On Deconstruction In Lin Yutang’s Translation Of Ancient Chinese Prose

Deconstructive Theory, especially the theory of Jacques Derrida, has been exerting more crucial and non-ignorable influence on translation studies. Lin Yutang’ profound understanding of both western and Chinese culture and perfect mastery of the two languages laid an important foundation for his wonderful attainments in translation. The most unique point of Lin’s translation is that he can fully digest his beloved texts, retell them with comments, and reproduce with his own creativeness. So not only can his translations catch the spirit of the source text, but also can make common western readers understand easily. Some of Lin’s translation thoughts, such as "faithfulness","translator’s responsibility", agree with that in Deconstructive Translation Theory.The thesis, from the microcosmic and macroscopic level, takes the deconstruction and reconstruction in Lin Yutang’s translation of ancient Chinese prose as examples, makes a careful analysis on the success of Lin Yutang’s deconstructive translation. As Deconstruction dispelling the "core", the strategy of reconstruction is not a core in translation, but viewing Lin’s translation as a practice based on Deconstructive Translation Theory is good for us to realize that there are more other translation efforts to make except that on "translation of equivalence" at least. Besides, in the current environment of many scholars blindly criticizing the "Nihilism" tendency of deconstruction, discussion on the deconstructive process in Lin Yutang’s translation of ancient Chinese prose is helpful for enhancing readers’ understanding on the essence and embodying the application value of Deconstructive Theory.