Lin Yutang: A Dialectical Translation Theorist And Practitioner

In view of the great differences between Chinese culture and the western culture, the establishment of Chinese translation theory system requires the rediscovery of Chinese translators'translation theories and practice. Therefore, the present author would like to pick up Lin Yutang, a great culture-communicator, as the subject of her study.The present thesis, by investigating Lin Yutang's translation theory and his translation of Six Chapters of a Floating Life, attempts to prove that Lin Yutang is a dialectical translation theorist and practitioner. Through detailed analyses of his views on the translation activity, the present author finds that his theory dialectically speaks of some important factors of the translation activity, for example, the original text, the translator, the target readers and the target text. On the one hand, the original text, being the starting point of the translation activity, should be duly respected, so the target text should be dialectically faithful to it. On the other hand, since the realization of one hundred percent faithfulness in the target text is impractical, and the target text is actually produced for the target readers, this text should consist with the reading custom of the target readers. Hence its quality of being faithful yet reader-friendly. In achieving this effect, the translator, due to his competence and his subjective understanding of the translation activity, can greatly influence the appearance and quality of the target text, but at the same time, he is restricted by the original text and the individuality of the languages involved in the exertion of that influence. So, in a sense, the previous views of Lin Yutang on the four factors can be regarded as a dialectical translation theory system, which shows his advanced insights into the complexity of the translation activity and the importance of the translator and the target readers in this activity. And the analyses of his translation of Six Chapters of a Floating Life in terms of sentence groups,...