On Limitation Of Polysystem Theory

In the 20^th century. Western translation theories have experienced unprecedented development and prosperity. Two turns have occurred in translation studies since 1950s. The tendencies can be illustrated by the three fundamental breakthroughs, among which one has the most far-reaching significance, that is, translation is no longer regarded as an isolated fragment or factor of language but as part of a broader socio-cultural context."Polysystem theory" was first introduced into the theory of literary translation by Even-Zohar in a series of papers written from 1970 to 1977, which has drawn increasing attention in academic circles. Incorporating the historical horizon, polysystem theorists changed the perspective that had governed traditional translation theory. Polysystem theory provides a new perspective to translation studies and broadens the research field of translation and makes a significant contribution not only to the field of translation theory, but to literary theory as well.In Chinese translation history, there are three booms: the Buddhist translation in ancient China flourishing from the East Han Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, the science and technology translation from the late Ming Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty and the translation of Western thoughts and literature after the Opium War till the May Fourth Movement. This thesis takes Chinese translated literature around the May Fourth Movement as an example to make a comprehensive study of polysystem theory and tends to make a scientific judgment of its achievements and limitations. The period of May Fourth Movement is a typical transition period, in which there is a great diversity of translation theories and thoughts. With detailed study of the Chinese translated literature around the May Fourth Movement from four aspects: the social and cultural situation (including the social and cultural situation of Chinese literature, the position of Chinese translated literature in Chinese literature, the position of Chinese literature in World literature), the selection of source texts, the adopted translation strategies, and the influence of translated literature on the target literature, this thesis tries to get a full-scale evaluation of polysystem theory. Polysystem theory marks a milestone in the development of translation studies by introducing the terms of system and polysystem and attains more awareness of translated literature by incorporating it into the target literary polysystem.On the other hand, many phenomena in Chinese translated literature around the May Fourth Movement can't be explained satisfactorily by polysystem theory and many influential factors are not under discussion or totally ignored, for instance, there is no clear-cut dichotomy of central or peripheral position and it fails to be an objective reflection of the power of the target literature, but the combination of the objective situation of the power and the subjective recognition of the literary and translation circles; secondly, translator's subjectivity may have influence on their selection of source texts besides the social and cultural factors. And the adopted translation strategy is not only constrained by the position of the translated literature in the culture but, to a larger extent, constrained by translator's cultural attitudes, motivations and target readers. All in all, the selection of source texts and the adoption of translation strategies and the functions on the target literature are far from watertight, without the consideration of translators' subjectivity and other influential factors as social and political situations.Through analyses of Chinese translated literature around the May Fourth Movement, we may find that polysystem theory still needs some improvement to satisfactorily explain and apply to Chinese translated literature. There is no denying that polysystem theory has broadened the horizon of the researchers and brought a new paradigm and perspective to translation studies. The thesis tries to analyze polysystem theory with Chinese translated literature to get a comprehensive and objective judgment. The main purpose of the thesis is to find to what extent the polysystem theory can be applied to the Chinese translated literature and what could be done to make some tentative improvements.The thesis consists of four chapters: Chapter one is the introduction to polysystem theory. The background, main points of polysystem theory will be discussed in detail in this chapter. Chapter two mainly deals with Chinese translated literature around the May Fourth Movement. The definition and nature of translated literature will be made clear at first. More emphases are put on the study of the social and cultural situation and features of Chinese translated literature around this period. Application of polysystem theory in Chinese translated literature around the May Fourth Movement will be made in Chapter three. It will be probed from the following aspects: the social and cultural situation (including the social and cultural situation of Chinese literature, and the position of Chinese translated literature in Chinese literature), the selection of source texts, the adopted translation strategies, and the influence of translated literature on Chinese literature. On the basis of the above analyses, Chapter four tries to comment on polysystem theory and more emphases will be put on the survey of the limitations of polysystem theory.