A Theoretical Framework Of Literary Translation Criticism

This dissertation is a defining attempt at literary translation criticism, aiming to explore the theoretical question of what is literary translation criticism.Literary translation, the research into which is of theoretical significance, counts as an important part of translation. However, people tend to consider translation studies as literary translation studies, thus blurring the difference between them. So does the field of literary translation criticism. People tend to consider translation criticism as literary translation criticism. Moreover, the research into basic theories is not deep enough. Without a firm foundation in basic theories, the research into other aspects of literary translation criticism is usually superficial.Because translation criticism is more general a category than literary translation criticism, and because what people actually study is literary translation criticism, their researches on translation criticism are still of help to this dissertation. Although those studies of literary translation criticism are not comprehensive enough if seen in isolation, they explore almost every aspect of literary translation criticism if taken as a whole.As to the inner system, Yang Xiaorong, Wang Enmian, Zheng Hailing, Peter Newmark, Berman and many other scholars research on nature, typology, function, criterion and methodology.Literary Translation Criticism Research by Xu Jun is one of the earliest monographs entitled with 'literary translation criticism' in China, reflecting the accuracy of study.As to the outer system, there are few systematic researches. However, some works on the application of translation criticism in translation teaching, say, Random Talks on Translation Criticism by Ma Hongjun, Translation Theory and Technique byZhao Guihua, provide a theoretical basis for this dissertation.This dissertation is a further research based upon previous literature on this subject. It puts forward definitely the concept of literary translation criticism, pointing out what this dissertation concentrates upon is literary translation criticism, but not translation criticism. It defines the basic concepts (the nature, methodology, etc.) of literary translation criticism as strictly as possible to avoid ambiguities, and makes special distinctions between confusing concepts, like literary translation criticism versus literary translation technique.This dissertation first studies literary translation criticism in its inner system (Chapter 3), examining nature, typology, function, criterion and methodology, constructing a preliminary framework of literary translation criticism and trying to answer questions such as what is literary translation criticism, how to conduct it. This dissertation specifies the concept of meta-literary translation criticism in particular, noting that the criticism of literary translation criticism as such is of great significance and that it contributes to theoretical studies.Then this dissertation studies literary translation criticism in its outer system (Chapter 4), examining the relationship between literary translation criticism and its related disciplines, that is, literary translation teaching, literary translation technique and literary translation theory, enabling us to locate the position of literary translation criticism in literary translation theory and to have an exact understanding of literary translation criticism.To conclude, this dissertation first decomposes literary translation criticism into its nature, typology, function, criterion and methodology in the inner system, conducting a study on a micro-level. Then it researches into the relationship between literary translation criticism and the related disciplines on a macro-level, taking literary translation criticism as a single entity. The analytical examination of literary translation criticism in its inner system and the comparative examination of literary translation criticism and the related disciplines in its outer system together contribute to a thorough interpretat...