The Translating Of New Youth And The Identity Of Modern Chinese Intellectuals

Since the "May 4th" literature is called the literature for Man, it means that its occurrence and development was tightly related with the discovery of Man himself and the establishment of the modern identity of Man. So in this course, it was very important for the intellectuals to establish their modern identity. It is not only because that they were the leaders of the fields of Chinese ideology and literature, but also they were the subjects of the literary creations of Chinese modern literature. To a great extent, the identity of modern Chinese intellectuals was constructed at the same time when the Chinese modern literature occurred. To speak specifically, when the Chinese intellectuals were seeking for and built their modern identity of them themselves or their groups, the particular practices which they acted as the subjects of translating and creating had influenced deeply to the modes of the occurrence and the styles and the directions of the development of the Chinese modern literature. Speaking further, since the modern advanced knowledge and the cultural ideas, which supported the identity of the Chinese modern intellectuals, were from the translating and deriving of the western cultures, the translating practice was very important for the building of the identity of the Chinese modern intellectuals, and sometimes it also became the fields of the handling of the true trans-cultural power.In my opinion, it is meaningful for the occurrence of the Chinese modern literature to study the course of the building of the modern identity of the Chinese intellectuals through their translating discourses. So the paper tries to make the courses of the building of the May 4th intellectuals' modern identity the studying center through the specific investigations to the translating of the New Youth, and then put it into the whole researches of the Chinese modern literature and tries to pry about the relations between the occurrence of the Chinese modern literature and the identity of the Chinese modern intellectuals. According to the logical relevance and the styles of the relationships between the translating practices of the New Youth and the building of the Chinese modern intellectuals' identity, the paper is divided into five groups:Firstly, the paper studies the imaginations to them themselves and their groups of the Chinese modern intellectuals through their translating practices from the late Qing Dynasty to the May 4th. The specific historical circumstances led to the crisis of the identity of the intellectuals, and impelled them to imagine the modern identity. It is pointed out that there were subtle distinctions between the May4th intellectuals and the intellectuals of the late Qing Dynasty, although they had some similar characters and the historical relations. The former put emphasis on the culture and the modem meanings of the modern individuals, while the latter's center of imagination was the building of the nation and the country. In my opinion, it is because that they had different ideas to the western cultures, and it also led to the different roles of the translating practices.Secondly, the paper makes the predetermining and the building of the identity of translators of the modern Chinese intellectuals as the main object in the translating contexts of the times and the special practices. In the translating practices, the translator may choose one kind of foreign culture or take the modern knowledge by choosing the versions, controlling the methods and pre-thinking the readers' identity. So the translator could easily become the spokesman or the exact explaining persons. And these images could be helpful to build his intellectual identity. In one word, in the historical contexts, the building of the intellectuals' identity of them themselves is on the basis of the building of their translators' identity.Thirdly, the paper studies the different statements which the different intellectuals had about the group identity through the specific observations to the courses of the identity building of Chen Duxiu and Hu Shi and Zhou Zuoren. It could be taken as the co-building of the group identity through the special ways which the different intellectual self chose on the basis of the different characters. Though the colleagues had the same ideas of their group identity of elite of the culture and the society, they had the different imaginations of the self identity. They may only focus on some field of the common identity, or they had different understandings about the common identity and it led to the different explanations. In the layer of translation, the imaginations and the building modes of these three ones are actually on behalf of three kinds or ways of the common intellectuals.Fourthly, the paper focuses on the discussion upon the identification of the attitudes of the New Youth colleagues of the building of the group identity, especially in the tactics of their translating practices. It was mainly conducted by their autonomous choices of the translation discourse and the emphasis of the leading power and the scientific characters of the translating, and the criticism which they gave to Lin Shu on account of lacking of scientific characters of Lin Shu's translation novels and so on. In my opinion, the conflict between the May 4th intellectuals and Lin Shu and the answer given by the former showed clearly that the dual site of science and the new intellectuals who had the modern scientific knowledge. In this meaning, the Chinese modern intellectuals got their modern identity through the courses which they regarded Lin Shu as the other and questioned the scientificcharacter of Lin's translating and then denied the translator identity of Lin Shu.Lastly, the paper reveals the evaluated mechanism of the identity of the Chinese intellectuals. Acted as the modern cultural elites, the aims, which the May 4th intellectuals scramble for spheres of influence in the fields of translation, are to build a kind of identity of Modern and Chinese through the translating practices. In this course, they actually formed a set of the evaluated mechanism of this identity. It could be showed in the two layers. In the time layer, they took the traditions as the primeval ones and Past while they themselves became the modern ones and Now. In the space layer, they showed distrust to the West in their translating practice to some extent and they formed their modern self identity of Chinese in this kind of resistance to the other.