Lin Yutang's Cultural Perspective And Its Application In Translation Methods

Lin Yutang was a translator as well as writer and linguist. He devoted his life to introduce and communicate with the eastern culture and western culture, especially promoting Chinese culture to the west. And he had a great achievement. His translated work Six Chapters in a Floating Life was influential in the world. This book was a good translation model in translation strategies and skills for holding the cultural information in the text.This thesis tries to discuss the influence of Lin's cultural perspective on the application of translation methods in the background of intertextuality theory. According to the broad sense of intertexuality theory, one given text is always influenced by social knowledge and practice as well as other texts. Therefore, there is an intertexual connection between Lin's written texts and his cultural perspective undeniably, that is, his cultural inclination may put influence on his writing practice, while his written texts may reflect his cultural inclination. Of course, the intertextual connection also exists between Lin's translation texts and his cultural inclination. Lin's cultural perspective influences his translating practice, while the latter in turn embodies the former, and the choice of translation methods is influenced by Lin's cultural perspective and meanwhile it reflects his paradoxical cultural perspective.Lin Yutang lived in China and the west for a long time. And he has the bicultural experience. He loves and is conversant in the two cultures. His special living background results in his special cultural perspective different from that of other writers and translators such as Lu Xun. His unique cultural perspective is embodied in his attitude towards Chinese and western culture. In this thesis, through the study of Lin's attitude towards life, religion and philosophy, female and aesthetic beauty, we tries to find his cultural inclination towards western and Chinese culture.Through the analysis of the examples and translation methods in Six Chapters in a Floating Life, we found that Lin Yutang adopted different methods skillfully to convey the cultural information to the target readers. Each translating method was the trace of Lin Yutang's contradictory and unified cultural perspective.This thesis observed and studied Lin Yutang's translation methods as the breakthrough point from the angle of culture, and it corresponded to the translation tendency now. Besides, the thesis researched the influence of Lin's cultural perspective on his choice of translation methods by using some specific examples in Six Chapters in a Floating Life.