A Study Of Mao Dun' Translation Theories And Practice

This thesis is a study on the translation practice and theories of Mao Dun.As a prominent translator in modern China, Mao Dun achieved great accomplishment in his translation practice. In his lifetime, Mao Dun translated more than 240 pieces of literary works involving over 150 writers from 30 countries. During his period or in nowadays, Mao Dun's translation practice ranks top in translating quantity, translating subjects and related countries and writers. Apart from the huge success in translation practice, Mao Dun also put forward a number of insightful ideas about translation and published over 20 translation theses that penetratingly and farsightedly explored many literary translation issues. Some aspects of the translation theories can be comparable to those of many famous translators home and abroad. There is also a remarkable consistency between Mao Dun's translation theories and mainstream translation theories in modern West. However, in view of his tremendous contribution to modern China's literary translation circle, Mao Dun has received deploringly litter attention on his translation practice and theories, which should be considered as a real regret in today's translation circle.Based on a broad collection of research findings on Mao Dun's translation activities and a systematic study of his illustration on translation, the present thesis is intended to sort out and make a comprehensive and systematic review of Mao Dun's translation practice and thoughts and tries to demonstrate the significance of Mao Dun'translation thoughts through analyzing his translating practice and explore the consistency of Mao Dun's translation thoughts between modern mainstream translation theories and further discusses on the instructional impacts of Mao Dun's translation practice and theories on today's literary translation practice. Moreover, this thesis pursues to spread and develop traditional Chinese translation thoughts during the meantime of"absorbing"western translation theories. In a word, the present thesis hopes to make some meaningful suggestions for constructing China's translation theories'system that adapts to China's situation and carries the characteristics of Chinese language.This paper consists of six parts.Part One gives a brief introduction to Mao Dun's life experience and presents the purpose, significance and structures of the present study.Part Two reviews previous studies on Mao Dun's translation practice and theorizing efforts, offers a preliminary summary of main viewpoints as well as limitations, and then tentatively points out direction of the present study. Part Three presents an overview of Mao Dun's translation practice and classifies his translation activities into three periods: scientific fictions translation in preparation period; realistic and revolutionary literature translation and Ethnic Minorities literature translation in prosperous period and War literature in the last period. And then the author analyzes the magnum opus of each period and illustrates the features of Mao Dun's translation practice in different periods including their influence on the shaping of Mao Dun's translation theories.Part Four reviews Mao Dun's translation theories in detail. On the basis of developing previous theorists'achievements and his own experience, Mao Dun put forward his"artistic and creative translation theory"and"systemic translation theory". Besides, Mao Dun came up with specific requirements on improving the quality of translators and thus emphasized the importance of translator's subjectivity during the translating process. Moreover, Mao Dun held a dialectic attitude towards the translation methods of"literal translation"and"free translation"and from the artistic and creative aspect, indicated that the utmost demand of literary translation requires the translators to on the one hand, fully display their creativity to transmit the artistic manners in original text in the literary language conforming with original text's style and on the other hand, capable of reproducing the content and language forms of original text in our translation.Part Five views Mao Dun's translation practice and theories against the backdrop of modern mainstream translation theories. It first compares Mao Dun's"artistic and creative translation theory"with"equivalent translation theory"in the west and illustrates the consistency of Mao Dun's translation theories between mainstream translation theories in the west, and then discusses on the creative significance of Mao Dun's"equivalent artistic manners"concept and its influence on today's literary translation practice. In addition, this thesis incisively and completely views Mao Dun's translation practice and theories as against"skopos theory"to analyze the social functions and political purpose of Mao Dun's translation practice and theories.Part Six draws the conclusion that as a remarkable translator and translation theorist, Mao Dun's translation practice and theories are proved to have important instructional impacts on today's literary translation practice. Under the circumstance that western and China's translation theories are connecting and blending with each other in modern world, constructing a system of China's translation theories that adapts to China's situation and accommodates the characteristics of Chinese language needs not only to comprehensively"absorb"advanced translation theories in the west, but also to actively draw upon traditional excellent translation theories in China and explore the profound heritage in the research of China's translation theories. Therefore, it's expected that the study of translators, especially the study on translation theories of traditional prominent translators like Mao Dun should be attached more importance in further translation studies.