A Study Of Lin Shu's Chinese Translation Of Uncle Tom's Cabin From A Deconstructionist Perspective

Lin Shu's translations have always been the important research subject in translation studies and practice in China. This thesis analyzes Lin Shu's strategies in his Chinese translation of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was produced by Lin Shu and Wei Yi before the Chinese bourgeois democratic revolution of 1911. The thesis compares the translation with the original and explores the reasons for its great success and profound influence. This thesis will expound on the literary translation phenomenon in the light of deconstructionist point of view—a different perspective from the traditional structural perspective, aiming at illustrating the significance of this theory for literary translation studies, and providing literary translation criticism with a new perspective.This thesis first of all gives a brief account of this theory, including: introduction of the origin of deconstructionist philosophical thoughts, characteristics of deconstruction on the basis of a general comparison between deconstruction and structuralism, analyses of the major representatives of this school, illustration of Derrida's deconstructionist thoughts and his important terms in a separate chapter, since this thesis mainly focuses on Derrida's deconstruction thoughts out of the wide range that this theory covers.The author of this thesis then probes into the impact that deconstruction exerts on translation studies and practice. The influence of this theory spreads out in a variety of fields since its initiation in 1960s and its application to translation studies has been remarkable since 1980s. Negation, destruction, dismantling are not the essence of deconstruction, which actually features a combination of the inner elements of structure with the outer ones after it dismantles the structure in order to stimulate the reconstruction of the pluralistic elements. According to this theory: translation activity is not a pure linguistic activity and transformation in vacuum, for the outer elements such as politics, ideology, cultural tradition, ethics etc. are more crucial than the inner ones though the linguistic structure and regularity need to be acquired in translation practice.Macroscopically, deconstruction brings a pluralistic study method for translation studies. Under the influence of deconstruction, cultural construction school, Skopos translation school, and manipulation school came into being. Microscopically, deconstruction exerts its impact on translation practice mainly in the following fiveaspects: 1) deconstruction denies the preexistence of meaning and illustrates the undecidability of meaning;2) it highlights context as it stresses "There's nothing outside context" (quoted in Royle, 2003: 65);3) it discloses the characteristics of text which, according to the theory, is originaless, open, and intertextual, namely, the translation and the original are not closed to each other, but intertextual and dependant on each other;the original relies on the translation for survival and development;4) it results in the rethinking of the relation between the translator and the author, and it further emphasizes the subjectivity of the translator;5) it brings about a new definition of the translator's task.The thesis then gives a comprehensive description of Lin Shu and his translations, and presents comments of the traditional translation circle on his translations. In the next part, the thesis elaborates Lin's strategies in both linguistic and non-linguistic aspects in translation in the framework of deconstruction: 1) by analyzing comparatively the language form and meaning in both the translation and the original in light of deconstructionist concepts such as undecidability of meaning, historical context and translator's subjectivity;2) by illustrating Lin Shu's treatments in non-linguistic aspects in terms of theme, religious color, political orientation in the framework of such deconstructionist thoughts as translator's subjectivity and tasks, the historical context etc.;3) by probing into the causes for the success and great popularity of Uncle Tom's Cabin in light of deconstructionist viewpoints such as translator's tasks, relation between the translation and the original, and the historical context.On the basis of the analysis in the thesis, we conclude that from the deconstructionist perspective, Lin Shu's strategies in his Chinese translation of Uncle Tom's Cabin are justifiable, which cannot be regarded as abused translation and misinterpretation. In addition, through a deconstructionist study of this translation, we have found that deconstruction functions powerfully in literary translation studies, and provides guidance for literary translation.