Science, Fairy Tales And The Literatures Of Minorities: The Three Dimensions In Lu Xun's Translation Practice

Lu Xun is a great theorist and practitioner in the history of China'stranslation. His translation activities make a valuable contribution to thelinguistic and cultural construction of China. Undoubtedly, it isfar-reaching to research on such an outstanding translator bothhistorically and realistically.This essay, with Lu Xun's translation practice as its object, choosesthree different angles to analyze Lu's translation activities:In the introduction part, the author introduces the theoretical andpractical significance of this subject. It gives a literature review of therecent years' research into Lu Xun as a translator by scholars both athome and abroad. This essay, based on the analysis of the social reality ofthe late Qing Dynasty, the beginning of the Minguo Period and 'May 4th,Neo-cultural Movement, adopts the methods of comparison, analysis andinduction to probe into the relationship between Lu Xun's translationpractice and his translation thoughts.Chapter One focuses on Lu Xun and his translation of science works.Through the research on the texts of the science works translated by LuXun, this chapter inspects the themes of Lu Xun's translation practice ofscience works, i.e., enlightening and encouraging the Chinese people withthe 'military spirit' and 'hope for evolution' through translating westernscience fictions which are rich in fantasy and enterprise, and expecting toawaken his countrymen and cultivate their scientific spirit so as to savetheir motherland from decline. Secondly, this chapter attempts to analyzeand explore into the translation methods such as free translation, adapted translation, and rewriting.Chapter Two emphasizes on Lu Xun and his translation of fairy tales.In order to promote the rapid growth of fairy tales of China, Lu Xunalways chose on purpose those works on thinking as his translating object.When Lu Xun was translating the works for children, he fixed his eyesclosely on their extensiveness and variety. In terms of the style, the workshe translated include fairy tales, fairy plays, science fictions, children'sstories, and so on. This chapter is devoted to researching into the varietyof the fairy tales Lu Xun translated, the main idea, the purpose, thespiritual and cultural value, and the translation strategy of both literaltranslation and liberal translation.Chapter Three explores Lu Xun and the translation of the literaturesof minorities. The coming out of A Collection of Foreign Short Stories(《域外小说集》)in 1909 marks the beginning of Lu Xun's focus ontranslating the literatures of minorities and the literatures about the minornations and social groups such as the literatures of Russia, the eastern andnorthern European countries, and other countries. This chapter discussesLu Xun's purpose and reason for translating the literatures of minorities,the themes of his translation and the translation methods he adopted, i.e.,literal translation or even 'hard translation'.Finally, through researching the three levels of Lu Xun's translationpractice, the author examines and analyzes the relationship between histranslation theory and translation practice. The research finds that histranslation theory and translation practice are often contradictory ornon-synchronous. He advocated literal translation but he applied plenty ofliberal translation in the science works; he upheld hard translation in the literatures of eastern and northern Europe, Japan and Russia but the salesmade of those truly translated works by hard translation are so small.Nevertheless, these affect little on our approving and appreciating hisvalue as a translator. On the contrary, it is just this incomplete consistenceor even contradiction in his translation practice and theory that hasaroused people's interests in him. And this is the very charm that lies inLu Xun as a translator.