A Study On Chinese Translation Criticism In The Light Of André Lefevere's System Theory

Xu Jun, in his book On Literary Translation Criticism(《文学翻译批评研究》 ), pinpointed the two major kinds of defects in Chinese literary translation criticism: "over-rigidity" and "over-variance", the former referring to the error-identification; the latter, intuitive treatment of a translation. He went on to state that these problems could be attributed to the inadequacy of theoretical research on translation criticism in comparison to the development of translation theory. Moreover, recent years witnessed the prevalence of translations of patchwork and plagiarism, which pose insurmountable challenges facing traditional translation criticism and provides opportunity for studying translation criticism from new perspectives. Thus the appeal for furthering the study of translation criticism goes from strength to strength.Since the 1960s, western translation theories have been crackling with achievements made from various perspectives, and since the 1980s they have been introduced to China to make up for the lack of traditional Chinese translation theories and help deepen our understanding of translation. Among them, Andre Lefevere's system theory with patronage, ideology and poetics as the three pillars lifts translation studies to the height of the target social and cultural context.Therefore, this thesis attempts to study Chinese translation criticism in the light of Andre Lefevere's system theory to reconsider some cases of traditional Chinese translation criticism and propose the method to solve some issues of contemporary Chinese translation criticism, which are of closerelevance to the sound development of translation practice.This thesis consists of four chapters besides introduction and conclusion.In introduction, the author introduces the purpose and the structure of this thesis.Chapter One is to conduct a survey of definitions of translation criticism and its major items advanced by Chinese translation theorists on the basis of the framework of translation studies put forward by James Holmes and supplemented by Gideon Toury after a review of the major development of translation theories in the west since the 1960s.Chapter Two is to explain the theoretical background of Lefevere's system theory and the definitions of and interrelationship among patronage, ideology and poetics.Chapter Three addresses itself to traditional Chinese translation criticism, namely, to reconsider, in the light of patronage, ideology and poetics, Dao An's (il$ ) translation criticism of Zhi Qian's (;￡iit) translations, the debate over books to be translated mainly between those officials leading the Westernization Movement (v$^-i5^J)and those intellectuals opting for the Reform Movement (￡￡Uris^!j), and another one between Zheng Zhenduo(￡P Je#) and Mao Dun(^M), and Guo Moruo(f|5$;^f). Then follows a brief representation of theoretical development of translation criticism from 1949 to 1979.Chapter Four examines the theoretical significance of Lefevere's system theory to Chinese translation criticism after a survey of contemporary translation criticism and in the light of patronage, proposes a possible method to curb the prevalence of translations of patchwork and plagiarism.Conclusion is the summary of the whole thesis.