The Cultural Intentions And Modes Of Translated Literature In Transition Periods

Translation is not only a code conversion between two languages, but also atransition between two cultures. On one hand, culture potentially influences andconstrains the forms, contents, process and products of translated literature. On theother hand, translated literature as a part of culture reflects the spirit of nationalliterature and its forms are influenced by many factors. Culture and translatedliterature influence and restrict each other which promote the development oflanguage and boost cultural exchanges between all countries. In a specific historicalperiod, ideology influences or even determines translation purposes and strategies oftranslated literature. The characteristics of culture, especially political and economicalfactors, greatly affect translators’ choices of translated works.The interaction between culture and translated literature is most striking evidentin transition period. As we all know, transition period is often marked by politicalsystem and social system changes. Throughout Chinese history, in late Qing dynastyand the beginning of the Republic of China together with the reform and opening upperiod, Chinese society underwent enormous changes. In late Qing dynasty and thebeginning of the Republic of China, foreign powers invaded China and the societybecame unrest. Some intellectuals suffered from aggression on one hand and realizedthat if the nation wanted to get rid of invasion, the only way was to absorb foreignadvanced cultural system and ideas on the other hand. Liang Qichao was the mostfamous one who ignited Novel Revolution and started New Stories.After China’s first wave of large-scale literary translation activities appeared.Meanwhile, this period was the part of the third climax of Chinese translation. At thebeginning of the reform and opening up, the influences of Cultural Revolution still existed to some degree. It was not an easy thing to completely get rid of peoples’ oldideas. Therefore, Li Jingduan, the initiator of Translation encountered enormousobstacles and unimaginable difficulties when chose topics in the initial phrase. Theparticularity of these two periods determined the translation features of New Storiesand Translation.Although researches on literary translation in these two periods arecomparatively more, researchers often explored one period and comprehensive andsystematic studies on both of them are few. Therefore, the author chooses the mostrepresentative journals New Stories (1902-1906) in late Qing dynasty and Translation(1979-1989), the first foreign literary journal after the reform and opening up, toexplore the translating characteristics in these two periods. The reasons to choose NewStories and Translation mainly lie in that both journals are the most representativeones and deeply mark the distinctive translation characteristics of these two eras.In this paper, the author uses empirical methods to study the two journals fromthe perspectives of source language country, translation theme, translation languageand translation strategy to discuss the cultural intentions and modes of noveltranslation by means of case studies on translated works in New Stories（1902-1906）and Translation（1979-1989）, aiming at displaying the micro-ecological conditions offoreign literature translation and revealing the reasons of their differences. Besides,the study of these two journals will help us fully understand the effects of translationon cultural exchange and the relations between different countries as well as theintegration of world literature.