Lu Xun's Translation Strategies

Lawrence Venuti's theory of foreignization defines a foreignizing strategy in terms of notions of faithfulness and fluency, selection of foreign texts and selection of discourse and language. A foreignizing translation aims to achieve heterogeneity by signifying linguistic and cultural foreignness, which can be done either in regard to the selection of foreign texts or that of discourse and language.With the introduction to Venuti's theory, the Chinese translation circle welcomed a new round of debate on translation strategies, in which the debate over literal (zhiyi) and free (yiyi) translations in the May 4^th Cultural Movement and Lu Xun's translation were re-discussed. Some scholars tend to recognize Lu Xun's translation as a foreignizing strategy. They take it for granted that Europeanization in his translation almost equal foreignization. Others hold that Lu Xun's translation was literal translation, which does not equal foreignization in Venuti's concept.It is undoubted that, however, relevance does exist between Venuti's theory and Lu Xun's translation. In which ways are the two relevant? If they are relevant, is there any possibility that Lu Xun's translation can be recognized as foreignization? These are major questions the author would like to explore in the paper.Taking Venuti's theory of foreignization, the paper will analyze Lu Xun's translation to demonstrate to which extent they are relevant to Venuti's theory. The paper intends to claim that Lu Xun's translation can be justifiably defined as foreignization, and that his selection of foreign texts is the most persuasive justification.