On The Translator's Moral Decision-making-Based On The Case Study Of Lin Shu's Translation Activity

The communication and interaction between different cultures are based on certain values and moral principles.Translation is a cross-cultural communicative activity,through which the interpersonal relationship runs through.Morality is the research objective of ethics,which focuses on the interpersonal relationship.The combination of ethics and translation study becomes inevitable.In the scope of ethics,translator becomes a moral agent.Ethics provides norms and principles for the act of the moral agent.The notion of norms assumes that the translator is essentially engaged in a decision making process,and acquiring a set of norms for determining what is appropriate translational behavior in a given community is a prerequisite for becoming a translator within that community.So the translator is actually experiencing a process of decision making throughout the translation activity.The translator plays the roles of an individual,a social member or a professional,which makes his or her moral decision-making process become more complex.Admittedly,not only does the translator have to make moral decisions,but other participants in the translation activity are also likely to face the dilemma of moral decision making.The moral decision-making of the reader,patron and the translator has formed a complex net.The paper will just focus on the translator's moral decision-making process.Generally speaking,moral decision-making is based on two ethical theories: utilitarianism and deontology.Both of the two theories have their demerits in practice,so it is necessary for the two to combine together to guide the moral decision-making.According to the circumstance of the act,utilitarianism and deontology can be integrated together in two modes,thus two frameworks for moral decision-making can be formed.The thesis aims to analyze the translator's moral decision-making process under one of the moral decision-making frameworks,and a feasible moral decision-making project will be proposed.The research will take Lin Shu's translation activity as the case study to deduce the translator's moral decision-making process.Based on the four ethical values of translation proposed by Andrew Chesterman,the paper mainly discusses Lin Shu's moral dilemmas,his moral decision-making when facing the moral conflicts in the same value system or in different value systems,and the moral inclinations reflected in his translations. The discussion may do favor to strengthen the translator's awareness of the ethical problems so that they will make more reasonable decisions when facing the moral dilemma.