Lin Yutang As A Translator

Lin Yutang, a world-famous literary translator, bi-lingual writer, and outstanding linguist, is renowned internationally. His writing and literary translating career is highlighted by the couplet "One mind seeks the learning of ancients and moderns; Two legs straddle the cultures of East and West" (两脚踏中西文化,一心评宇宙文章).He creates a lot of famous novels in English, including his first successful book My Country and My People (《吾国与吾民》), and Moment in Peking ( 《京华烟云》 ) for which he was once nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Parts of his works are adapted translations from Chinese classics, for example, his The Wisdom of Laotse (《老子的智慧》) is translated from Laotse's The Book of Tao (《道德经》). Apart from that, he translates and introduces a great deal of Chinese literature abroad, such as Six Chapters of a Floating Life (《浮生六记》) by Shen Fu (沈复) in the Qing Dynasty, making enormous contributions to dissimilating Chinese culture.In China's Mainland, however, "Lin Studies" was once ignored. Luckily, along with the furthering of China's reform and opening-up, and with the renaissance and development of "Lin Studies", more and more scholars begin to study and value this distinguished scholar from an objective and historical perspective. This thesis studies Lin Yutang as a translator, outlines the features of Lin Yutang's C-E translation practice and his translation theory, and comes to a conclusion that Lin Yutang's C-E translation practice does play a significant role in promoting China's image and introducing China to the West. The thesis approaches it in the five chapters outlined below:Chapter 1 briefly introduces Lin Yutang as a translator, including Lin's life, his contributions to both translation practice and theory, and his achievements as a writer and linguist.Chapter 2 comes to a macro summary of Lin Yutang's C-E translation practice, including classification of his C-E translations, his choice of ST and people influencing his C-E translation choice, like Pearl S. Buck (H^S) and Ku Hung-ming (^j^fg).Chapter 3 analyses Lin Yutang's C-E translations represented by his most successful Six Chapters of a Floating Life from three aspects: context, style and culture-bound images. The analysis shows that Lin's version vividly reproduces the original in both language and style. Moreover, through masterly shifts between alienation and domestication, Lin's English version on the one hand keeps the Chinese flavour, and on the other hand is written in idiomatic English, successfully fulfilling the mission of introducing Chinese literature and diffusing Chinese culture to the West.Chapter 4 focuses on Lin Yutang's translation theory. Based on Yan Fu's (J^M) "faithfulness", "expressiveness" and "elegance", Lin advances his "Three Standards" of translation: "faithfulness", "expressiveness" and "beauty". "Lifelike" (##), the core of his translation theory, is the embodiment of his "Hsingling"(14M.) literary options, and derives from both Chinese and western cultures. Lin Yutang bases his translation theory on aesthetics, and for the first time in Chinese translation history applies psychology and linguistics to translation studies.Chapter 5 summarizes Lin Yutang's contributions to interpreting Chinese culture through his C-E translation practice. During the first half of the 20th century, China was under the invasion by western powers, which baffles the smooth cultural exportation. In cross-cultural communications, Lin Yutang develops a school of his own by translating and recommending Chinese literature to the West, opening a door for westerners to view Chinafrom a comparatively more objective perspective, meeting the needs of equal cultural communications in the setting of globalization.The thesis concludes: in a confluent Chinese and western overview, Lin Yutang as a translator effectively pushes forwards Chinese culture's communications with western cultures on an equal footing, which is unique but insightful under the cultural background of the day. We need to attribute to Lin Yutang and his translation practice and theory the due fame fairly and objectively.