A Polysytemic View Of Three Chinese Translations Of The Declaration Of Independence Of The Early20^th Century

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America is the statement that announced the thirteen American colonies at war with Great Britain in1776, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states and no longer part of the British Empire. The Declaration not only paved way for the realization of freedom and democracy in the US, but influenced national revolutions in other countries including China with the medium of translation. However, the attention of the Chinese academic circles has been attached to the political and legal significance of this document, and little drawn on its Chinese translations. Most of the few writings on the Declaration’s translations are criticisms of the mistakes therein, rather than descriptions of the translation activity itself. This paper, from a polysystemic perspective, first introduces the basic ideas of the polysystem theory and its application in translation studies, and by analyzing three Chinese translations of the Declaration of Independence of the early20th century, attempts to prove that the polysystem theory provides an effective perspective for the study on the Declaration of Independence and its Chinese translations.