Translation As Implantation-A Hermeneutic Investigation Into Pan Guangdan's "Appropriation" Of Foreign Texts In His National Character And National Eugenics

Pan Guangdan is a pioneering eugenicist in modern China,and he also makes great achievements in academic translation.His National Character and National Eugenics,first published in 1937,has been regarded as a eugenic monograph.In fact,two of the five chapters of the work are Pan Guangdan's "appropriation" of two foreign texts,accounting for more than 50%of the whole book.That is to say,it is a mixture of translation and writing.This phenomenon is termed as the "implantation" of translated foreign texts in academic writings in this thesis.And this thesis endeavors to explore what Pan Guangdan "implants",why he "implants" and how he "implants".Descriptive approach is the methodology of this thesis,and George Steiner's hermeneutic motion theory is employed to interpret the formation of Pan Guangdan's"implantation" of translated foreign texts in his work,and analyze features of those"implanted" translated texts.It can be found that Pan Guangdan's puts his "trust" in two foreign texts and their authors,because of lack of systematic research from native scholars on the Chinese national character till then,leading to the "implantation".Pan Guangdan's "aggression"of foreign texts is manifested in his deletions,rearrangement of the content,and replacement of culture allusions of foreign texts in the translation process.And then,Pan Guangdan "incorporates" the meaning and form of the source texts,and transforms them to the meaning and form of the target language under the guidance of"domestication" strategy.At last,Pan Guangdan "compensates" the unbalance,caused by historical and cultural differences in the translation process through back translation and adding translation annotations,helping Chinese readers get a better understanding of the source texts.It is also found that this phenomenon is not rare in the first half of the 20th century,when an academic discipline is in its infancy,while it should be noticed that the phenomenon is reasonable in that specific historical background,and studies on the phenomenon can help people to achieve a new understanding of functions and properties of translation actions.