A Study Of Lu Xun’s Translation Thoughts

"Paratext", as a certain specific purpose in translation, enjoys the great academic significance. As the product of translation activities, it not only contributes to systematically study translator’s purposes in translation activities, but also can reflect the objective portrayal of the given historical and social context. In the translated texts of foreign fictions appearing in the Late Qing and the early Republic of China, paratexts are abundantly found, especially in Lu Xun’s translation activities. In his related works, such as, the Collection of Prefaces and Postfaces in Translations, the Essays of Lu Xun, the Letters of Lu Xun, and the Diaries of Lu Xun, there are numerous paratexts, including prefaces, postfaces, letters, diaries, advertisements as well as layouts in his translations, which are regarded as the important basis to study his translation activities. Lu Xun’s literary translations not only give rise to the climax of translating foreign fictions, but also make a great influence on the formation and development of Chinese modern language. Nevertheless, in the past years, many a scholar in the translation field only focused on his translation thoughts to make general studies from the perspective of macro level. Meanwhile, his "hard translation" has been always criticized as "dead translation," "mistranslation" and the like.In this regard, Lu Xun, as a brilliant translator, has never obtained enough attention as well as deeply systematic studies in the history of translated literature in China. Thus, this study, based on paratexts, rediscovers Lu Xun as a translator via synchronic description and diachronic comparison. Specifically speaking, synchronic description reveals the underlying factors which affect the formation of Lu Xun’s translation thoughts, externalized and internalized, while diachronic comparison focuses on the evolutionary trajectory of Lu Xun’s translation thoughts from acceptability to adequacy. The author aims to reproduce Lu Xun’s translation process through a more objective study of his translation activities so as to provide a constructive approach and an enlightening implication for the future translation scholars.First of all, this thesis introduces the relevant concepts and studies of paratexts at home and abroad. It reveals that the study of paratexts abroad has already aroused wide concerns, which has been being marginalized by translation scholars in China. Secondly, it reveals the correlated studies about Lu Xun’s translation activities from the perspective of paratexts and uncovers their inadequacies, which shows that although there are numerous researches on Lu Xun’s translation activities, the majority of them still focus on a macro level. Besides that, only a few scholars systematically study Lu Xun as a translator from the perspective of paratexts. Thirdly, it re-discusses Lu Xun as a translator as well as reproduces the process of Lu Xun’s translation activities on the basis of paratexts to unveil the underlying reasons that affect the formation of his translation thoughts textually and non-textually. At the end of this thesis, it clearly demonstrates that (1) the plentiful paratexts in Lu Xun’s translation activities can reveal the transformation of his translational behavior from the early translation period to the late period, that is. his translation thoughts from the conformity with the dominant translation thoughts to the deviation; (2) paratexts can reproduce translator’s translation activities and reveal the internalized and externalized factors affecting the formation of his/her translational behavior in a given culture at a given time; (3) paratexts can serves as an indispensible path to analyzing translator’s translation activities, whereas it, as an underdeveloped field in China, still has room for the further study.