Towards A Theory Of Cultural Translation Criticism Based On A Comparison Between Chinese And Western Traditions

Translation is almost as old as the history of language itself, so is the criticism of translation. Interest in judging translations has persisted for nearly two thousand years, but objective and systematic investigations or research about the activity of translation criticism has long been restricted to a superficial level, which hinders the development of translation studies as a whole. With the advancement of globalization, translation has become more and more important and there is an increasing interest in translation quality within the discipline of translation studies. Different schools have made efforts to provide possible solutions to this issue by establishing potentially viable models. Traditionally academic theories in the field have focused on the linguistic aspect of translation, providing criteria for translation criticism from the perspective of faithfulness or equivalence. Later the focus of attention shifted from the language level to the textual and contextual levels, upon the basis of which a functionalist framework was proposed. Although there has been a turn towards the "external" environment of translation in the last twenty years of the 20th century, there are still some problems. Much attention is still paid to the linguistic elements of translation. In translation criticism, in particular, there is a lack of systematic theories or principles for evaluation activity. This poses challenge to the improvement of translation quality as well as the development of translation theory. Therefore, the present dissertation will address this problem. Attempting to strengthen the theoretical studies on translation criticism and find objective rules that govern the activity so that it can be carried out in a more rational way, and thereby promote the study of translation, this dissertation compares Chinese and western studies on translation criteria and criticism, on the basis of which a new model is provided.Composed of five chapters, this dissertation first introduces the aim, structure, rationale and significance of the research. It is hoped that the research will be able to move a step towards the goal of establishing a systematic theoretical model for translation criticism. Chapter 1 is a literature review about the theories on translation criteria and criticism in both China and the West. We list a number of major studies on translation criteria in both Chinese and western translation histories. Among Chinese theorists, Yan Fu and Qian Zhongshu are mainly introduced since they represent thestarting point and the development of traditional Chinese translation theories respectively and both enjoy great popularity in the history of translation studies. Qian Zhongshu's ideas and practice of translation criticism are of particular significance to the contemporary scholars because he ushered a new stage of translation studies by offering different approaches to translation criticism, i.e. to evaluate translated works from related cultural factors without excluding the judgment of the translator's linguistic achievements. But we can also see that traditional Chinese studies are still limited in the scope of vision, mode of thinking and the methodology of studies. Since the end of 1980s, studies began to take a multi-directional turn under the influence of western translation theories. Contemporary studies of Gu Zhengkun, Yang Xiaorong and LU Jun bear a change from the traditional way of looking at translation as mere language rendering to the modern thinking of regarding translation as cross-cultural communication.Western studies concerning translation criteria have undergone a similar change from traditional to contemporary theories. Tytler, Schleiermacher, Nida, Reiss, Newmark, House and Toury, etc., who are influential upon Chinese theorists are introduced. Although the western studies are also distinguished between traditional and modern approaches with the 1980s as a dividing line, there are obviously more different ideas. However the real progress did not take place until the last decade of the 20th ce...