A Cultural Analysis Of Indirect Translation In China

Indirect translation has played an important role in the translation history of China and is also used to assist our translation in some ways now. Though indirect translation is not as popular in China at present as it used to be in the past, it has had its own values in the process of translation development. Indirect translation was largely adopted when translation reached its third prosperous period because indirect translation could be used to introduce advanced technology and new ideas into China. Kang Youwei, Liangqichao and Lu Xun advocated indirect translation actively. Because many scholars had the experience of studying in Japan and understood the differences and similarities of cultural backgrounds between China and Japan, translating lots of western books indirectly from Japanese was very popular at that moment. Likewise, there were also many books translated indirectly from English, French and Russian, etc. This paper intends to review the history of indirect translation in China and study it with the consideration of culture. Why did indirect translation come into being and what led to its prosperity in certain periods in China? What is gained and lost in indirect translation? How should we study indirect translation from a cultural perspective? The focus of the study is the cultural aspects in indirect translation with opinions from Early Translation Studies and Polysystem Theory.By exploring the basic history and concept of indirect translation, making a comparison between direct translation and indirect translation and expounding the cultural factors behind indirect translation, this paper concludes that indirect translation has played an important role in Chinese translation history and that translation would be incomplete if indirect translation has been ignored.