Study Of Characteristics And Limitations Of Yan Fu’s Theory Of Translation Integration

Yan Fu, one of the most famous translators in modern China, translated into Chinese many European sociological books which were important to the Chinese revolution of 1990. He expressed the ambition of improving feudalist ideologies in China through his theory of translation. The analysis of Yan Fu’s theory of translation should not be considered as simple as previous researches claimed. According to the characteristics of Yan Fu’s translation, his constructive advice and political opinions are appended invisibly. Literal translation is not the preferred strategy that he adopted; what he did is free translation based on a better comprehension of original works. A History of Politics, written by Edwin Jenks, deals with the evaluation of different social institutions. According to recent researches, Evolution and Ethnic and other Essays and The Wealth of Nations are the most popular resources of relevant scholarship, while A History of Politics is far from the focus. Actually in translating A History of Politics, Yan Fu expresses his political opinions about social revolution through a constructive comparison between China and Europe. A better comprehension of the characteristics of Yan Fu’s Theory of Translation Integration can be achieved through a critical discussion of the connotation of Yan Fu’s Theory, which is important to the discussion of the limitations of his theory of Translation Integration. In addition, it is necessary to explore the influences of his theory on contemporary translation studies.Translation Integration is one of the most popular strategies adopted in the Qing Dynasty, which was originated from Chinese traditional academic integration. It means that innovative ideas of translators are based on the thorough understanding of both Chinese and English. Yan Fu’s Theory of Translation Integration consists of three relevant parts, which are Cultural Criticism, Accumulative Wisdom and Constructive Innovation. Cultural Criticism refers to the mutual criticism of China and Europe, and Yan Fu applied Chinese traditional culture in criticizing European ideology. He adopted the translation strategy of adjunctive language to achieve Cultural Criticism. Accumulative Wisdom refers to flexible explanation in translation by the application of massive Chinese traditional knowledge. Constructive Innovation refers to the translator’s own opinions, and Yan Fu’s own political opinions are expressed by the combination of new ideas.This thesis consists of five chapters, critically analyzing Yan Fu’s theory of Translation Integration through a case study of A History of Politics. It not only applies some important theories, such as manipulation theory, narrative theory and sociological theory, but also adopts the inductive method and the comparative method in the case study.The outcomes of this thesis are tri-section. Firstly, Yan Fu’s theory of Translation Integration is a constructive methodology for academic study, whose origins are translation strategies of Buddhist Scriptures in the Tang Dynasty. Besides, the definition of Yan Fu’s theory goes farther than the ideas of Chinese traditional translators, such as Xu Guangqi. Secondly, the thoughts of Cultural Criticism, Accumulative Wisdom and Constructive Innovation are the three aspects of Yan Fu’s theory, whose characteristics lie in the fact that the flexibility of the translator is activated by social ideologies. Undoubtedly, Yan Fu’s extra comments on source texts are common in his translation. Thirdly, influenced by social ideologies of the Qing Dynasty, the limitations of Yan Fu’s theory are featured with obvious political purposes, profound translation language and ancient sentence structure. On the other hand, Yan Fu’s theory contributed a lot to contemporary translation studies. That is to say, according to his theory of Translation Integration, social norms and history background are important factors in contemporary translation studies.