Studies Of Liang Shiqiu's Translation Thoughts

This thesis attempts to apply AndréLefevere and Susan Bassnett's theory of"cultural turn"to studies of Liang Shiqiu's translation thought by adopting an inductive method. For long, translation studies have been based on linguistics. But since the 1970s,"the cultural turn"proposed by AndréLefevere and Susan Bassnett has provided us with a new perspective in translation studies. Liang Shiqiu was a great translator who had a lot of translation works including the famous The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Thus probing into his translation thought from the perspective of cultural turn would probably be of great significance and academic value as well. Based on this idea, this thesis attempts to analyze and summarize his translation thought after having studied a great number of his translated works and summarized his viewpoints of translation implied in his essays and memoirs.The research could be said as a pioneering work ever done, for studying Liang Shiqiu's translation thought from the perspective of"the cultural turn"is the first of its kind I ever know. This study for the first time attempts to frame Liang Shiqiu's translation thought into a system mainly consisting of four aspects, namely, idea of the mean, idea of the translator, idea of humanity and idea of abstention in translation. The study of Liang Shiqiu's translation thought is to be made mainly at the theoretical level together with some discussion touching his practice. It is, therefore, going to be a combination of both the theory and the practice.This thesis mainly consists of three chapters. At first it offers a brief introduction by explaining the intention, significance, and methodology of this thesis. Then, in Chapter 1, this thesis reviewed the researches on Liang Shiqiu and the studies on Liang Shiqiu as a translator. In Chapter 2, this thesis introduced the cultural turn in translation studies emerging in the 1970s and the theory of the subject of translation and the subjectivity of the translator. In Chapter 3, this thesis attempted to frame Liang Shiqiu's translation thought into a system mainly consisting of four aspects, namely, idea of the mean, idea of the translator, idea of humanity and idea of abstention in translation. At last, the present author summarized the study and pointed out its limitations as well as its further research.In the following, the present author will briefly introduce the four aspects of Liang Shiqiu's translation thought. First, Liang Shiqiu was born in a traditional Chinese family and was influenced deeply by the Confucian thought. And at Harvard he became a student of Irving Babbitt whose new humanism is similar to the Confucian thoughts in nature. So it is the combination of Babbitt's new humanism with traditional Confucian thought that formed one of Liang Shiqiu's translation thought, namely, idea of the mean.Second, translating is not simply a kind of transfer between different language systems but a kind of creative activity. In the processing of translating, the translator is the bridge communicating the culture of source language and the culture of target language. He would unconsciously put his own life experience, personality, aesthetic views and habits into his reading, understanding and expressing of the source text. Just based on this theory, one aspect of Liang Shiqiu's translation thought– Liang Shiqiu's idea of the translator is to be studied. It contains two points, namely, the translator's attitudes toward translation and the translator's translation methods.Third, the idea of humanity. The ideas on human nature are the main part of Liang Shiqiu's literary thought and they inevitably influence his translation thought. The reason why he chose Shakespeare to translate is that he thought that Shakespeare's works reflected the eternal humanity.Fourth, the idea of abstention in translation. Liang Shiqiu was greatly influenced by Irving Babbitt's new humanism. Its core is to give the immanent control to individual's impulsion and appetency with the help of reason. Irving Babbitt's new humanism produces a great impact not only on Liang Shiqiu's literary ideology but also on his translation thought.