On The Translation Strategies Of Lin Yutang's English Version Of Six Chapters Of A Floating Life

In the past few decades, the status of Chinese culture has been greatly enhanced in the world, and the translation field in China has been flourishing accordingly. Among the prominent Chinese translators, Lin Yutang has made great contributions in introducing Chinese literature to the world. With his excellent mastery of both English and Chinese, Lin has translated many Chinese classical works which have aroused wide attention in China and abroad as well.Domestication and foreignization are two translation strategies which have been long in the highlight of the translation field. Scholars for domestication, whose representative is Nida, argue that translation should be target-language-oriented, aiming to smooth away the strangeness and foreignness in the source text and make the translation just like the original. On the contrary, scholars for foreignization, whose representative is Venuti, insist that translation should be source-language-oriented, trying to retain the exotic elements as many as possible so as to introduce more foreign culture to the target readers. For a long-lasting period, the two translation strategies have been thought to be contradictory and incompatible. However, through the present research, it is found that in the translation of Six Chapters of A Floating Life, Lin Yutang combines the two strategies successfully. On one hand, he pays much attention to the English language norms to make the translated work readable and intelligible; on the other hand, he tries to satisfy the target readers' expectations of getting to know more about ancient Chinese culture by keeping the foreign flavor in his translated text.This thesis falls into five chapters. The first chapter introduces the background about Lin and the Chinese classic《浮生六记》. In the second chapter, the thesis goes on to give an elaboration both about the two translation strategies: domestication and foreignization, and about other researches on Lin's version of Six Chapters of A Floating Life in China. Then based on the abundant language materials taken from Six Chapters of A Floating Life, the thesis analyzes Lin's flexible choice of strategies during the translating process, from linguistic and cultural perspective respectively. It draws the conclusion in the last chapter that when dealing with linguistic elements such as diction, sentence structure, discourse and style, Lin gives the priority to domestication with foreignization as a complement. When coping with cultural elements, whether it be ecological culture, material culture, religious culture, social culture or unique Chinese linguistic culture, Lin frequently adopts foreignization, with domestication as a complement.During his translation process, Lin Yutang appropriately combines domestication and foreignization and shifts between the two strategies according to different circumstances in the source text. This is a very worthy translating method which deserves other translators' attention and learning.