On Two Translations Of Francis Bacon’s Essays From The Perspective Of Polysytem Theory

Polysystem theory was initiated by Israeli scholar Itamar Even-Zohar in the1970s on the literary theoretical basis of Russian Formalism in the1920s, and then hasbeen further developed and complemented by Gideon Toury s Translation Norms andLefevere Manipulation Theory. Polysystem theory serves as an essential theoreticalbranch of the School of Translation Studies, making giant contributions to theestablishment and recognition of translation studies as an independent discipline, thedevelopment of descriptive translation studies, and the shift of translation studiesmodel from source-oriented perspective to target-oriented aspect. Since the1990s, thistheory received intense echo from Chinese translation circle and attracted a greatnumber of scholars attention and interest in its introduction and exploration with manystudies on its applicability in China. However, these researches mostly concentrated onthe translation practice around the May Fourth Movement and the late Qing dynasty,and subsequently shifted to its application in specific translations (especially ofnovels).Under such a context, this research aims to describe and explore the difference intranslation and translation strategies of two Chinese versions of Bacon s Essays withinthe theoretical framework of Polysystem theory. Compared with novels, such a literarygenre as essays has been rarely studied while existing translation studies on Bacon sEssays mainly centered on linguistic level and the quality of translation, beingrestrained in the linguistic criticism. This study attempts to describe and explain thetranslation and translation strategies of Shui Tiantong s translated version in1997andCao Minglun s in1997in terms of the educational background of translators, linguisticdifferences, and the political and social background.The comparative analysis has shown the differences of the two translations inlinguistics and translation strategies: Shui Tiantong put more emphasis on theadequacy of the translation and mainly adopted literal translation and foreignizationwhile Cao Minglun attached more importance to the acceptability by readers in thetarget language and mostly put free translation and domestication into translationpractice. The different educational backgrounds and social ideology of the differentperiods they belong to are the principal reasons for the differences.