A Study Of Translating Western Learning In The Late Qing And Early Republican Periods In Light Of Rewriting Theory

The late Qing and early Republican periods witnessed the greatest transition on society and politics inChinese history. Translation functioned as an indispensable spur element on the transformation. Yan Fu, LinShu and Liang Qichao were among the first figures who were clear-eyed and far-sighted to realize thatthere was a urgent need to update and improve almost every aspect of the whole nation, especially toreform Chinese institutions and systems by means of introducing new learning from the West. They tooktranslation as their educational tool and the most effective way to introduce Western civilization, and as ameans to find solutions to China’s social problems. So they threw themselves into translating Westernworks.Due to the translated works’ impressive number, various sorts of content and great impact uponChinese society and culture at that time and afterwards, translation in the late Qing and early Republicanperiods irrefutably ranked among the few translation climaxes in Chinese literary history.However, most previous researches on translation of this period of time were done in the theoreticalframework of traditional translation studies, attached too much significance to the micro parallelism insteadof to the macro function of translation to the social and cultural change and development. In the valueevaluation system of traditional translation theories, these translators and their translated works werecriticized for not being faithful to the original.With the development and promotion of translation studies, in particular rewriting theory of thecultural manipulation school, translation has been situated in a much broader and more complex researchenvironment. Translation studies have been shifting from the perspective of linguistics to that of societyand culture, from the adoption of the source-oriented approach to target-oriented approach. Rewritingtheory sheds a new light on and provides a proper platform for the study of translating Western learning inthe late Qing and early Republican periods on the foundation of China’s socio-cultural contexts.Based on rewriting theory, this thesis reconsiders and analyzes the translations in this special period oftime to demonstrate how ideology and translation interact with each other through taking Yan Fu, Lin Shuand Liang Qichao’s translation activities as examples, with descriptive approach, from the social, historical and cultural perspective. It will find out this interactive relationship manifest itself in two aspects asfollows.On the one hand, translation is under the manipulation and restriction of the dominant ideology in thegiven society at the given time. Ideology governs and dictates translation on selection of source texts: YanFu selected Western social science works; Lin Shu selected Western Realism novels; and Liang Qichaomainly selected political novels. Also, ideology governs and dictates translation on selection andimplementation of translation methods and strategies. Specifically speaking, under the influence of politicalideology, Yan Fu employed “Da zhi（”“达旨”）: expressing the gist by paraphrasing; Lin Shu employed “E”（“讹”）: intentional mistranslation; and Liang Qichao employed “Zhuan Yi”（转译）: receiving Westernlearning by means of translating corresponding Japanese editions, and employed “Heroic translation”（“豪杰译”）. Under the influence of cultural ideology, the translators omitted and simplified the descriptivepassages in the source texts, adopted classical Chinese and followed the pattern of Zhanghui Style（章回体）, and complied with the ethics of target society. On the other hand, translation imports many newadvanced political thoughts, cultural concepts, and literary views and elements, which, in turn, penetrate,challenge or even subvert the target society, are a counterforce on the dominant ideology.