A Study On Lin Shu's Translation From The Perspective Of Translator's Ethics

Lin Shu, one of the most influential translators in the late Qing Dynasty in China, initiated modern translation of foreign works into Chinese, and his translations imported new ideas, literary concepts and styles from the west. However, his translations received much criticism for being unfaithful to the original.This thesis attempts to reevaluate Lin Shu's translation from the perspective of translator's ethics. According to Andrew Chesterman, translators, in their translation practice, should not only follow their personal ethics, but also conform to the professional ethics. However, because of translators' dual identities and the possible impracticality of the professional regulations, they often face ethical dilemma in their translation process, and Lin Shu is by no means an exception.In this thesis, a detailed study of Lin Shu's translation is conducted and it was found that when professional ethics and personal ethics did not coordinate with each other, Lin Shu made his own choices.This thesis is made up of six chapters:Chapter one gives a brief introduction to the purpose, significance and the structure of the thesis.Chapter two is literature review, in which the previous researches on Lin Shu's translation at home and abroad are discussed.Chapter three is theoretical framework, which focuses on translation ethics, translator's ethics, professional ethics and personal ethics.Chapter four elaborates on how translator's ethics manipulates the four models of translation ethics in Lin Shu's translation, namely, the ethics of representation, the ethics of service, the ethics of communication and the norm-based ethics. Chapter five gives a detailed analysis of Lin Shu's choices when he encountered ethical dilemma, namely, his preference to professional ethics in choosing to translate with classical Chinese, satisfying the requirements of the patrons and meeting the expectation of the target readers, and his preference to his personal ethics in the choice of source texts, the determination of translation purpose and the application of the concrete translation strategies.Chapter six comes to the conclusion that .translator's ethics has a great influence on Lin Shu's choices in his translation practice.