A Study Of Yong John Allen’s Translation Of The Making Of A Man From The Perspective Of Polysystem Theory

The Making of a Man was written by James Wideman Lee in1898, and with help of Van Yi, Yong John Allen translated it into Chinese in1910AD. Comparing the English version with the Chinese translation, the thesis focuses on Yong John Allen’s translation methods of The Making of a Man from the perspective of polysystem theory.Israel scholar Itama Evan Zohar first proposed polysystem theory in1970s. Attracted by Russian formalism, structuralism, general system theory and cultural semiology, he regarded translated literature as a system in literary polysystem, objectively describing the reception and influence of translated literature in the main culture, so as to show the norm and rules that restrict translated literature.The author analyzes translation methods of Allen’s The Making of a Man from the perspective of polysystem theory. The thesis studies five translation methods, namely, addition, omission, paraphrase, adaptation and explanation, to explore Allen’s translation features and his viewpoints of translation. When translated literature occupied a secondary position in the literary polysystem, the translator should adopt the strategy of domestication. And they need pay attention to the acceptability of translation and response of the reader. According to comparative text analysis, the author gets the following conclusion. Translated literature was in a secondary position of the literary polysystem in the late Qing Dynasty. Such translation strategy-domestication goes first, foreignization second was adopted by Allen, and the acceptability of the target-reader was also taken into consideration.In the late Qing Dynasty, Yong John Allen, an American missionary, came to China. His main purpose was to spread Christian. In one of his important translations The Making of a Man, he emphasized the religious factor of translation. At the same time, he thought that other cultural factors should service religious factor. His theory had a positive impact in Chinese society at that time.In this paper, by comparing the texts in Chinese and English, I will explore and study the religious factors, historical factors, social factors, scientific factors and literature and art factors, which are talked in Allen’s The Making of a Man Study. All the factors are not isolated, but interrelated. Each of them has its own characteristics and cultural factors.