A Study On The Transformation Of Chinese Culture-bounded Terms In Lin Yutang’s Writing Moment In Peking

Lin Yutang’s Moment in Peking has always been the focus of researchers both at home and abroad, for it is not only a world famous work written in English but also a masterpiece containing Chinese culture and possessing the research value. In this novel, Lin Yutang, a writer of profound attainments in language and knowledge in history, sketches the panorama of modern China. It is hailed as a China epic by many critics.In recent years, many scholars have studied its cultural value and historical significance from different perspectives. However, most of the scholars may neglect that when Lin Yutang created this book, he needed to translate the Chinese culture first because the background of this book is in modern China while its narrative language is English. Undoubtedly, the most difficult part in this process is the transformation of Chinese culture-bounded terms (hereafter shortened as CCBTs), which is rooted in Chinese culture and limited to it. Consequently, this thesis, aiming at the transformation of CCBTs in Lin Yutang’s composing process, comprehensively analyzes the methods adopted by him, so as to reveal the technologies employed to transform CCBTs in cross culture translation.Firstly, this thesis, in light of Nida’s category of culture, uses five tables to enumerate the examples about the transformation of CCBTs in the Book One of Moment in Peking, so that readers can have a comprehensive and distinct view on Lin Yutang’s transformation of CCBTs.Next, the writer chooses typical examples from the tables and analyzes Lin’s transformation skills and methods during his writing of this book. The method adopted by Lin Yutang are literal translation, transliteration, free translation and substitution, among which the former two methods belong to foreignizing translation and the latter two belong to domesticating translation. Also interpretative translation is employed to make up the deficiency of foreignizing translation, which can be better understood by western readers.Last but not the least, through the analysis of different methods, the writer draws the conclusion that Lin tends to apply foreignizing translation with the supplementation of domesticating translation to transform CCBTs. Although both domestication and foreignization have their disadvantages and advantages, it is more beneficial to apply the latter to realize the purpose of leading Chinese culture to go abroad, that is to make weak culture blend with strong culture. The adoption of this strategy also corresponds with Lin’s translation criterion proposed in his On Translation, that is "faithfulness""expressiveness" and "beauty"(Chen2010:329). The author hopes that the analysis in this thesis can contribute to the research on how to lead Chinese culture to go global.