Translation Thoughts And Activities Of Liang Qichao: From The Perspective Of Pierre Bourdieu's Sociology

With the"cultural turn"in Translation Studies which broke away from the paradigm of structural linguistics, there came a variety of culture-oriented translation studies such as"the manipulation group", feminist translation studies, postcolonial translation studies, Lawrence Venuti's translation strategy of foreignization and domestication, Brazilian"cannibalism"translation theory and so on. In the late 90s of last century, Western scholars began to use the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's sociological concepts such as"field","habitus","cultural capital"to analyze the production, dissemination and acceptance of the translated works, including the specific translation strategies that the translators applied, and various social factors which constraint the translator. Some call it sociological translation studies, others the sociology of translation studies. It was also known as the"sociological turn"of translation studies. Such kind of approach uses sociological theories for reference to study translation helping people to deepen their understanding of the human cultural activities-- translation.Liang Qichao was a famous thinker, politician, litterateur in modern Chinese history. He lived in a turning point in Chinese history. Liang Qichao engaged in the political reform movement initiating and leading the movement of literary reform of his time. What he did had a tremendous influence on the society at that time. His translations and his translation thoughts in Chinese translation history also have the historical significance both theoretically and practically. What Liang Qichao advocated is a kind of enlightenment translation. He insists that people should not do translation only for translation, and views translation as a tool to achieve their purpose.The author of this dissertation uses the concepts of Bourdieu's sociological theory, gives a fairly detailed analysis of the article On Translating Books which reflects Liang Qichao's translation thoughts, and makes seen Liang Qichao's advanced academic proposition contained in his translation thoughts. The author holds that Liang Qichao's translation thoughts are actually related to the sociological concepts such as cultural capital and its conversion factor, sponsors and other core concepts. It leads to the social dimension of Chinese translation theory, transforming traditional Chinese translation theory to a modern translation theory. At the same time, the author uses Bourdieu's sociological concepts such as"field","habitus"and so on to study Liang Qichao's translation activities. The author selects two representative translations of Liang Qichao for analysis. Fifteen Little Heroes embodies the spirit of independence, the spirit of adventurousness, which were exactly what people lacked at that time. Liang Qichao used the so-called"heroic translation"strategy to translate this book. The Adventures of the Beauties translated by Liang Qichao was a political fiction. Liang Qichao chose to translate it, not because the political fiction had high literary and artistic quality, but rather with a fancy to educate the people. Using Bourdieu's sociological concepts to study Liang Qichao's translation thoughts and activities shows that as a political activist Liang Qichao not only involved himself in literary translation and creation, but also brought his own translation thoughts to his practice, and his translation strategies were unique. The entire mentioned above are subject to his habitus and a specific social development field.The present study shows that sociological translation studies or the sociology of translation studies combining the translation activity, the social environment, social conditions with individual translators'specific characteristic, provides a broader vision for translation studies. It also helps people to better analyze and interpret the translator's speciality of his translation practice.