Translation Of Detective Stories In The Late-Qing-Early-ROC Period

This paper is a preliminary descriptive study of the translation of detective stories in the late-Qing-early-ROC period from a target-oriented perspective. Works by Conan Doyle are chosen for case study because of his outstanding achievement and popularity among both foreign and Chinese readers.First, this paper explains the reasons for the flourishing of detective-story translation in this period from six perspectives, namely, vacuum or young state of detective stories in China at that time, special features of detective stories, the literati's advocacy of detective stories as an educational tool, the development of publishing houses and the printing press, the increase of the number of city dwellers, and social chaos.Then, peculiarities of detective-story translations in this period are analyzed through examples from the target-oriented perspective. We believe that the presumed educational function of detective stories in the translators' mind and Chinese readers' attitudes toward western culture, that is, resistance as well acceptance, work together to make the translations in this period target-oriented.Finally, the paper studies the influence of detective-story translation on the creation of this literary genre in the late-Qing-early-ROC period in China. We find that Chinese detective-story writers learned quite a few writing skills from translated detective stories, for example, portrayal of the characters, the story-telling style in the first person, the method of flashback and description of psychological process.