Yan Fu's Self-consciousness And Viewpoint On Science In His Translation Of Tianyan Lun:A Perspective Of Gideon Toury's Translation Laws

The Tianyan Lun translated by Yan Fu had produced huge influence in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, especially in the New Culture Movement around the time of the May 4th Movement in 1919. The slogan 'survival for the fittest' advocated in the book had played a crucial role in wakening the Chinese citizens then. So far, studies centered on Tianyan Lun had been pile up, but researches revolve around the embodiment of Yan Fu's self-consciousness formed along clashes between Chinese and Western cultures and his viewpoint on science developed under such consciousness in Tianyan Lun are not sufficient.This paper adopts Toury's two translation laws of standardization and interference to probe into Yan Fu's self-consciousness and viewpoint on science that were manifested in Tianyan Lun. It could concluded from a study conducted by this paper that Yan Fu's self-consciousness is mainly featured by his changing the first person perception from the original works to the third person's one in Tianyan Lun; using pre-Qin prose style and Tongcheng school style for his translation; analogizing traditional Chinese thoughts to Western thoughts in evolution. Those methods used by him had revealed not only a small self-consciousness of his, but also a cultural self-consciousness of his, which enabled a resonance between the readers and the translation. For the viewpoint on science, Yan Fu had held a view that's more emphasized on people and people's thoughts, so it was a viewpoint concerning 'people', different from the one before him and even from his contemporary which was confined in 'weapons and machines'. In the purpose of manifesting such a viewpoint on science, Yan Fu, under the influence of his self-consciousness, had supplemented many scientific concepts in social, biological and other fields not mentioned in the original work in way for adding notes and foot notes; and he had organically fused Spencer's evolution theory with Huxley's.It could be concluded from the above that Yan Fu's 'viewpoint on science' was firmly attached to his self-consciousness in one way his self-consciousness laid the foundation for the formulation of his viewpoint on science; in another, his 'people' concerned viewpoint on science was naturally revealed in his self-consciousness.The study of Yan Fu's self-consciousness and viewpoint on science embodied in Tianyan Lun under the adoption of Toury's translation laws profoundly let see the interaction between Yan Fu and the social history background he was in during his translating process, and offers a new angle for the study of Yan Fu's translation of Tianyan Lun.