Behaviors Of Lin Yutang And Xu Chengbin As Translators Seen From The Chinese Version Of Between Tears And Laughter

Traditionally, translation studies concentrated on the study of linguistic and textual analysis. However, since the1970s, translation studies have gone beyond language and focused on the interaction between translation and the extra linguistic factors out of translation. Translation critics no longer consider the fidelity as the highest evaluation for translation. They begin to reconsider the relations between the author, the source-text and the translator, the target-text."Truth-seeking-Utility-attaining" continuum model of evaluation constructed by Professor Zhou Lingshun is an effective attempt under this circumstance.The study is conducted under this continuum model of evaluation. Translators’task is to transfer messages between two different languages. The activities of "truth-seeking" in the source text are the nature of being a translator. Meanwhile, as a translator, the factors outside the text have to be taken into consideration, because the extra textual factors are more or less producing effects on the translator behavior. Translators make adjustments and changes of the original text while translating. Therefore,"author/the source text" and "reader/the target text" may be the factors influencing the translator’s behavior."Truth-seeking" and "Utility-attaining" can be the two ends of a continuum which manifests the gradual changes of a translator. Therefore, the continuum gives us two different angles to investigate the translators’behavior.Self-translation is a special kind of translation. The author undertakes the task of translating by himself. It is not until the twentieth century that many scholars begin to study on self-translation. Some articles have made a comparison between self-translation and conventional translation based on the same original text, however, the situation that self-translation and conventional translation coexist in a text is rare in history. Therefore, case study in the thesis will be based on the comparison between Lin Yutang’s behavior and Xu Chengbin’s behavior in their translating process of the Chinese version of Between Tears and Laughter.Between Tears and Laughter is a book on politics and philosophy. It begins with the description of the war affairs and the international politics around1943. Lin Yutang states his own ideas on the rebuilding of philosophy, humanitarianism and the world peace under the guidance of Taoism and Confucianism. Its Chinese version translated by Lin Yutang and Xu Chengbin titled《啼笑皆非》was published in1944. It is made up of twenty-three chapters, each of which is an essay. The first eleven chapters were translated by Lin Yutang, the last twelve chapters were by Xu Chengbin."Lin Yutang’s creativity was so strong that he has no time to do translation." Lin Yutang only translated the first eleven chapters of Between Tears and Laughter and asked Xu Chengbin to translate the rest twelve chapters probably because he was too busy. He asked Xu Chengbin to translate his Between Tears and Laughter because Xu was an archbishop and an editor of a religious publishing. His English is said to be very good. Another element might be that Xu Chengbin shared some ideology with Lin Yutang in philosophy, religious background, etc. The author chooses three chapters of Lin Yutang’s translation and Xu Chengbin’s translation respectively at random, and constructs a corpus. By comparison between the English original and Chinese counterpart, it can be found that Xu Chengbin’s translation is on the scope of the Continuum, and some of Lin Yutang’s translation is beyond the scope of the Continuum. Under the continuum construction, the author will analyze the behavior of Lin Yutang and Xu Chengbin from two different angels:the linguistics and the extra textual factors of society. Based on the intensive description, the author comes to the conclusion that:Firstly, translation behavior itself is a social practical behavior, and should be restricted by the translation qualities. Based on catering to "author/the source text", the practical behavior can be served to "reader/the target text".Secondly, regarded as the ideal interpreter of the original text, the self-translator is the right person for whom it is much easier to convey the intended meaning and reach the spirit of the original. However, the conventional translator may sometimes misinterpret the source text and express the emotions to a less extent.Thirdly, both self-translator and conventional translator have an irresistible impulse to create. However, the self-translator shows more freedom and is more sociable than the conventional translator, sometimes, he can be faithful, but he tends to be unfaithful deliberately for some practical purposes.Fourthly, under the guidance of the same translation criterion, the psych-directions of self- translators and conventional translators have big differences. In order to make his book secure the market and arouse resonance in Chinese readers, Lin Yutang directly adopts the translation approaches catering to "reader/the target text" according to the requirements of practical purposes. Xu Chengbin as the co-translator of Between Tears and Laughter is carefully picked out by Lin Yutang, so we can deduce that he agrees with and translates under Lin Yutang’s translation criterion. Therefore, Xu Chengbin tries his best to be responsible for Lin Yutang, the author. Xu Chengbin’s indirectly pursues the translation methods catering to "author/the source text" according to the requirements of practical purposes.Then finally the thesis concludes that a self-translator such as Lin Yutang is like a bat, which looks like a mouse but definitely not a mouse or looks like a bird but not a bird. Self-translators have the identity of both translator and the writer. They have more liberty because the works being translated are written by themselves, so they can be free from the restriction of the standard norms of translation which are imposed on the conventional translator. Therefore, the translation studies can not ignore the self-translation which is an objective fact really existing in the world.