A Study On Translation Pattern Of Political And Law Works In The Late Qing Dynasty

ABSTRACTIn China, the origin of translation can be traced back to the very ancient time, but the study of translation has been always focused on language analysis and version comparison, rarely involving the question of how the translation activities were done in the host culture. In this category, it is very hard for the people engaging in translation study to shake off the restrictions reduced by the concept of " the original ", or to touch the great cultural power produced by translation activities and the interaction of translation activities and the host culture. However, whether translation can cause cultural influences, or what influences it can cause, is not determined by the process of language transmission, but rather depends on how the host culture conditions and accepts the products of the process.In the modern history of China, in order to overthrow the corrupt feudal rule and change the long-term backwardness caused by the ingression of the Western powers, the progressive Chinese unfolded several campaigns for "learning from the West", and "saving the nation from dying away". In this process, a series of political and law works were introduced into China by means of translation, bringing about great influences. Nevertheless, the Chinese and Western juriscultures are two types of directions and attitudes in the development of law, rather than different stages in the development of society. Faced with such a special host culture and such a great cultural diversity between China and the Western countries, in what way were those works introduced, what effects did the introduction exert, what goal did it attain, and what variation did it cause? Those are the questions to be discussed in this thesis.Adopting Even-Zohar's Polysystem theory, taking The Spirit of Laws (《法意》) translated by YanFu as the case for analysis, combining with the sociocultural background of the time, the thesis approaches the translation pattern of politicaland law works in the Late Qing Dynasty from the angle of translation-cultural history. According to the author, in the course of introducing those works, the host culture of China exerted great restrictions on the work-selection, the translators' strategies, the readers' understanding and response, and the influences on Chinese traditional jurisculture.The contents of the thesis consist of six chapters.The chapter one illustrates the relationship between language and culture, focusing on the cultural interpretation and comparison of the two words of "＃" in Chinese and " law " in English. The chapters of two and three survey respectively the characteristics and reforms of Chinese legal system, and the translation activities in the Late Qing Dynasty. The chapter four, basing on Even-Zohar's theory, analyses the interaction of various elements in the polysystem of the host culture, and its great influence on translation activitiy. The major part of the thesis, the chapter five approaches the translation pattern of political and law works in the Late Qing Dynasty from the six aspects of work-selection, translator, patronage, readers, sociocultural system, and strategy of translation. The last chapter analyses the influence of translation activities on the traditional Chinese jurisculture under the pattern.