A Study On Lin Yutang's Self-translation In The Little Critic From The Perspective Of Translational Norms

Lin Yutang,a bilingual writer with a thorough knowledge of both Chinese and western culture,has created a large number of popular works which make a great contribution to the exchanges between Chinese and English literature and culture.Meanwhile,he is also a self-translator and translates some of his English essays into Chinese in the 1930 s.But his self-translation activity has been not aroused enough attention in the field of translation studies.This thesis takes The Little Critic: The Bilingual Essays of Lin Yutang as the subject of research and tries to make a descriptive study on Lin's self-translation from the perspective of Toury's translational norms.Toury is one of the representatives of the school of Descriptive Translation Studies(DTS)and he is the first person who has put forward the theory of translational norms.He believes that translation is a kind of activity influenced by the socio-cultural constraints and governed by the norms.These translational norms are divided into three categories: initial norm,preliminary norms and operational norms.This thesis is a descriptive study in which the author,following Toury's classification of translational norms,adopts qualitative and comparative research methods to describe the features of Lin's self-translated essays and reconstruct translational norms hidden in the target texts.Through analysis of the examples in self-translated texts,it can be found that Lin's self-translation is constrained by different translational norms at different stages of translating.To be specific,the preliminary norms mainly involve the translator's selection of the source text in pre-translating.Lin selects his English “little essays” to be translated,which is attributed to the social and cultural environment in the 1930 s,Chinese readers' interest,the request of editor of The China Critic as well as Lin's personal experiences and preference.The operational norms affect the translator's actual decision-makings during translating.Lin rewrites the content and reforms the textual makeup of the target texts by omitting and adding to conform to the reading habits of Chinese audience.About translation of culture-loaded expressions and appellations,Lin mainly adopts cultural substitution to adapt the language materials in the Chinese context to enhance the readability of his translation.The initial norm determines the translator's overall translation orientation.In consideration of the acceptance of target readers,Lin adopts a reader-oriented translation strategy and makes adjustments to the structure and content of texts,so his self-translation is characterized by the “acceptable translation”.At the same time,some foreign information has been properly preserved to help Chinese readers learn about the western culture.The study on Lin's self-translation of bilingual essays is a necessary supplement to the research of his translation.And it is also hoped that this research may provide some inspirations for the studies on literary translation,especially on self-translation.