On Lin Yutang's Translating Six Chapters Of Floating Life From Cultural Translation Perspective

It is more widely agreed that language and culture are correlated domains.In the study of translation,more and more researchers focus on culture-related factors.“Cultural turn” in translation studies appears.Its aim is to broaden the scope of translation studies.By providing more and better theoretical support,the new research is expected to be innovative in translation theory.This study has opened up a new horizon for translation studies,as well as brings new challenges.Whether cultural studies can break away from the ontological study of traditional translation concepts and replace linguistic studies,and whether such questions or tendencies can form a universal translation theory to reasonably describe the translation process,still has much room for discussion.As Wang Bingqin(2007)comments,“Translation,as a kind of cross-cultural communication,will be placed in the grand human culture background and comprehensive network of world science.” The vision will promote the development of cultural translation,which can be understood as the starting point and direction of this study.Lin Yutang has more than thirty years overseas writing experience.He introduced the great Chinese wisdom to the West in fluent and beautiful English “that makes Westerners feel ashamed”.Lin Yutang's natural endowments seem to enable him free to walk between cultures.Due to his thorough understanding of both Chinese and Western cultures and languages,Lin Yutang's translation is of great value in studying “moderation” in cultural translation.Six Chapters of Floating Life meets Lin's personal taste.An analysis from cultural perspective on Lin Yutang's strategy of translating this work is beneficial to the understanding,developing and perfection of the cultural translation theory.Correspondingly,the main contents naturally include cultural factors displayed,translation dilemmas involved,translation strategies employed,causes of Lin Yutang's translator's quality involved,and understanding and evaluation Lin Yutang's translation from the perspective of cultural translation theory in this study.Cultural translation is very controversial,for a large number of relevant theoretical studies need to be sorted out and analyzed.Why does Lin Yutang show special interest for this work? Some browsing,classifying and analyzing of Lin's related translation studies are necessarily worked out.Therefore,the approach of literature references is used.To understand Lin Yutang's translation activities,this thesis also resorts to the text analysis and literary criticism.Generally,the strategies of cultural translation can be but within two choices: “foreignization” and “domestication”.Lin's inclination in this case has been studied.Moreover,the subjectivity of translation is getting more attention.Lin's strong cultural consciousness and writing passion are of great significance to his translation and translation style.A summary of Lin's translation,especially the connotation of his cultural translation,will surely help people touch the nature of the cultural translation and make a more objective and comprehensive evaluation of Lin Yutang's contribution as a translator.