A Research On Two Chinese Versions Of Moment In Peking

Moment in Peking, which was written in English by Lin Yutang during his travelling in Paris, was aimed at showing and promoting Chinese traditional culture to the western world. The novel has distinct characteristics of Chinese traditional culture. Translation of this novel into Chinese, a language originating in Chinese culture, is naturally different from other literary translations. It has great research value. The paper compares two versions of this novel, analyzes their differences and respective features in language and cultural levels during the process of translating, and then explores the factors for the formation of these features and for the success of translation. The paper is divided into six chapters. The first chapter tells its purpose and significance, summarizes its current research status, presents its main content and innovations, and provides the basic form of the study. Chapter two, Chapter three and Chapter four constitute the main parts of the paper. The second chapter shows the literary value of Moment in Peking, and analyzes the reasons why Zhang Zhenyu and Yu Fei translated this novel. The third chapter compares their respective version of this novel in language and cultural levels Zhang Zhenyu’s version reads smoothly and gracefully while Yu Fei’s version is more faithful to the original with its exact choice of words. The fourth chapter analyzes the reasons why the two versions have different style and features in aspects of translation purpose, translation theory, translation strategy and the awareness of readers. It also presents their translating defects. The fifth chapter describes the reasons of the two versions’ success. The last chapter summarizes the study and puts forward the expectation to discuss with more experts and scholars.