Norms And Lin Shu's Translation

Lin shu is one of the most influential translators in Late Qing period. He initiated modern literary translation, and his translations imported new ideas, literary concepts, styles and techniques from the West. These, in turn, influenced the emergence and development of modern Chinese literature. Some translators and scholars have written many articles trying to evaluate and assess Lin Shu's translation, but most of them are just from the perspective of traditional linguistic science. As a result, past studies often criticized that late Qing translations were unfaithful to the originals, and the translators at that time were always blamed for making arbitrary changes on the source texts. Besides, a wrong tendency has influenced the dominant position in the translation research for a long time—the purpose of the translation research is widely accepted as being application-oriented and the prescriptive conclusion has only been drawn upon the translation. The overriding practical opinions toward translation lead to the ignorance of its historical and cultural value. Therefore, there is a need of a more sophisticated approach towards Lin Shu's translation. Only when an advanced framework—a socio-cultural bound research framework has been provided, can it further the progress of the research on Lin Shu and his literary translation career.This thesis focuses on the introduction of the norms concept and tries to build up a framework for discussing Lin Shu's translations. The source-oriented translation theory cannot effectively explain it. Usually, it reveals part of the problems, thus, leading to partial conclusions. The concept of norms is a major tool in descriptive translation studies first proposed by Gideon Toury in his target/culture-oriented translation theories in the 1970s. As norms in nature are descriptive, historical and social rather than examining whether the target text is faithful to the source text, it is very helpful in this study. Following Toury's categorization of Norms, the thesis probes into Lin Shu's translation of David Copperfield in the following three aspects: initial norms, preliminary norms, operational norms. While the first two norms are on a macro level, which examine the contemporary historical and social background; operational norms enable a discussion on a micro one. Concrete examples of translation are employed to illustrate the influence of the literary, cultural, political, and social factors behind different translation strategies the translator adopted in translating, including addition, omission, abridgment and alteration. Meanwhile, the thesis also dwells on the immense impact the translation produced on the society then.Based on the descriptive study of Lin Shu's translation through the approach of norms, the conclusion is reached that Lin Shu's translation is confined to but counteractive on the given social and historical environment. It effectively explains why Lin Shu's translational practice had the form as it was. It conforms to the contemporary translational norms of his time, hence, can be viewed as translation. And in the development of literary translation, Lin Shu's translations act as a transition because they maintain some of the old norms and in the meanwhile break some others. It successfully performed its social and historical role in the translation history of China and played a significant role in promoting the development of Chinese literary translation and modern Chinese literature.