Literary Self--Translation: A Case Study Of Lin Yutang's Between Tears And Laughter

Self-translation, the activity in which the writer translates his own work, is a rare phenomenon. In the West, studies on the self-translations of Samuel Beckett, Vladimir Nabokov and other self-translators have much been done. In China, although there're many self-translators and self-translated works, unfortunately, few scholars have noticed this phenomenon. Lin Yutang is one of the self-translators. As a famous writer and translator, Lin Yutang made great contributions to the understanding between China and the West, especially to the introduction of Chinese culture to the world. The previous studies on Lin's translation are mainly made in the five aspects: Lin's translation features, the view of literary translation, the aesthetic perspective, and the perspectives of Skopotheorie and intertexutuality. As for the aspect of self-translation, his works are far from being explored. This thesis, starting from the introduction of the self-translation, reviews the related studies from both at home and abroad, and then much in detail probes into Lin Yutang's self-translating by choosing his Between Tears and Laughter as a case study, which, we think, would contribute to both the theory of translation in general and the translation study of Lin Yutang.Based on"Culture Turn", together with Susan Bassnett's cultural translation theory and Andre Lefevere's three-factor theory, the present author attempts to analyze his translation ideas and translated works in the perspective of culture. His translation ideas, as I have summarized, include the four aspects——principles of translation; ethics of being a translator; cultural perspective of translation; sentence as translation unit and untranslatability. These ideas, as a matter of fact, are closely related to his self-translation. In terms of research methodology, the comparative method is employed in analyzing the first eleven chapters self-translated by Lin Yutang; the quantitative-qualitative analysis is also preferred in the discussion regarding the levels of lexicon, syntax, text and aesthesis as revealed in both the source text and the target text; what's more, the computer software is adopted for gathering the language data of differences as well as changes about the stylistic features made by the writer-cum-translator, which makes the analysis more convincing.Finally, the thesis concludes that the translator's ideas on translation decide the translation process; that the self-translator's translating and writing influence each other coordinately, and the self-translation is typically characterized by"creation in translation"and"translation in creation"; that the self-translator's translating and writing, owing to their interaction, share much similarity, especially in wording, sentence-making and the style of the works; and that because the self-translator takes the full advantage in conveying the original message and transmitting the author's intention to the readers more accurately than the conventional translators, self-translation is thus deemed to be an ideal translation.