Viewing China Through The Third Eye: A Pseudotranslation Perspective

In Chinese translation history, pseudotranslation is a distinctive phenomenon. From the hundreds'years of Buddhist script translation to the novel translation at the beginning of the 20th century and to the translation boom at the end of the 20th century, pseudotranslation texts constantly enter our life. Pseudotranslation by definition is a text disguised as a translation, whereas in fact, it is an original work, whose author is usually the"claimed"translator. The pseudotranslator's choice is rather confusing, involving complex social, cultural and personal factors. The immediate result of faking a translation is to loose one's authorship, which is normally intolerable under normal circumstances. The definition of pseudotranslation has always been a dilemma for both translation and literary researchers, focusing on questions such as whether pseudotranslation should be treated as a variant of translation or should pseudotranslation be included as a legitimate subject of translation studies. This paper insists that pseudotranslation is an original creation in disguise of translation and it should be treated as a proper subject for translation studies.Viewing China through the Third Eye was an editorial book published in China at the end of 1993, triggering heated discussions across the country. It appeared in the form of a translation and was revealed later that it was actually written by Wang Shan, the"translator"himself. This paper intends to explore the book from the perspective of translation studies, focusing on the forces that influenced the author's decision to publish his work as a pseudotranslation, his efforts to perfect the disguise and the consequences followed, in order to offer some insights into the study of pseudotranslation study.This paper includes three parts: the First Chapter is the introductory chapter, which briefs the ideological basis and current researches of pseudotranslation and puts forward the idea that pseudotranslation should be a legitimate subject for translation studies. It also contains discussions surrounding pseudotranslation, translation and literary creation; the Second chapter tackles the definition, function and categorization of pseudotranslation; in the Third Chapter, a case study of pseudotranslation work—Viewing China Through The Third Eye is analyzed in detail from the motives of the creation of a pseudotranslation to the strategies employed to fulfill these motives and the revealing of its real identity.Finally, this paper draws a conclusion with an emphasis on the unique role of pseudotranslation in the discipline of translation studies and expresses the wish that more attempts should be made towards this phenomenon.