On Self-translation From The Perspective Of Intertextuality

Intertextuality theory is proposed by French semiologist Julia Kristeva in the1960s, who believes that every text is produced based on the absorption andtransformation of other texts. As a new thought and literary theory, Intertextualitytheory has been applied into other research fields, including translation studies.Intertextual translation studies not only focus on the intertextual relationships betweentexts, but also place the rendering text in the social and historical context to examinethe intertextuality between text and reader, text and context and text and culture.As a special translation activity, in which the writer, or ST producer, works as thetranslator as well, self-translation possesses its particularity. This research probes intothe intertextual relationships in self-translation process and compares self-translationwith conventional translation in the aspects of translation process, translator’ssubjectivity and translation strategy from the perspective of intertextuality, whichexpresses self-translators’ advantages in comprehending and interpreting theintertextual relationships in the text. At the same time, Lin Yutang’s self-translatedworks Between Tears and Laughter (the first eleven episodes) is chosen as the casestudy of this thesis. Through the intertextual relationships between target text andsource text, reader and culture illustrated in the case, Lin Yutang’s pursuit of histranslation norms “faithfulness”,“fluency” and “beauty” is demonstrated. Besides, thecase is studied from the perspective of Two Axes of Intertextuality and Micro andMacro Intertextuality to demonstrate self-translators’ understanding and interpretingabout the intertextual relationships, which also provide instructions for conventionaltranslators.The first chapter introduces the research background, aim, significance andstructure of this thesis; Chapter2reviews self-translation, especially Lin Yutang’sself-translation and previous studies on self-translation; Chapter3gives a briefintroduction to the rise and development of Intertextuality theory and therepresentatives’ main thoughts; In chapter4, the intertextual relationships in self-translation is analyzed separately when self-translator is the writer, reader andtranslator of the text and self-translation is compared with conventional translation tohighlight its particularity and superiorities; Chapter5is the case study of Lin Yutang’sBetween Tears and Laughter from the perspective of Kristeva’s two axes ofintertextuality and micro and macro intertextuality to explore the intertextualrelationships between target text and source text, other texts, reader, cultural context,etc; Chapter6summarizes the content of this thesis and puts forward the futuredirections for the development of this branch.