A Study Of Lu Xun’s Translation From The Perspective Of Japanese As The Source Language

Mr. Lu Xun, a well-known writer, thinker and translator in modern Chinese history, once translated 216 pieces of literature works which account for almost three million words altogether for 106 writers from 14 foreign countries. The studies on Lu Xun’s translation can be traced back to 1920’s and 1930’s, but quite few have explored his translation from the perspective of source language, so there remains a virgin territory. Considering the situation, the dissertation starts from one source language-Japanese which is mostly translated by Mr.Lu, and conducts empirical researches for these works translated from Japanese, for the purpose of bringing back historical appearance and clarifing some controversial debates.The dissertation consists of four sections:introduction, body, conclusion and appendix.The first section is the introduction. Firstly, the research subject is confirmed as 175 works translated from Japanese, including translated texts, paratexts and translation thoughts, etc. The previous studies will be reviewed according to different themes and the relevant problems will be indicated. After each chapter is briefly introduced, it will take an account of research methods:empirical researches and descriptive translation researches. The significances of the dissertation are understood as follows:it is important to comprehend Mr. Lu Xu as a translator, also provide a new perspective to interpret the literature world of Lu Xun and rethink modern history of Chinese translation.The second section is the body part, including four chapters. The first chapter is "An examination of Lu Xun’s proficiencyinJapanese". It will first introduce Lu’s experience of learning Japanese and collect the evaluations of Lu’s Japanese proficiency from others. The various comments on Lu’s proficiencyin Japanese were caused by the failing to dotextual researches. From two aspects:Lu Xu’s Japanese works and his translations from Japanese, this dissertation investigates Lu’s Japanese expressions and his comprehension abilities for Japanese. It is concluded that Xu had a high level of proficiency in Japanese, which is the foundation of this study.The second chapter is "an examination of Japanese source texts for Lu’s translations". The dissertation clarifies the source texts of Lu’s translation starting from the source language--Japanese. With references of the pertinent research results, this dissertation systematically sorts out the source texts of Lu Xun’s translations, meanwhile clearly specifies the information of copyrights on translated texts and transliterated ones. Additionally, this chapter investigates the source texts for Lu’s translation works from Russian writer--L.Andreev through a contrastive analysis of texts.The third chapter is "The translated characteristics of Lu Xun’s translation works from Japanese". This chapter probes into the characteristics of these earlier translation works through acontrastive analysis between source texts and target texts, as well as with reference of the studies for translation strategies of translators living late Qing Dynasty. Additionally, the characteristics of literal translation and hard translation are explored from the perspective of translation units.The forth chapter is "the relationship between the viewpoint of Lu Xun’s literal translation and Japanese context ". This chapter looks into the issue of how Japanese context exerts the influence over the making of Lu Xun’s literal translation. The specific items have been discussed, including the linguistic foundation of viewpoint of Lu Xun’s literal translation, ideological trend of translation in the Meiji period and the influence of other translators over the making of Lu’s translation viewpoint.The fifth chapter is "Translation and Introduction of ForeignLiterature works by Lu Xun within the context of Japanese". It analyses the contents and manners of Lu Xun "borrowing" Japanese literature for prefaces and postscripts in his translations. It also explores the relationship between Lu’s translation for Holy Wild Pig written by Hasegawa Nyozekan and background, life experience and thinking status at that time.The third section is the conclusion. This section makes a brief review of the main points, indicating the creative points, demerits and some promising projects for the future.The forth section is appendixes, including the list of source texts for Lu Xun’s translation works, the list of Japanese literature referred by Lu Xun for prefaces and postscripts of his translations, the Japanese literature which is not mentioned in the dissertation but related to the prefaces and postscripts of his translations, and the photocopies of Japanese source texts of Lu’s translations.