Novel Translation In Late Qing Dynasty And Early Republic Of China From The Peerpective Of Translation Ethics

The late Qing dynasty and early Republic of China is one of the most activeperiods of novel translation in the history of Chinese novel translation, even in theChinese translation history. During the twenty years, thousands of foreign novels ha dbeen translated. The translation of foreign novels in this period triggered the firstclimax of novel translation and had an impressive influence on the then society. Thetranslated foreign novels helped Chinese people know and understand the westernworld, promoted the development of Chinese literature, enriched the culture of Chinaand they even had a profound and long-lasting impact on the change of the wholesociety.The novel translation in late Qing dynasty and early Republic of China is aspecial phenomenon in the Chinese translation history, most of scholars admit theimportance of the novel translation in this period, but the translated novels arecriticized for not being faithful to the original works. When compared the importanceof this period s translated novels in the history of Chinese translation history, theyhave not got sufficient attention. Even though the translated novels of this periodhave this or that problem, their significance is self-evident. This thesis studied thenovel translation in late Qing dynasty and early Republic of China from theperspective of translation ethics, aiming to make up for the inadequacy study of thetranslation of foreign novels in this period and make a reasonable evaluation.Ethics is a philosophy about what is good or bad and it studies on the variousinterpersonal relationships. Translation, as an intercultural, inter-lingual activity, itinvolves different interpersonal relationships, which obviously needs the guidanceand regulation of ethics. Therefore, it is necessary to study translation from theperspective of ethics. In our field of translation, translation ethics has graduallyattracted the attention of scholars. Lv Jun is one of the earliest scholars to make anintensive study of translation ethics and he also put s forward the concept oftranslation ethics by drawing from Jurgen Harbermas Discourse Ethics. From thenon, to study translation theory and translation practice from the perspective oftranslation ethics has become common practice.This thesis mainly uses Andrew Chesterman s four models of translation ethics(ethics of representation, ethics of service, ethics of communication and norm-basedethics)as theoretical basis to make a study of translated foreign novels published in late Qing dynasty and early Republic of China(1898-1919)， taking Lin Shu stranslation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a case study. Andrew Chesterman s research ontranslation ethics is more systematic and objective. Even though there are somedifferences between the translated novels, but these translated novels are translated inthe same period, they in some degree have common characteristics. By summarizingthe models of translation ethics embodied in the translated novels of this period basedon their common characteristics and influences, we know that these translated novelsconform to the ethics of service, ethics of communication and norm-based ethics, butviolate the ethics of representation for unfaithful to the original texts, that is thereason why they criticized by the scholars. This thesis will combine with the specificsocial-cultural background and translators translation purpose at that time to analyzethe factors which affecting the following of models of ethics in the process oftranslation. We concluded that this period s novel translation violated the ethics ofrepresentation intentionally so that they could abide by the other three models oftranslation ethics better, translators made the choice according to their needs. As theyhad positive influences on the readers and the dominant ideology, the translation offoreign novels conformed to the requirements of the then translation ethics and thisperiod s novel translation are in line with the requirements of the time.