A Study Of Yang Xianyi And Gladys Yang’s Translating Activities And Thoughts

Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang are masters of translation field who have madetremendous contribution to Chinese translation cause all their lives. The works they translatedare numerous, which includes: excellent foreign literature, Chinese classical, modern andcontemporary literature, thus they have made remarkable contribution to the exchange ofwestern and eastern culture and civilization.Domestic scholars have done few systematic studies on the Yangs as translators. Hence,on the basis of the collected detailed information and the previous research results, the authorof this thesis tries to conduct a comprehensive study on the Yangs in terms of their unusuallife, contribution and status in the translation field, translating activities, translated works,translating thoughts, limitations and factors of success in translation career.The concentration of this thesis is on the Yangs’ translating activities and thoughts.Combining the contemporary social background, the author tries to study the Yangs’translating activities by dividing it into four stages, which are amateur translatorstage(1936-1943), the earlier stage of professional translator(1943-1952), the prolific stage ofprofessional translator(1952-1972), the brilliant stage of professional translator(1972-1986).About the Yangs’ translating thoughts, the author first summarizes their own viewpointsabout translation, which could be arranged as follows: their idea of “translatability” and“untranslatability” in translation, their idea of “faithfulness”,“expressiveness” and “elegance”in translation, their idea of “content” and “form” in poetry translation, and their idea of“historical distance” in translation; and then make further analysis of their translating thoughtsby studying their main translation works, on that basis, the author of this thesis also analysestheir translation styles and the factors that influence their translating thoughts.The aims of this thesis are to make up the insufficiency of all-round study on YangXianyi and Gladys Yang in China, absorb wisdom from their translation practice and thoughts,point out the shortcomings of their translation cause, so as to provide some guiding functionsto contemporary translators.