On Two Stages Of Modern Literary Translation

This thesis, based on continuously changing social and cultural context from 1896 to 1949, systematically elucidates the gradual evolution of literary translation from translation of Western literary works to literary translation. Within the two stages, three modes of translation were available to fiction translators, i.e. linguistic, textual and literary modes of translation in conformity with specific social and cultural demands as well as ideological and poetic constraints on literary translation. As a recipient of source text and source culture, the attitude of the translator towards Western culture could be verified in terms of the mode of translation adopted under different social and cultural context at different periods.Even-Zohar's polysystem theory and Gideon Toury's translation norms are employed in the thesis as the theoretical framework. The descriptive target-text-centered approach is adopted in this thesis in order to fully display the scene of modern literary translation as objective as possible. Fiction translation has by far exceeded other genres in number in the course of modern literary translation and thus is the focus of this research and through which the dynamic interaction between modern literary translation and cultural distance is revealed.Toury's hypothetical theory on the serial development of literary translation is applied for the first time to literary translation in China and thus offers a new perspective for the investigation of modern literary translation. The thesis may provide a new perspective and theoretical basis for the division of the history of modern literary translation. The data-based text analysis, especially at lexical level, is employed to make the arguments of the thesis more convincing, which distinguishes this thesis from previous researches.