Lin Shu's Contributions: A Viewpoint Of Cultural Interaction

As a translator who didn't know foreign language, Lin Shu created a wonder in Chinese translation history by introducing more than 180 foreign works into China, some of which had great impact in his time and influenced many famous modern Chinese writers. Yet, his works are subject to commentaries of inadequacy of translation because traditional views regard translation as a product instead of a process. What readers perceive is largely an end product, a result of a decision-making process; it does not have access to the process itself, or to the dilemma to be solved by the translator.From the perspective of the cultural interaction, what is needed is a systematic study of problems and solutions occur in TT procedures. What techniques produce what effects? What are the regularities of translating process in particular genres of cross-cultural exchange, in particular cultures and in particular historical periods?The view that underlies this thesis then, is of translation as a process, involving the negotiation of meanings between producers and receivers of texts. In other words, the resulting translated text is to be seen as evidence of and as means of retracing the translator's decision-making procedures. The translator's decisions are inextricably bound up with the socio-cultural context in which the act of translating takes place.The thesis develops this theme in four chapters besides Introduction and Conclusion. Introduction reveals some paradoxes relating to Lin Shu's translation, including, contradictory commentaries on Lin's translation, his belief in literal translation vs. his free translation practice, the conflict between his literary position and his choice of fiction. As the product-oriented view of translation cannot provide reasonable explanations, the concepts of cultural interaction, which lay emphasis on broader issues of context, history and convention in translation, are called for to shed light on these paradoxes.Chapter One is an introduction of fiction translation in the Late Qing period. China was in deep crisis at that time, faced with internal political and cultural crisis on the one hand and the foreign imperialist powers on the other. Fiction, with its wide influence, was chosen by quite a number of social reformers as the most suitable vehicle to present their political views and to educate the people. And thus, the newly rising fiction translation in the Late Qing was an easy enterprise, the translators tended to delete, add or rewrite something in their practice.Chapter Two carries a deep research on aspects involved in Lin Shu's translation: his career as a translator, his political and cultural ideology, his language and his techniques. From the evidence found, I will argue that Lin Shu, for the most part, is a serious translator. His decisions never deviate from his translation purpose. Constrained by the socio-cultural forces in the Late Qing period and by his values of Chinese literature, he chose techniques prevailing in his time.Chapter Three proceeds from a case study of Lin's version of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Through a close comparison of Uncle Tom's Cabin and , we find is a typical example of cultural interaction . The translators operated under the pressure of their own social conditioning. While preserving some religious contents on the one hand, the translators tried to meet the political demand and the literary taste of his readers, thus deleted and adapted many religious contents so as to produce a political novel accessible to Chinese reader but at the-t ?same time, subversive to the original one, which has both religious and political traces.Chapter Four makes a commentary on Lin Shu's contributions to Chinese society and literature. Lin's fiction translation carried forward the patriotic spirit, propagated western bourgeois democracy and released new concepts. Lin Shu made people a...