An Analysis Of Xu Yuanchong's Translation Theory And Practice From The Perspective Of Lefevere's Manipulation Theory

Being a productive translator,Xu Yuanchong has gained a worldwide reputation for its translation practice,but his translation theory is not without challenges and debates from other translation theorists and practitioners.Given such a circumstance,this thesis aims at an objective analysis of Xu's translation theory and practice by applying one of the most comprehensive and advanced translation theories outside China-Lefevere's Manipulation Theory to better understand Xu Yuanchong's translation theory and practice as well as the nature of translation.This thesis falls into six chapters:The first chapter is a literature review of Lefevere's Manipulation Theory,mainly including Lefevere's academic life,the theoretic background of Lefevere's Manipulation Theory,main Manipulation Factors of Manipulation Theory and their Inter-relationships,hoping to present a clear,thorough and objective introduction of this theoryThe second chapter mainly gives an introduction to Xu Yuanchong,including Xu Yuanchong-as a Man and Xu Yuanchong-as a Translator,hoping that it will help to have a better understanding of Xu Yuanchong and his translation studies.The third chapter thoroughly explores Xu Yuanchong's Translation Theory-Art of Beautifulization and Creation of the Best as in Rivalry,in terms of his translation Ontology,Methodology,Teleology and Epistemology and their respective theoretical origin.The fourth chapter discusses Xu's translation practice,primarily on"Beautiful in Three Aspects",the theoretical backgrounds of each"aspect"and Xu's explanation of them.The fifth chapter,one of the two focuses of this thesis,analyzes Xu's translation theory from the three main control factors of Lefevere's Manipulation Theory: patronage,ideology and poetics.It is found that Xu's shift from"Beautiful in Three Aspects"to"recreate'Beautiful in Three Aspects"'is primarily based on the"the nature of multi-meanings of language",thus the chapter further explores the philosophical origin of"the nature of multi-meanings of language"in both Chinese and Western philosophy,mainly represented by The Book of Change(Yi Jing)and Deconstructionism respectively.The sixth chapter is another focus of this thesis.It analyzes Xu's translation practice from Lefevere's three main control factors:patronage,ideology and poetics. It is found that Xu pays less attention to western poetics than to Chinese poetics.Then this chapter goes on to have a thorough exploration of both Chinese and Western poetics and it is found that Chinese poetics was greatly westernized and Western poetics was significantly orientalized with the exception of denotation of poetry in their respective transitional periods.Xu,greatly influenced by classical Chinese poetics,obviously pays little attention to the categories and changes of western poetics With the fact that he tries to put rhymes on the English version of all his translated Chinese poems whereas western poetry does not stress rhymes so much as Chinese poetry does.So this chapter concludes that there is still gap between Xu's translation practice and his translation theory in aspect of"three tions(之)". Finally the last part is the conclusion of this thesis:in terms of translation theory, Xu's theory on poetry translation has reached a significantly high point compared with traditional Chinese translation theories although his theory is much argued upon; in terms of translation practice,Xu has actually paid less attention to western poetics, esp.the connotation and denotation of poetry,than to traditional Chinese poetics with the fact that he tries to put rhymes on the English version of all his translated Chinese poems,although his translation practice has been greatly welcomed both at home and abroad.So it can be said that there are many contradictions between Xu's translation practice and his theory.The significance of thesis is that it finds out the basis of Xu's transition from"Beautiful in Three Aspects"to"recreate'Beautiful in Three Aspects'"is"multi-meanings of poetry",and justifies this transition by applying both Chinese and Western philosophy.Meanwhile it is found that Xu himself does not justify the basis of his transition and many of his critics only criticize his theory from the rationality of"Beautiful in Three Aspects"without paying much attention to the basis of his transition,the"multi-meanings of poetry".