On Creative Treason

Since the cultural turn in the 1970s, translation studies have gradually shifted the focus from the abidance by the"faithfulness/equivalence"principle to the survey of subjective factors in translating. Linguistic and cultural differences between languages have aroused the awareness of introducing a new interpretation for the traditional translation criterion. Literary translation is then mostly regarded as a process of recreation, to which creation and treason are essential characteristics. In this case, the term of creative treason is put forward, which is viewed as the embodiment of subjectivity of translation and is defined to be the regeneration of source text's life in the target culture. Orienting to the cross-cultural perspective, this definition manifests that translation aims in nature at the fulfillment of its intercultural communicative aims. In the meantime, literary translation is impossible without creative treason of the translators, who are the subjects of translation.This thesis is an attempt to explore creative treason in literary translation from the perspective of skopos theory, with an illustration of the case study on Lin Yutang's translation of Six Chapters of a Floating Life. It tends to examine creative treason under the skopos rule of"the end justifies the means", that is, to survey the intentions of the translators'subjective endeavors in literary translation and the causes. In addition, it reexamines creative treason and proposes the author's individual opinions of the definition, classifications and effects of creative treason. After a detailed introduction of the theories of creative treason and skopos theory, the thesis demonstrates the shared ground of the two, which is the core of the thesis and forms a solid theoretical foundation for the case analysis of Lin Yutang's translation. In conclusion, the thesis enhances the study of subjectivity of translators via a thorough research on creative treason with the framework of skopos theory and provides a new perspective for the survey of creative treason as well.