Translation Activities And Influence Of The Literary Society In May 4^th Period (1921-1932)

The Literary Society is regarded as the first literary and translation society in modern China. Many members of the Literary Society were both famous writers and translators who contributed a lot to the history of translated literature in modern China. It has been the focus of attention for researchers from various fields. The research on the Literary Society is an important aspect of the study of translated literature and a significant facet of the study of its influences on modern Chinese literature.Nowadays, the increasing attention to the research of translation history promotes the study of the translation activities in a particular time span. The short span from 1920 to 1937 had a profound influence on China's translation history. The translation activities during this period featured the springing up of various literary societies with the development of New Culture Movement. Consequently, any study on literary societies will be of theoretical and practical importance in the long run. On the other hand, the focus of translation studies had been shifted from linguistic concern to cultural emphasis. Thus, a cultural exploration of the translation activities of a particular organization will facilitate our understanding of the manipulation school, and it may at the same time provide evidence for the study of cultural turn.With the above two considerations, the present study tries to answer three questions:1) Why did the members of the society prefer to choose those kinds of texts to translate?2) Why did they favor the Europeanized Chinese?3) What had been achieved with the translated literature of the Literary Society?On the basis of Lefevere's manipulation theory, the author presented explanations on this translation phenomenon by narrowing down her discussion on notions like ideology, poetics and patronage, which influenced the choice of the source text. As to the particular language form used in translation, the author applied Venuti's concept of foreignizing translation to illustrate why they chose vernacular language, specifically, Europeanized Chinese. This thesis also has found that the Literary Society created works and made remarkable contributions to the development of traditional Chinese literature. Firstly, the translated literature brought new elements into the Chinese language, not only helped make the modern Chinese more precise, clearer and richer, but also influenced the literary creation in the use of language, from vocabulary to syntax. Secondly, innovative literary conception and writing skills were introduced and later transplanted in a new literary system. Thirdly, new literary devices and genres from Europe were introduced into China and some of them were accepted by the writers, who then applied those new materials to their literary creation.Although this paper cannot contribute much to the research of the translated literature of a literary society, the author hopes it may throw some light on the analysis of that area and believes that any further research and whatever effort in this area will yield fruitful results.