Chinese Translated Literature Around "the May Fourth Movement" From The Perspective Of "Polysystem Theory"

The traditional translation study mode has been prevailing for a long time. Under such circumstances, translation is only regarded as the representation of the original text, and "faithfulness" and "equivalence" has become the universal translating norms that all translators must obey. Since the "Cultural Turn" in the 1970s, the emphasis of translation studies has shifted from linguistic studies to extra-linguistic studies, which indicates that translation is far from a practice of bilingual transfer, and many other factors are also involved in the process of translation such as social-cultural context, economy, history, ideology and aesthetic values in the target language. Even·Zohar's polysystem theory makes a remarkable contribution to the cultural turn and provides a new approach to translation studies. Even·Zohar analyzes translated literature's position in the target literary system. Toury continues the research and puts forward the Norm theory. The Chinese translated literature has a long history and deserves close study.Around the May 4^th Movement, various thoughts came into China, Chinese people turned to learn Western's advanced sciences and technologies and humanities in order to save and prosper China. Translated literature developed and flourished under these circumstances. Because Chinese literary system faced crisis and Chinese people hoped to save China, translated literature underwent the process of moving from peripheral to center and eventually influenced Chinese literary system. The present study first lists Chinese translated literature's contribution to Chinese literary polysystem and analyzes the translating activities around the May 4^th Movement by using Polysystem Theory.Then the thesis studies Lin Shu's translated work—Kuai Rou Yu Sheng Shu—by using Toury's Norm theory to further explain extra-linguistic factors involved in translation activities and to demonstrate that translation techniques are closely related with translated literature's position in the target language system. If the translated literature occupies a central position, the technique of foreignization will be preferred; otherwise, domestication will be adopted. At last, the thesis summarizes that the traditional translation norms cannot fully illustrate translation process. In today's globalization and multiplication, translation theories should be diversified. On the one hand, we should try our best to be faithful to original text; on the other hand, we should adjust our translation techniques according to socio-cultural situation.