A Study Of Shi Xianrong's Version Of The Catcher In The Rye:A Perspective Of Polysystem Theory

Polysystem theory was proposed by the Israeli scholar Itamar Even-Zohar in the early 1970s.According to this theory,the translated literature,as an integral part of the target language literary polysystem,is not always in a peripheral position,actually,in three cases,it will occupy the center of the system.And the change of the position of the translated literature in the target language literary polysystem will greatly influence the translators,decision on their translation strategies.When the translated literature occupies the central position of the target language literary polysystem,the translation activities,as an innovative force,will bring in new ideas,new languages and new literary modes.In this case,the translator will be willing to break the literature tradition of his/her own country in order to make the translation keep "adequate" with the original text.On the contrary,when the translated literature is in the peripheral position,the translator tends to find an optimum existing secondary mode for the foreign text and attach importance to the"acceptability" of the translation.This thesis treats Shi Xianrong's version of The Catcher in the Rye as the research target,and it tries to interpret Shi Xianrong's selection of the translation strategy and his version's influence on Chinese literary polysystem from the perspective of polysystem theory.Through the study,three findings can be got,which are as follows:(1)When Shi Xianrong's translation was born,Chinese literature was in a"weak" position due to the special historical and political reasons,while the translation literature,representing a new literary trend,occupied the central position in Chinese literary polysystem.This situation conforms to the second case in which the translated literature occupies the center of literary polysystem in Even-Zohar's theory;(2)Under the influence of the central position of translated literature in Chinese literary polysystem at that time,Shi Xianrong mainly adopted the translation strategy of foreignization,which can be reflected on lexical,syntactic and textual level in his translation;(3)New language forms and new writing skills were introduced in Shi Xianrong's translation version which consequently exerted a profound influence on the Chinese literary polysystem at that time.After the tentative study of Shi Xianrong's version,the conclusion can be drawn that the polysystem theory can interpret Shi Xianrong's selection of the translation strategy and his version's influence on Chinese literary polysystem at that period.