On Lin Shu's Translation From The Perspective Of Postcolonial Theory

At the end of 1980s, postcolonial theory was applied to the research of translation practice and thus brought out postcolonial translation theory. This theory started to probe translation practice beyond the text with a focus on other factors such as social, historical and political context that had affected translation. Postcolonial translation theory pays attention to the power differentials between the dominant and dominated culture, and approaches the cultural communication issue from the point of those weak countries and weak cultures. Lin Shu, as a translator in Late Qing Dynasty of modern China, did a lot of translation practice under the unequal cultural communication between China and the West. As a result, this paper attempts to make a research on Lin Shu's translation from the perspective of postcolonial theory, aiming at providing new ideas for Lin Shu's translation.The research is made through case study as well as comparative analysis. After comparing Lin Shu's Hei Nu Yu Tian Lu with Huang Jizhong's Tang Mu Da Bo De Xiao Wu, the author has found some differences between the two versions of the same original text that were translated in different historical periods, and then generalized Lin Shu's unique translation features. Postcolonial translation theory is used in order to analyze these features as well as to explain their reasonability. Based on the comparison, Lin Shu's translation features can be concluded as the following two aspects: firstly there exist a lot of omissions, additions and alterations; secondly the dominated strategy adopted by Lin Shu in his translation is domestication, which had integrated western cultures into the structure of Chinese language and culture.In the body part of the paper, the above mentioned features of Lin Shu's translation are discussed under the postcolonial context, with the major findings listed as follows: first and foremost, the social, historical and cultural background concerned with Lin Shu is one of the essential factors that affected his translation; secondly, Lin Shu's political attitude in the postcolonial context had something to do with his selection of translated texts and furthermore influenced his translation strategy; last but not the least, according to postcolonial translation theory, Lin Shu regarded translation as a tool of resisting foreign cultural invasion and thus adopted the domestication strategy for the purpose of decolonization. Following closely, the paper points out the functions of such kind of translation produced by Lin Shu in that special period of time, it had not only brought about enlightenment to Chinese literary, but more importantly it had exerted great influences on Chinese readers even on the Chinese government form the political point of view. The last part gives conclusion to what have been discussed in the paper, and points out the unsettled problems as well as the desired further explorations into this research.Briefly speaking, this paper is intended to position Lin Shu's translation into its specific social, historical and cultural context and make a research on it from the perspective of postcolonial theory, thus to enrich the angles for Lin Shu's translation.