A Critical Study On Polysystem Theory In The Context Of Chinese Translated Literature

Itamar Even-Zohar initiated an influential theory in terms of polysystem theory in 1970s, which resulted in a great sensation of studying translated literature by providing a new perspective. However, the application of polysystem theory to the study of Chinese translated literature which includes three booms in Chinese translation history: the translation of Buddhist scriptures in Ancient China during the long period from the East Han dynasty to the Song dynasty, the literary translation in early Modern China from the Late Qing dynasty to 1930s, and the literary translation in Contemporary China since the Cultural Revolution coming to an end at the end of 1970s, shows that assumptions provided by polysystem theory, in spite of its great contributions to translation studies and literary research, are not beyond any criticism. As a new theory, polysystem theory, on the one hand, has successfully widened the horizon of translation and literary researchers with a new perspective for the study of translated literature; it, on the other hand, proves a failure to get too definite and absolute as well as universally acceptable assumptions about translated literature.This thesis attempts to make a critical study of polysystem theory in the context of Chinese translated literature, providing a comprehensive description of its advances and achievements together with its limitations and tentative improvements. With a detailed study of the three booms of Chinese literary translation from four aspects: the social situation - the power of Chinese literature when translation was taking place, the choice of source texts, the adopted translation strategies, and the influence of translated literature on the target literature in each boom, this critical study gets the following conclusions: polysystem theory marks a...