An Investigation On Lin Shu’s Hei Nu Yu Tian Lu From The Perspective Of Post-colonialism

Since1970s, the translation studies school and the functional translation theoristschool started to break the constraints of text, and turned to probe some external andmacro factors, which had affected translation, such as society, history and culture, etc.These researches pave the way for the development of postcolonial theory.Postcolonial translation theory pays close attention to differences in power betweencultures of the source language and the target language. From the view of weakcultures, the translation, in specified period, can be regarded as both a colonial toolwhich strong cultures conquer weak cultures and as an effective weapon which weakcultures resist strong cultures. Lin Shu, as a prestigious translator in semi-colonial andsemi-feudal society of modern China, conducted a lot of translation practices underthe culture collision between China and the West. In order to enlighten the Chinesenation and resist the European powers, he introduced several advanced western ideasand cultures into China by virtue of translation. Hei Nu Yu Tian Lun was the firstChinese translation of Uncle Tom’s cabin. It was published when our Chinese laborhad been persecuted. Therefore, this paper attempts to make a research on Hei Nu YuTian Lu in the light of post-colonial translation theory, and aims to reveal Lin Shu how toregard translation as a tool of resisting strong cultures invasions.In the body of this paper, first and foremost, the author makes detailedintroduction about the original Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Lin Shu’s Hei Nu Yu Tian Lu.And then, the paper concerns three aspects in the postcolonial context: socialenvironment and historical background, political consciousness, decolonization tool.Lin Shu lived in ages when the old and traditional Chinese culture was replaced andchallenged by the new one. Therefore, the birth of Hei Nu Yu Tian Lu had a closerelationship with the social environment and historical background at that time. LinShu is not only a translator, but also a patriot. Lin Shu devoted himself to translatingwestern literary to arouse Chinese people. His political consciousness is illustratedquite clearly in Hei Nu Yu Tian Lu. Under the postcolonial context, Hei Nu Yu TianLu can not be regarded as a pure literature work, but an effective decolonization tool.In a sense, Lin Shu’s translation has a great impact on ideology domain. Last but notleast, the domesticating translation method is the dominant strategy used in Hei NuYu Tian Lu. Although the domesticating strategy makes the translation becomeunfaithful to the original, it advocates culture features of target language culture.The final part sums up the main viewpoints in this thesis, and proposes some uninvolved aspects which are worthy of being further explored into this research.Briefly speaking, from the perspective of postcolonial translation theory, thispaper attempts to analyze the translation how to serve as a resistance weapon in LinShu’s Hei Nu Yu Tian Lu under postcolonial context so as to enlarge the research anglefor Lin Shu’s translation.