The Application Of Ander Lefevere's Theory To The Study Of The Translation In The Late Qing Dynasty

In the long course of Chinese translation history, three translation culminations exerted a far-reaching influence on China's politics, economy, ideology and culture. Undoubtedly, the late Qing Dynasty period is the prime of translation, in which the unique translation context is especially impressive. It is the unique social context that gives rise to a unique translation mode in history, which deserves profound research, for translation techniques, such as deletion, addition, revision, rewriting, etc., had been frequently used in translation. With the rise of translation studies school, Andre Lefevere's three-factor theory provides us with a theoretical framework to study the unusual translation mode. It introduces a set of terms to better analyze the influence of the extra literary upon literature, particularly upon literary translation, of which the most important ones are poetics, ideology and patronage; that is to say, in studying and assessing translations and translators in the late Qing Dynasty, we cannot merely indulge ourselves in evaluating the faithfulness of the target text as well as individual merits and faults of translators, but we should take historical and cultural context into consideration.The present author of this thesis will apply Andre Lefevere's three-factor theory to the study of the translation and discuss how poetics, ideology and patronage influence the translation activities in the late Qing Dynasty. The author also makes a tentative study of the rationality and necessity of the unique translation mode in the late Qing Dynasty from a historical perspective.The first part is introduction, in which the research question and the background and significance of the study are stated.The second part consists of five chapters.Chapter one is literature review. In this chapter, the author firstly reviews previous research on the study questions in China, and then gives a detailed introduction to Andre Lefevere's three-factor theory.Chapter two analyzes the influence of poetics on translation in the late Qing Dynasty. On the base of Lefevere's definition of poetics and the peculiar historical context in the late Qing Dynasty, the present author divides poetics into literature poetics and translation poetics. Literature poetics can be subdivided into dominant literature poetics and individual literature poetics; likewise, translation poetics also can be subdivided into dominant translation poetics and individual translation poetics.Chapter three analyzes the influence of ideology on translation in the late Qing Dynasty. The present paper attempts to illustrate the influence of ideology on translation from the perspective of political motives, social cultures and ethics, readers' aesthetic standard and reading anticipation as well as translator's individual ideology.Chapter four analyzes the influence of patronage on translation in the late Qing Dynasty. The present author discusses it from the perspective of patron and readership.Chapter five comes conclusion and recommendation.The last part involves works cited.The applying of Andre Lefevere's theory to the study of the translation in the lateQing Dynasty is productive and meaningful both to theoretical research and translation practices.