| Yan Fu (1854-1921), versed in both Chinese and Western learning, is one of the most outstanding translators in the history of Chinese modern translation. The successive eight important works translated by him introduce the western academic thoughts of bourgeoisie to China systematically, among which On Evolution (《天演论》) exerts great influence on some advanced Chinese intellectuals and contributes to the later famous the May 4th Movement. Therefore, Yan Fu is praised by Hu Shi as "the first person to bring in the western academic classics in modern China".Yan Fu puts forward his three-character translation principle well-known as "xin (信), da (达) and ya (雅)" in his preface to On Evolution. It is for the first time that a systematical criterion has been established in Chinese translation history, which is a milestone and exercises a far-reaching influence on later translation practice. However, since the birth of Yan Fu's translation criteria, there have been debates over them and the criteria have always been used to examine his own translations which are found betrayed to his own principle.With the development of the translation practice and theories, nowadays the emphasis of the study on translation has been shifted to the extralinguistic study. By this term, the translation study is set in a broader socio-cultural context which is known as the "cultural turn". As one of the representatives of the Translation Studies School, Andre Lefevere points out there are manipulative factors hidden in the translation: patronage, ideology and poetics. This thesis is to place Yan Fu's famous translation On Evolution in the specific society and through the analysis about his choice of the source text, the language as well as the translation... |
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