Yan Fu's Translation Purposes And His "Unorthodox Translation" Strategy

A translator's translation works should be read thoroughly if his translation thought is to be studied. Otherwise,it might not be understood completely.Yan Fu was one of the greatest translators in the history of Chinese translation.His eight translation works are well-known both in his own time and at present. Reading his works thoroughly we can find his purposes and thought in translation.He expressed his translation ideas through different ways such as the Translator's Remarks and letters to his friends.During recent years,there are many scholars studying Yan Fu and his translation thought.And "xin,da,ya"(信,达,雅)seems to be the whole of that.Is that really so? Yan Fu ever pointed out that his translation was "unorthodox translation"("非正法")in the Translator's Remarks of "tian yan lun"(《天演论》).According to research,his "unorthodox translation" in fact included many special ways of translation such as addition, deletion,shift,etc.The present study is to choose the Chinese version of Evolution and Ethics—"tian yan lun"(《天演论》)and that of On Liberty—"qun ji quan jie lun"(《群己权界论》)to study Yan Fu's another part of translation thought put forward in his translation practice,that is,"unorthodox translation", which is in fact his special translation strategy and the reason why he chose this strategy in translation.It is well-known that any translator may be influenced by various factors from the times and environment in which he/she lives,but according to the Skopostheorie of Hans J.Vermeer,translation is an intentional, interpersonal,partly intercultural interaction based on a source text(Christiane Nord,2001:18).The core of the Skopostheorie is that translation purpose decides translation action,that is,the selection of translation material,translation strategy,translation method,and so on.Therefore,among various factors that may influence the selection of translation strategy,translation purpose is the decisive one.Some scholars studied Yan Fu's translation and noticed his different translation purposes,but they mainly focus on his translation ideas and consider "xin,da,ya" as all of his translation thought,and nobody made a systematic study about his translation strategy and purposes.Therefore,this thesis,based on the Skopostheorie of Hans J.Vermeer, is to analyze the translation strategy of Yan Fu and his translation purposes.Finishing the study,it can get such results as:1)Yan Fu's "unorthodox translation" is a strategy which is different from those normal translation methods.It guides translators to translate with additions,deletions,shift,writing,comment,and so on.2)Yan Fu's another significant contribution in translation thought is his "unorthodox translation" strategy which is closely related to his translation purposes,that is to say,his selection of such translation strategy was not out of his irresponsibility but special needs for intake of Western thoughts which were urgently required in China at that time.The structure of the present study is just as the following:Chapter 1 is the part of introduction including research background,aims and significance,and the related definitions.Chapter 2 is the theoretical framework for the present study,mainly the Skopostheorie of Hans.J Vermeer.Chapter 3 reviews the relevant studies on Yan Fu's translation thought,meanwhile, talks about the necessity of the present study.In chapter 4,there are research questions,research method, and the selection of translated works.Chapter 5 analyzes the relationship between his purposes and strategy with many examples chosen from the translated versions of Evolution and Ethics,On Liberty,and gives the study results.More detailed discussions are carried out in chapter 6 on the reasons of the research results. And the last chapter points out the conclusions,limitations of and suggestions for the present study.