A Cannibalistic Approach To Lin Shu’s Translation

As a branch of post-colonial theories, Cannibalism was put forward by Brazilian scholarsin their efforts to shake off mental colonialism after100years of political independence forBrazil. In1963, Campos published the essay “Translation as Creation and Criticism”, whichfirstly brought Cannibalism into translation studies. Cannibalistic translation does not mean todefy the source text, but to digest and get nourishment from it to finally gain freedom. China,in Lin Shu’s time, was a semi-feudal semi-colonial country which shared some similaritieswith Brazil. Lin Shu, as a patriotic man of letters, always bore his purpose of awakening thepeople and saving the country in mind during translation. His translation also aimed to revivethe Chinese culture in the unequal cultural communication between China and the West.Therefore, he largely resorted to cannibalistic translation strategies to fulfill his purpose,which is to take the nourishments from both the source and target cultures to the benefit of hisown culture and people.The research is made through the case study of Hei Nu Yu Tian Lu, one of Lin’s mostfamous works. The author justified her reason of connecting this work with the Cannibalismtheory. Given the socio-cultural background of China in Lin’s time and his own translationpurpose, as well as the translation strategies he employed, his translation falls well into theresearch scope of Cannibalism. Firstly, Lin appropriates a lot of local elements in translatingforeign ones in order to appeal to the Chinese readers and assert the equal communicationbetween the two cultures, rather than regarding the original as superior. Cannibalism proposesdigesting and getting nourishment from the source culture, which can be largely reflected inHei Nu Yu Tian Lu since it not only assimilates the western thoughts, but also introduceswestern literary techniques. Then, the thesis elaborates on the Cannibalistic strategies Linemployed to realize the cultural interaction and nourishment, including omission, addition andalteration. The last part analyzes the significance of his cannibalistic translation.To summarize, the paper is intended to make a detailed analysis of Lin’s translation,specifically Hei Nu Yu Tian Lu, under the framework of Cannibalism, thus provide a newperspective and enrich the study of Lin’s translation.