On Rootless Back Translation Of Lin Yutang’s Moment In Peking From The Perspective Of Intertextuality

Moment in Peking, written by Lin Yutang in English, is often regarded as an “epicnovel” of broad canvas which depicted the profound changes of Chinese society fromthe Boxer Rebellion to the Sino-Japanese War, namely, from1900to1938. Translationof such a great work back into Chinese is distinctive from common back translation andcommon translations and is of more value to study. However, during a long time there isnot an unified name that is commonly agreed upon of this translation phenomenon.Professor Wang Hongyin names it “Rootless Back Translation” and defines it clearly.On the basis of this theory, this paper studies the different definitions, the essence andthe classification of Back translation. Then it assesses other names and defines the scopeof Rootless Back Translation, aiming at promoting and enriching this newly-brought-uptheory.In1960s Kristeva proposed Intertextuality Theory which states that “any text isconstructed as mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation ofanother”. It is applied in translation field because of its forceful interpretive capacity. Aspointed out by Qin Wenhua, translation is in essence an intertextuality activity. RootlessBack Translation, of which the source work is to promote the culture of one countrywhile written in a foreign language, is a typical intertextuality activity. Moment inPeking is such a text.As a masterpiece of Lin Yutang, Moment in Peking depicts aspects of Chineseculture, such as Poetry and Ci of the Tang and Song Dynasty, Northern Wei stone tablets(魏碑), inscriptions on bones or tortoise (甲骨), Beijing Opera (京剧), Chess (象棋),the five factors (五行) and so on, and is interlaced with many Chinese classics, such asHong Lou Meng and Chunangtse. Based on the origin, the definition and the typologyof Intertextuality Theory, this paper analyzes the intertextuality parts in Moment inPeking from the Horizontal axis/Vertical axis of Kristeva and the manifestintertextuality/constitutional intertextuality. After analyzing the source work, this papermakes a through comparative study of the two Chinese translations of Moment in Peking---Zhang Zhenyu’s version (1977) and Yu Fei’s version (1991). By exploring thedifferent translation strategies, this paper makes an attentive discussion of the criteriafor Rootless Back Translation. Then this thesis proposes some possible translationmethods. Moreover, this paper also finds out and corrects some mistakes in these twotranslations works, hoping to contribute to the translation study of Lin Yutang andRootless Back Translation theory.