A Study Of Lu Xun's Translation Prefaces And Postscripts In The Perspective Of Norms

Among all the literary works of Lu Xun,translations take up nearly one third of them.As a calm spectator and active reformer of Chinese society and culture,Lu Xun revealed to us the traces of norms' functioning and the translator's responses to these norms in his translations and translation prefaces and postscripts.Translation is a process during which a series of decisions are made by the translator.Norms on translation influence this process,meanwhile,the translator's obedience or disobedience reconstructs these norms as well.The author of this thesis researches on the relation of Lu Xun's translation prefaces and postscripts with translation norms,and the social and cultural situation at that time respectively from the angle of norms.Then,the author proposes a new classifying method of norms.Lu Xun's translation prefaces and postscripts are the records of Lu Xun's translation methods,as well as the objective portrayal of the specific historic period at his time.Consequently,it is of unique academic value for us to study the norms embodied in Lu Xun's translation prefaces and postscripts,for it will bring to us the new understanding of the relation between translation,society and culture,as well as the image of Lu Xun in addition to his translation theories and practice.This thesis firstly has a systemic collecting and analysis of translation norms and an overall observation of Lu Xun's translation prefaces and postscripts,then it studies the translation norms in these prefaces and postscripts and Lu Xun's utilization or disobedience to them from the aspects of language,society,culture and translation intersubjectivity respectively.The author finds that language is the basic level on which the translation norms show in the most obvious way.On the level of language, Lu Xun expressed his obedience to the norm of the 'vernacular Chinese'("白话") which was advocated during the 'May 4^th' Neo-cultural Movement("五四"新文化运动).However,since Lu Xun was earnest in reforming the backward Chinese language,he proposed the over-pioneering method of 'hard translation'("硬译")and 'bring-it-here-ism'("拿来主义"),which were fiercely condemned by most people,to try hard to introduce a kind of new language norms to Chinese.Through the observation of the language phenomena in Lu Xun's translation prefaces and postscripts,the author discovers the influence from the social and cultural norms which exerted on translation.In Lu Xun's time,the Chinese society and culture were experiencing dramatic and numerous changes which have led to the three different periods of Lu Xun's translation methods.Lu Xun firstly cherished the dream of scientific enlightenment,then had the thought of literary enlightenment,and finally introduced actively the proletarian literature to China.Lu Xun's translation methods during these three periods not only reflected objectively the social and cultural phenomena at that time,but also displayed his calm understanding and responses to those phenomena as a translator with unique character.This thesis takes the specific historical environment into consideration and analyses the translation norms embodied in Lu Xun's translation prefaces and postscripts in terms of language, society and culture respectively.Meanwhile,the interaction between Lu Xun and these translation norms is also studied by the author.Then the author points out that translation is actually a dialogue between different languages in different cultures and a kind of 'intersubjective culture'("间性文化")(杨柳2005:20-26)with translators as its most convincing participants. Therefore,the author studies the translation norms which appeared in Lu Xun's translation prefaces and postscripts again from the angle of the inter-activities between the translator and the writer,the translator and his co-workers,as well as the translator and his publishers respectively.At last,the author suggests that an amendment and development to the classifying method of translation norms should be made.Thus,the standard of this kind of classification should not be restricted to the natural sequence of the translator's decision-making process nor the restrictive power of norms.Instead,a dynamic classifying system should be constructed in order to unfold in front of us a more comprehensive and objective panorama of translation norms studies.And in this classifying system,a gradually-going-profounder method should be adopted when observing the norms in translation.