A Translation Ethic Approach To Lin Yutang's Self-translation

Self-translation is a special translation phenomenon,which means the translation done by the writer of the source text.Different from non-authorial translators,self-translators are sophisticated in two or more languages.They are always writers,poets or scholars.Lin Yutang,Eileen Chang,Xiao Qian,Pai Hsien-yung are excellent Chinese self-translators.There have been some researches on self-translation in the past years.These researches concentrate more on the translation strategies with a case study of a certain self-translated work from the linguistic or literary perspective.It seems there have been few researches on the essence of self-translation and especially the translation ethics.Compared to non-authorial translation,self-translation has its own characteristics.Self-translator's idea and his bilingual writing skills need further exploration.Therefore,this paper focuses on the issue of translation ethics in self-translation through Lin Yutang's self-translation of his own English work Between Tears and Laughter.Between Tears and Laughter was firstly written by Lin Yutang in English and published in 1943.The first eleven chapters were also translated by him in the next year.It is a book talking about politics and philosophy.At that time,China was suffering in the war and there was no one to turn to.There still existed the bias of power politics and racial discrimination.Lin Yutang appealed to the talents to save China and safeguard peace.This paper does research on this book from the perspective of Andrew Chesterman's four models of translation ethics,including ethics of representation,ethics of service,ethics of communication and norm-based ethics.The characteristics of Lin Yutang's self-translation will be analyzed.It is found that there are three main features of Lin Yutang's self-translation.Firstly,from the linguistic level,Lin's self-translation is more amplified than the English origin.He used some four-character idioms and parallel sentences in his translation,which are typical Chinese writing style.His self-translation satisfied target readers' reading habits.The second feature of his self-translation is seen at the cultural level.Lin used some culture-loaded expressions and annotations in his translation,so as to convey the western cultures to Chinese readers.They are also beneficial to help the target readers to understand the idea of the source text.In addition,cultural communication is achieved.Finally,Lin's emotional expressions can be seen in the translation.His self-translation is also a certification of his patriotism.The findings of the thesis imply that self-translators enjoy more freedom in the target text with less limitation.In spite of the freedom self-translators enjoy,their translation still follows certain translation ethics.The self-translation is closer to target readers and target culture.It shows Lin Yutang's preference for norm-based ethics and ethics of communication.The Chinese expressions and writing style make the translation more readable,and make the target readers easier to have a clear understanding of the text.He had an overall adoption of norm-based ethics.As a bilingual writer,he also takes more advantage of both English and Chinese languages and cultures.As the self-translator and also a Chinese,Lin Yutang's emotion and patriotism can be also found in the translation.Self-translators have special language skills,cultural understandings and emotional features which have impact on their translation work.From this research,the author intends to inspire more scholars to do research on self-translation and self-translator's translation ethics.It's hoped that this case study on Lin Yutang's self-translation would offer some reference for further studies in this field.