Influence Of The Translation Theories And Practice Of The Reformists In Chinese History Of Translation (1894-1910)

Valuable translation theories and practice can exert active influence on the history of translation and evoke wide repercussions. The main figures of the Reform Movement of 1898 made epoch-making contributions to Chinese history of translation. This thesis discusses on the translation theories and practice of the reformists from 1894 to 1903 and their influence in Chinese history of translation from 1894 to 1910.For the first time in Chinese history of translation the reformists put forward systematical theories. These theories later formed the main body of translation theories in modern China from 1840 to 1919. Most of their representative works were published when China was suffering from both domestic trouble and foreign invasion. At this urgent point, translation was naturally linked to the salvation of the country. To save the country, the reformists turned to the West to seek for theoretical support and example to follow. The reformists refuted the Westernizationists' erroneous tendency in translating books of natural sciences only and shifted their attention to translating books of social sciences. They thought they should first translate books on Western law. constitutions, history, philosophy, politics, mineralogy, agriculture, economics, technology and textbooks. They stressed the importance of literary translation, too. At the same time, they emphasized that it was more convenient to translate Japanese books than translating the European books. All these ideas exceeded the limitation of the old doctrine of '"Chinese learning as foundamental structure. Western learning for practical use" advocated by the Westernizationists. For the first time, the reformists proposed the criterion of good translation in Chinese history of translation. In 1894. Ma Jianzhong formulated the first criterion of good translation. The "three-character" principle of "faithfulness", "expressiveness" and "gracefulness" which was first put forward by Yan Fu in 1898 is still being studied today. Because the focus of this thesis is on translation history, this is not to be discussed in detail. The reformists showed great concern about the acceptability of their translated works by the common people. They claimed that it should be the task of the translators to make more people have access to more information in shorter time. The acceptability of the translated works, to great extent, decided the popularity of them. Thus this idea led to the popularization of translated works at the beginning of the 20th century. At the same time, the reformists emphasized the training of translators.Compared to the past translators, translation practice of the reformists is progressive either in terms of the books they translated or in terms of the social functions of the books they translated. The most eminent translators among them are Yan Fu. Lin Shu and Liang Qichao. They mainly translated the books on social sciences and writings from foreign publications like newspapers or periodicals. Contemporary* Affairs with Liang Qichao as the chief editor and National News with Yan Fu as the chief editor were considered respectively as the speakers of the public in the south and north. To learn from the experience of other countries, they translated or wrote to comment on the history of many foreign countries. Yan Fu. the most outstanding representative of them, devoted most of his vigor to translating the representative works of the Western political sciences, economics, sociology, logic and the science of law of the 18th century. Moreover, the reformistsrealized the importance of literary translation very early and thus devoted themselves to it. Lin Shu alone translated 183 fictions by 97 writers from 10 countries.There were three climaxes of translation in the history of China. The first climax was the translation of surra from the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220) to the Tang dynasty (618-907) and the Song dynasty (960-1279). The second climax was the translation of natural sciences and technology from the end of the Ming dynasty (1368-164...