A Study Of The Influence Of Lin Shu’s Translating Motivations On His Translation

Lin Shu took an extremely important position in translation circle of China and hewas crowned as the “King of the Translation World” and “Father of Modern LiteraryTranslation”. But as a monolingual translator, Lin Shu was completely ignorant of foreignlanguages. Massive mistranslation, adaptation, amplification and omission can be found inhis translation. Naturally, his translation was always blamed for its “unfaithfulness” tosource texts. However, his “unfaithful” translation was warmly welcomed by receivers atthat time and it had an enormous influence on the society of late Qing and early Republicof China.In traditional translation studies, the only criterion for a translation to be good or badwas that the target text must be faithful to the source text. The traditional translationstudies neglected the influence and manipulation of literature, culture and politics of thetarget society on translators and it also ignored the importance of translators’ purposes andreaders’ expectations in translation.Based on the Rewriting Theory and Skopostheorie, the thesis analyzes Lin Shu’stranslating motivations and his intentional choice of originals and employment of strategiesand techniques. The author intends to explore how Lin Shu’s translation was manipulatedby culture, politics and literature of late period of the Qing Dynasty and the author alsotries to figure out the reasons why Lin Shu’s “unfaithful” translation could enjoy such ahigh reputation at that time.Translation studies should be conducted from the cultural aspects as well as from thelinguistic level. The special political and cultural situation in late period of the QingDynasty not only greatly affected Lin Shu’s translating motivations but also determined hisunusual translating methods. The massive adaptation, amplification and omission in LinShu’s translation was not his arbitrary practice but was decided by receivers’ expectations,his purposes, cultural and social background of the time. Lin Shu’s translation fullyreflected the needs of the society and it was proved to be successful and acceptable.The thesis consists of seven parts.The introduction part offers a brief introduction to Lin Shu and briefs the purpose andsignificance of the thesis.In chronological sequence, Chapter One makes a survey of Lin Shu’s translated worksand his influence on Chinese literature.Chapter Two proposes two theoretical bases: Rewriting Theory of André Lefevere and Skopostheorie of Vermeer.Chapter Three offers an overview of social and cultural situation in late period of theQing Dynasty and analyzes the dominant ideology and poetics of the day.Chapter Four is the main body of the thesis. On the basis of Rewriting Theory andSkopostheorie, this part probes into Lin Shu’s translating motivations and lays specialstress on the influence of his motivations on the choice of originals.Chapter Five analyzes the translating strategies and techniques Lin Shu employed inhis translated works.The conclusion part displays the author’s findings, points out the study’s limitationsand drives some suggestions for further study.