on the characteristics of genre of all kinds of translated works and how they formed and analyzes the relationship between translated works and native works in novel periodicals of the same kind. It is also an exploration of how the literature tradition of target language controls the constitution of text and how the translated works affect the creation in turn from the details. According to the identity and activity (instead of the relationship of the target text and source text) of the translator inside and outside the target text, Chapter 3 puts forward two main kinds of translating-introducing ways—"yanshu" and "yishu" by following up a research on the inner part of the target text without adopting glossaries such as "free translation" as they cannot reflect the translating-introducing way of novel periodicals of late Qing Dynasty. By a comprehensive analysis of the reader-oriented translation-introduction strategy from inner part of the target text to outer factors such as editors, translators and readers of the novel periodical, Chapter 4 finally establishes that its concept of translation is "Rewriting with Banter". The "opacity" of the translated work and its role in establishment of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literatures found in the process of the research will also be heuristic to the research on the relationship between Chinese and foreign literatures of that time.The nature of the translated works in novel periodicals of late Qing Dynasty is translated literature. The thesis tries to study on translated literature from the perspective of media-translatology of comparative literature. The writer hopes that the thesis will not only widen the scope of the research on translated literature of late Qing Dynasty, but throw a new light on the research on translated literature and the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature.