Creative "Rebellion" Against The Original

This dissertation is a study of adaptation to the originals in Lin shu's translations. Lin shu is one of china's most influential translators. His translation is an unusual phenomenon in china's and evean the world's history of translation. As a translator without knowing foreign languages, he collaborated with his friends and translated more than 180 foreign literary works into classical Chinese and his translations are well welcomed by large number of Chinese readers. Nevertheless, his creative cancellation, amplification, alteration and abridgement also make him target of sharp criticism. Therefore, further investigation should be made into his translation for the sake of translation studiesIn this study, Even-zohar's polysystem theory, Gideon Toury's target-oriented translation theory as well as culture-oriented theory are introduced to establish an analytical framework to explain the translation phenomenon of Lin shu.Through a comparative analysis of the Target Text (TT) and Source Text (ST), this dissertation attempts to probe into such cultural factors as the selection between Chinese and western in literary styles, reader's expectation and translator's identity and argues that his constant adaptations are intentional instead of mistranslation and errors. The popularity and influence of his translated novels also reveal the effectiveness of his translation strategies.