A Study On Lin Yutang’s English Translation Of Youmengying From The Perspective Of Translation Ethics

Translation ethics refers to the ethical principles and values that a translator shall observe in the translation process,aiming to ensure the accuracy,fairness,integrity and cultural adaptability of translations.Translation ethics has been increasingly emphasized because translation involves not merely language conversion,but also cultural,social and political dimensions as well.It emphasizes how translators should act when dealing with cultural differences and conflicting values,and that translators conform to ethical and moral standards while ensuring the quality of the translation.Building on the efforts of other scholars,Andrew Chesterman proposed and summarized five models of ethics,namely,ethics of representation,ethics of service,ethics of communication,norm-based ethics,and ethics of commitment from the academic perspective of ethics,providing a comprehensive ethical framework for translation practice and research.Youmengying is a Chinese classic prose in Ming and Qing dynasties,reflecting the author’s experiences in and views on life and social interaction,creating a unique artistic style.It was translated into English as Dream Shadows by Lin Yutang,to make it known to the English readers.Lin Yutang is a well-recognized translator in China,and his views and tactics on translation are highly regarded,attracting intensive attention in the community of translation study.Study of Lin Yutang’s translations and his views on translation may shed a light on both translation studies and intercultural communication.Lin Yutang’s translation works are,therefore,of academic importance and cultural values.This thesis uses Chesterman’s translation ethics models as research framework,Lin Yutang’s English version of Youmengying(or Dream Shadows)as subject of research,and employs qualitative research methods to explore the ethics that Lin Yutang was subject to in his translation of Youmengying.The thesis analyzed examples in Lin Yutang’s translation at syntactic level,textual level,cultural and thinking level,aiming to check the roles of ethics models in shaping the selection of translation strategies.It was found that the entire version of translation in Dream Shadows was subject to ethics of commitment.While the ethics of commitment reflects translators’ professionalism,it serves to govern and coordinate the other four translation ethics.It seemed that Lin Yutang observed diverse categories of ethics in his translation depending on the content being translated.The most prominent ethical tendency that was reflected in the entire translation process was ethics of representation.Lin Yutang was mainly subject to ethics of representation when dealing with the words and phrases with Chinese peculiarities.The second most prominent tendency was the ethics of communication.Lin Yutang seemed to be subject to ethics of communication in discourse operation,adopting translation approaches such as replacing and adding personal pronouns,semantic conversion,and reduction.The present study may shed a light on the Chinese-English translation of Chinese classic works with the same genre as Youmengying.