Study On Adaptation And Selection In The Moment In Peking From The Perspective Of Eco-translatology

At the beginning of the21st century, Professor Hu Gengshen put forward the theory ofTranslation as Adaptation and Selection, introducing the theory of Natural Selection andEvolution into translation studies. According to Professor Hu, translation is described as atranslator’s adaptation and selection activities in a translational Eco-environment. On thisbasis, Professor Hu has constructed and developed the theory of Eco-translatology. As anewly interdisciplinary research, Eco-translatology makes a new analysis about the translationactivities in the translational Eco-environment, which broadens translational researchers’views and expands the scope of translation studies.Lin Yutang is one of the small numbers of writers and translators who are able to writebooks both in English and Chinese in the Chinese literary field. He received the Westerneducation from his childhood and had a deep understanding of Chinese culture. During hiswhole life, he successfully wrote and translated many books, a large part of which wereEnglish works. These books have constructed a bridge on the communication between theChinese culture and the Western culture, promoting the spread of the Chinese culturethroughout the world, and strongly promoted the communication and inosculation among thedifferent cultures. As one of Lin Yutang’s greatest works, Moment in Peking makes foreignreaders to realize what was the real life of Chinese people during that hard life. And he wasnominated of the Nobel Prize for literature because of this book. It “may well become theclassic was written in English, however, its contents contained the Chinese traditional culture.So this book has important research value in literature and culture, and is regarded as amodern A Dream in Red Mansions. Lin Yutang wrote this book with the method ofself-translation. Self-translation, as a special kind of translation phenomena, comes up with anew analytic perception to study the techniques of writing and establishes the new translationanalysis category.In recent years, although more and more scholars has begun to make a research on LinYutang’s works from the perspective of Eco-translatology, most studies focused on histranslation of Six Chapters of A Floating Life. Therefore, this paper will expand the researchscope on Lin Yutang, and try to make a case study of Moment in Peking in the Eco-translatology frame, hoping to verify the feasibility and explanatory power ofEco-translatology.There are mainly four parts in this paper, except for the introduction and conclusion. Atfirst, it makes an introduction to Lin Yutang’s life, academic ideas, translation theory, threeperiods of the research on Lin Yutang, and then making a brief introduction of Moment inPeking, talking about the Self-Translation features in Moment in Peking, summarizing thePrevious Studies of Moment in Peking. And the background behind Eco-translatology andtheoretical researches at home and abroad are also talked about. The second part mainlyintroduces the Eco-translatology, which firstly makes a brief description of the basicconnotation, and then introduces three important concepts, which are Translator-centeredness,Translational Eco-environment, and Adaptation and Selection. The third chapter mainlydiscusses Lin Yutang’s selective adaptation to external needs, internal needs and hiscompetence in the pre-translating process, from which we can know why Lin Yutang choosesto write this book. The fourth chapter gives a detailed analysis of Lin Yutang’s selection intranslating process in these three dimensions--linguistic, cultural and communicativedimensions.In the end, there is a conclusion that Moment in Peking’s success can be owed to LinYutang’s reasonable and effective adaptation and selection to his TranslationalEco-environment.