On Lin Yutang’s Translation:from The Perspective Of Gestalt Psychology

Lin Yutang (1895-1976) is well-known for his excellent achievements in literary creation and translation. His translated works, with the beauty of accuracy, conciseness, and vividness, present a panorama of unique Chinese culture to the Western readers, and have received good readership. This thesis, through analysis of Lin’s translated works such as Six Chapters of a Floating Life, Sweet Dreams Shadows of Chang Chao, The Travels of Mingliaotse of Tu Lung, etc., calls attention to the close interrelationship between his translation and his psychological performance.In the field of social and natural sciences, increasing attention is being devoted to the interdisciplinary study between psychology and other disciplines, which brings new perspectives, ideas and methodology to the development of different disciplines. Translation studies, in order to seek inner psychological mechanism and laws in translating process, should be integrated with psychology. Although it is difficult to grasp the human’s psychology, we can try to explore the mental activities through analysis of presentation. In translation process, the psychological activities of the translator, in different forms, accompany the whole translation process, so that translation practice is no longer considered to be the static end product in a textual form but a dynamic process with the participation of the translator.Based on meticulous reading of works and papers on Gestalt psychology, the present author undertook an interdisciplinary study. Some theories of Gestalt psychology, e.g. the heterogeneous isomorphism theory, the principle of the wholeness, law of proximity, law of simplicity and law of closure, are borrowed to explore Lin Yutang’s psychological activities in translating process, which exert a profound influence on his translational actions. The author hopes to further deepen and widen the study on Lin Yutang’s translation. The psychological factors have a great impact on Lin Yutang’s translation process and translation products. Gestalt beauty in his translated versions of Chinese classics was achieved by integrating his own aesthetic experience successfully. Lin’s efforts deserve the sympathetic response to his translation by the Chinese and Western readers. This thesis attempts to elucidate Lin Yutang’s translation in light of Gestalt psychology in the following aspects.(1) The heterogeneous isomorphism theory asserts that external object, artistic pattern, and a person’s psychological activities are similar in structure, and they are all called "the model of force". The heterogeneous isomorphism theory can be applied to explaining the translator’s source text selection. Lin Yutang chose the source texts because of the isomorphism between his motivation and the themes of translation materials as well as that between his life philosophy and the ancient Chinese philosophical thoughts in the source texts.(2) A translated text is an independent unit with gestalt nature; it is an integration of language, image, meaning and structure rather than a simple collection of words and sentences. The source text and target text are not mechanical correspondence but the formulation and transformation of gestalt scheme. If image is the integration of subjective feelings and objective existence, artistic conception is the overall integration of the both, which gives rise to virtual-and-real structure. Gestalt psychology argues that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Literary translation regards the overall representation of artistic conception as the highest aim. Under the guidance of the principle of the wholeness in the course of Lin Yutang’s C-E translation of Chinese classics, great importance was attached to the holistic transference of artistic conception of the original, through which the structure of the target text presents a new gestalt quality. Meanwhile, In Lin Yutang’s On Translation, he put forward "Gesamtvorstellung" translation emphasizing sentence as translation unit, which steps into a new path to the study of translation ontology. This liberates researchers from dualism of "literal translation" VS "free translation" as well as trialism of "fidelity","expressiveness" and "elegance", bordering the horizon of translation researchers.(3) Law of proximity maintains that objects which are closer would be perceived together. Under the guidance of law of proximity, Lin Yutang grasped connotative meaning and denotative meaning of the original through contextual analysis, which leads to his accuracy in rendering words and sentences.(4) Law of simplicity states that our cognitive system has a preference for simple patterns. Under the guidance of law of simplicity, Lin Yutang’s cognition focused on the valid information of the original text, and he deleted some unimportant or redundant information, which brought the translated works to be much more brief and fit for the target reader’s aesthetical need.(5) Law of closure tells that on seeing an unfinished or irregular object, human beings have a natural tendency to close the gaps and complete the unfinished forms to have a balance in their mind. Under the guidance of law of closure, Lin Yutang tried to fill the missing parts of the source text to construct the target text completely, which makes it possible that the readers can obtain the aesthetic experience to a large extent.