Yan Fu's Political Agenda As Represented In Tianyan Lun

The "cultural turn" in translation studies provides researchers with a new horizon. Based on such approaches in western translation studies as Descriptive Translation Studies and Rewriting echoing to this turn, the research here re-studies and re-examines Yan Fu's Tianyan Lun, a translation of Huxley's Evolution and Ethics, in the given context in China through the introduction, analysis and/or comparison of the socio-cultural background, extra-textual materials, and textual materials including the source text, the officially published translated text and the manuscript.The findings reveal that Tianyan Lun is a product motivated by the translator's political agenda for the purpose to meet the need of the national salvation and enlightenment through translation. In this connection, Yan Fu made a series of selections in the translation strategy, text, readership and style, and rewrote Huxley's Evolution and Ethics by means of addition, deletion and adaptation. Such rewriting contributes to the dissemination of the evolution theory in China.The thesis carries out the task of describing and interpreting Tianyan Lun on the basis of certain translation theory, literary theory, historical materials and comparatively concrete case studies, exploring such manipulating factors as ideology and poetics behind the translation. At the same time, it points out that Yan Fu's efforts in reconciling Chinese culture and western culture provide some implications for today's translation studies in China.