A Study On Lin Yutang’s Cultural Perspective And Cultural Translation Strategies

Lin Yutang is a well-known Chinese scholar, litterateur and translator. He was born in China and grew up within Chinese traditional culture, while his more than 30 years’ experience of living in the West also had a great influence on him. He was bilingual and also bicultural due to his life experience, which laid a solid foundation for his attainments in translation. His translations of classic Chinese texts into English were bestsellers in the West. His works exhibited the treasures of Chinese traditional culture to the West and aroused Western readers’ interest in Chinese culture, making great contributions to the cultural communications between the East and the West.Following the “cultural turn” in translation studies which introduces cultural analysis into the study of translation, this research puts Lin Yutang’s cultural perspective together with his translation practice. It explores the impact of his cultural perspective on his selection of texts and translation strategies. Firstly, through the study and analysis of the researching documents about Lin, the roots of Chinese and Western cultures in his cultural perspective are probed into. The moderation and reasonableness of Confucianism, and the romance and spirituality of Taoism collided in him and then merged with Western culture, and formed his special cultural perspective of the East-West fusion. Secondly, this research takes Lin’s Chinese-English translation works as the objects, and focuses on the cultural translation strategies used in his translations. A number of representative cultural translations are sorted out and categorized by the strategies used. Lastly, this research explores the influence of Lin’s cultural perspective on his translation practice, and finds that Lin’s cultural perspective is embodied in both his selection of texts and his translation strategies. In the selection of source texts, Lin tended to choose those which could represent Chinese culture, especially the Taoist leisure and spirituality. It not only complies with the characteristics of Lin’s cultural perspective, but also caters to the aesthetic taste and cultural expectations of the readers in the West. In terms of translation strategies, Lin employed various strategies flexibly, including cultural borrowing, cultural substitution, cultural compensation and free translation. The combined utilization of these strategies is an embodiment of his cultural perspective of the East-West fusion.The popularity of Lin’s translation works is a proof of his success in the employment of translation strategies. Therefore, Lin’s strategies, especially the cultural translation strategies, can offer valuable references to translators on how to convey the source culture properly, correctly and naturally, and are worth of further studies. On the other hand, exploring Lin’s translation from the perspective of culture can also lay a foundation for a rational interpretation of his translations.