A Skopos Theory Perspective On Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Translations In My Country And My People

Being an intellectual with multiple identities, Lin Yutang had lived his life between the Chinese and Western cultures, engaging himself in literary creation, translation, philosophy, linguistics, history and other fields. For some political reasons, studies on him started late in Mainland China and have been far from adequate. Among the current studies which have covered many themes such as his novels. cultural and educational comments, Lin Yutang's translation has been less touched upon.My Country and My People is Lin Yutang's first English book; there are many instances of Chinese-English translation in it, some of them serving as quotations and some appearing in the text proper. An exploration of these translations not only enriches our study of Lin Yutang. but also provides a perspective for explaining such a translation phenomenon.The present thesis adopts the skopos theory as its theoretical basis, first in a broad sense analyzing the skopos of My Country and My People and of the translations contained in the work; it then microscopically classifies these translations into four categories which proper names, culture-specific terms, poetry and classical Chinese texts in order to look in detail at Lin Yutang's translation strategies and methods.The analysis here shows that the Chinese-English translations in My Country and My People are done for an effective composition of the work whose skopos was to enable the Western people to have a better understanding of the Chinese and their culture; and Lin Yutang's translations, most of which are appropriate and reasonable, are a product in a specific setting for specific readers. Being an intellectual with multiple identities, Lin Yutang had lived his life between the Chinese and Western cultures, engaging himself in literary creation, translation, philosophy, linguistics, history and other fields. For some political reasons, studies on him started late in Mainland China and have been far from adequate. Among the current studies which have covered many themes such as his novels. cultural and educational comments. Lin Yutang's translation has been less touched upon.My Country and My People is Lin Yutang's first English book; there are many instances of Chinese-English translation in it, some of them serving as quotations and some appearing in the text proper. An exploration of these translations not only enriches our study of Lin Yutang. but also provides a perspective for explaining such a translation phenomenon.The present thesis adopts the skopos theory as its theoretical basis, first in a broad sense analyzing the skopos of My Country and My People and of the translations contained in the work; it then microscopically classifies these translations into four categories which proper names, culture-specific terms, poetry and classical Chinese texts in order to look in detail at Lin Yutang's translation strategies and methods.The analysis here shows that the Chinese-English translations in My Country and My People are done for an effective composition of the work whose skopos was to enable the Western people to have a better understanding of the Chinese and their culture; and Lin Yutang's translations, most of which are appropriate and reasonable, are a product in a specific setting for specific readers.