Translation's Promoting Impact On The Development Of Modern Vernacular Chinese: A Study From The Perspective Of The Polysystem Theory

Modern vernacular Chinese, like any natural language, never develops on its own. It has traditions, while it constantly adapts to external factors. As a written language it has developed for many centuries, but during the past century-plus period, it has developed with unprecedented momenta. It is a product blended with intrinsic linguistic principles of the Chinese language, and the grammatical, and lexical patterns from western languages, especially English. In the blending process, translation plays a vital part by means of providing new vocabulary items, lexical patterns, etc.The Polysystem hypothesis by Even-Zohar views all phenomena as semiotics and groups them into systems. Translation is part of social activities. If we view the literary activities as a polysystem under an overall socio-cultural polysystem, then translation is the most active system within the literary system. The polysystem is dynamically balanced in nature, with some systems occupying the central status while others the peripheral.The central and peripheral systems have different functions, and are also not fixed, with the peripheral ones vying to occupy the center. The translation system, without exception, will go through the ups and downs. According to the polysystem hypothesis, when translation occupies the central position, it functions as an innovatory force participating actively in shaping the center of the polysytem; when translation maintains a peripheral position, it has no major influence on the main process and is modeled by conventional norms. In the modern Chinese history, translation has gone through the peripheral-central-peripheral change of status, and what it shapes, is the new linguistic style of Chinese, the modern vernacular. This thesis intends to represent this process and reveal how the changing of translation's status builds up the Chinese language. The media of the shaping process, is the translational language, while the means is translation. For an all-round discussion, all related socio-cultural factors are taken into consideration:social and literary background, translation thoughts and strategies, translational language, and changes that occurred in the linguistic system.Chapter One sketches the rationale of the dissertation. First the Polysystem hypothesis is outlined in terms of its purposes, main objects, basic concepts and nature.Then, the hypothesis is related to the present activities, first regarding translation activities and secondly regarding language development. Finally the summary points out the most valuable aspect of the theory to translation is its relational thinking.Chapter Two probes into the translation boom from the late Ming Dynasty to late Qing Dynasty. The social background, translational thoughts, translation activities, changes took place in the Chinese linguistic system.Chapter Three delves into the translation and linguistic situation in the May 4th period and its aftermath until 1949.Chapter Four looks into the post-1919 translation and linguistic situation.