A Study Of Intertextual Relations Between Literary Writing And Literary Translation

The 1980s saw the"Cultural Turn"in translation studies. Since then, translation studies have no longer been limited to the study of specific texts. Texts, on the other hand, were put into the larger culture and history context to study their ways of production and their relations with and interdependence on culture, history and other relevant factors. In light of Polysystem Theory, literary system is a system, which is a component of a larger system-that of culture. Within literary system, literary writing and literary translation are two components. There exists interaction among systems, among systems and components, and among components. According to Intertextuality, there exist intertextual relations between and among texts. Each text is an absorption and transformation of other texts. As for texts, not only do they refer to text forms like language signs and so forth at a micro-level, but also they cover text forms like social culture and literature and so forth at a macro-level. Hence, intertextual relations among texts are multidimentional and multi-layered. There exist intertextual relations between texts in narrow sense, and between texts in narrow sense and those in broad sense. Taking Polysystem Theory and Intertextuality as theoretical framework, the thesis investigates intertextual relations between literary writing and literary translation and their relations with social culture and literary system.Through looking into Lin Yutang's writing texts and translation texts, this thesis, from synchronic and diachronic points of view, makes a descriptive and theoretical study of intertextual relations between literary writing and literary translation. Moreover, the thesis investigates the operation of intertextual relations by way of analyzing relevant factors.The following conclusions have been drawn from the research:1) There exist between literary writing and literary translation synchronic and diachronic intertextual relations. Within each period, literary writing texts and literary translation texts bear intertextual relations, and whatever intertextual relationship is embodied by different intertextual practices. At the same time, intertextual relations also exist between literary writing and literary translation among periods.2)The intertextual relationship is a rich, dynamic, yet complicated process which is operated by individual writer and translator's subjectivity, reader reception, social culture and literary system as well. On the one hand, literary writing and literary translation bear intertextual relations to social culture and literary system. Social culture and literary system exert intertextual influence on literary writing and literary translation and vise versa. On the other hand, in literary writing and literary translation, individual writer or translator and readers play an essential role. Take Lin Yutang for example. His literary activity is oriented to target reader reception.The thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter mainly introduces research background, aim and significance of the research, structure of the thesis, and definition of key terms. In the second chapter, based on the review of previous research, the necessity of the present research is stated. The third chapter is the theoretical foundation applied in the research, including Even-Zohar's Polysystem Theory and Intertextuality. The fourth chapter includes four parts, which are research questions, research method, data collection and data analysis. In the fifth chapter, by analyzing the data, intertextual relations between literary writing and literary translation and among social culture, literary system, and literary writing and literary translation are explored. In the last chapter, conclusions and limitations are listed briefly.