A Study Of The Wartime Guilin Literary Translation Activities

The literary translation activities in the wartime Guilin are rather prosperous. The prosperity of the wartime Guilin literary translation was presented in three aspects: large quantity, various genres and high quality. It was counted that numerous translated works were published in newspapers' literary supplements, 177 separate literary translated books were issued and 863 pieces of translated works were published in periodicals in the wartime Guilin. The genres of the translated works included saga novels, short stories, fairy tales, folktales, prose, critique, poetry, dramas, reportages, etc. High quality translators ensured the quality of translated works and some translated works were republished and republished after liberation. Due to some reasons and misunderstanding, the studies of wartime Guilin translation activities didn't state until the year of 2005. However, the study of the wartime Guilin literary translation activities is not carried out until the appearance of this thesis. This thesis adopts Andre Lefevere's three key control factors in the process of literary translation to analyze patrons, poetics and translation strategies of the wartime Guilin literary translation activities.This thesis includes six chapters. Chapter One illustrates the archived results on the study subject, assumptions, methodology and contribution of this thesis. Chapter Two recalls the historical background of the wartime Guilin literary translation activities, analyzes the favorable condition for the development of the wartime Guilin literary translation activities and discusses the prosperity of the wartime Guilin literary translation activities. Chapter Three analyzes the patronage system of the wartime Guilin literary translation activities. Patrons of the wartime Guilin literary translation activities can be divided into two categories: one is the persons, organizations, institutions, etc. that have indirect influences on it and the other is the persons, organizations, institutions, etc. that have direct influences on it. The local force, the Communist Party of China and democrats in Kuomintang belong to the former category and editors belong to the latter one. Furthermore, this part analyzes how these patrons influence the development of the wartime Guilin literary translation activities. Chapter Four analyzes the poetics of the wartime Guilin literary translation activity. The wartime Guilin literary translation activities happened in a given history, which determined its concept of the role in social system, i.e. serve the War of Resistance, and further influenced the selection of the themes of translated works. The selection of the themes of literary translations presents in two directions. One is mirroring the life in capitalism and the other is opposing to wars and fascist wars. Chapter Five analyzes the translation strategies used by the wartime Guilin translators. This part selects two translated works to analyze their translation strategies. From analyzing those works, it is found that they are quite faithful and there are not as many changes as Lefevere's theory leads us to expect. Chapter Six sums up the whole thesis, points out its limitations and proposes some questions for further research.The innovation and significance of this thesis is: there are misunderstanding and even bias on literary translation. In some people views, it is a transform between two languages. Anyone who has some knowledge about foreign languages and a bi-lingual dictionary could do the work of translation. Due to these misunderstanding and bias on it, literary translators and their translated works could not receive fair treatments. Translators are debased as "craftsmen" and their works don't have an independent position in the history of literature, as they do not belong to Chinese literature or foreign literature. As far as the wartime Guilin literary translation activity is concerned, it is also treated unfairly. It had long been regarded as a part of the communication with fascist countries before the year of 2005 and had not got its deserved position and attention in the studies of the wartime Guilin culture. This thesis is the first one that gives the wartime Guilin literary translation activities fully and systematically analysis. Therefore, the first significance of this thesis is that it would be a makeup to the studies of the wartime Guilin culture. At the same time, it would highlight the function and position of literary translation in social development and heighten people's awareness of it as an independent subject. Second, at present, more and more scholars pay more attention to the study of advanced academic problems and neglect the studies on local resources. This thesis picks up a neglected subject by most of scholars as its study subject and gives it full analysis. The author of this thesis tries her best to collect as many as possible authentic materials, and then analyze, organize and present them in this thesis. So, the second contribution, also the hope of this thesis, is that it would arouse people's interests in native materials and increase the study force on them. Third, this thesis applies Lefevere's theory into practice, discussing its application in Chinese real situation. When using it to analyze the wartime Guilin literary translation activities, some shortcomings of Lefevere's theory are exposed. So, the third contribution of this thesis is that it would be a reference for the perfection of Lefevere's theory.