A Case Study Of The Translation Ethics In Lin Yutang’s Translation Of Six Chapters Of A Floating Life

Six Chapters of a Floating Life as a celebrated autobiography note in QingDynasty was a perfect embodiment of Shen Fu’s writing style and life philosophy. Hiswork focused on the watery life of himself and his wife Yun with the aim of stressingtheir little funs although in hardships. Their generous life attitude facilitates theartistic sublimation of their rough lives at later stage. Not only Shen Fu’s writing stylewhich was noted as brisk words, exquisite depiction, fresh language and vivid images,but also Xingling theory which influenced him deeply were both the same as LinYutang’s pursuit of personality-free and leisurely life attitude. Just because of thiskind of driving power of rich Chinese traditional ethics, Lin chose to translate SixChapters of a Floating Life and that version eventually became the masterpieceamong most of his versions.Translation as a cross culture activity is not done in vacuum, but related closelyto ethics. Since Bassnet from England and Lefevere from Belgium published theircollaborated work Translation, History and Culture in1990and put forward theslogan of "The Culture Turn of Translation". Translation was no longer only be seenpurely as problem of changing language, but more recognized as complexmanipulation of text. Such as selection of version, translator, editor, publisher, patronand so on. Andrew Chesterman divided the contemporary study in translationacademic field into four main models. They are ethics of representation, ethics ofservice, ethics of communication and norm-based ethics.The paper based on Andrew Chesterman’s four translation ethics models,combined translation theory with translation practice and analyzed Lin’s famoustranslated version of Six Chapters of a Floating Life, aimed at doing research in LinYutang’s selection of translation strategies and ways of how those strategies formatted.In order to evaluating the translated version better and reflecting the guiding function of translation ethics models in translation activities. The paper was divided into eightparts, the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh parts were the body part. They analyzed Lin’sfamous translated version of Six Chapters of a Floating Life from angles of four ethicsmodels separately, and reflected each model’s function of guiding and balancing intranslation activities. The fourth chapter was based on ethics of representation. Thewriter analyzed from perspectives of representing the affection of the original workand representing the language’s accuracy of the original work. By doing this canillustrate faithfulness and fidelity was the core in this model, and main principle wasto deliver content of the original text and ideas of writer. The fifth chapter was basedon ethics of service. The writer analyzed from perspectives of the original writer,target readers and patron. From that way characteristics of the model were revealed,and readers get know the model was mainly aim at business translation and theservice function of translation was stressed on. The sixth chapter was based on ethicsof communication. The writer studied from image handling and culture-loaded wordsand stressed on ethics principles during cross language and cross culture activities.The seventh chapter was based on norm-based ethics. The writer used expectancynorm and professional norm as the body part. Both parts revealed norms in the modelsymbolized expectations based on the source text in certain era, and meanwhile, thosenorms usually corresponded with main value trend, including ethics value such astruth and trust.