Westernization, Modernization, and the Concept of Basing on the Source Text: A Study of the Transformation of Norm in Literary Translation from Late Qing to May Fourth with Lin Shu as a Case Study.

It is without question that Lin Shu made a great contribution to the modernization of China. Almost all writers of the May Fourth generation first came to know the Western literature mainly through Lin's efforts. However, there was a surprising rupture in the evaluation of Lin's translation activities. Comments about the merits of Lin's translations were totally overturned in the May Fourth period to the extent that his appearance as a translator of Western literature was regarded as a "strange event." A major ground for this was certainly the fact that Lin, who translated 213 Western works into Chinese within a period of less than twenty years, actually knew none of the Western languages. Past studies on Lin's translation activities were mainly concerned with comparing Lin's translations with the source texts and finding out their discrepancies. The present paper tries to show that this kind of investigation presupposes the modern idea that translation should centre on the source text and therefore typifies the intervention of the discourses of modernity into historical studies. By using Lin as a case study, it tries to reappraise the current view on translation in the late Qing from the perspective of post-colonial studies and discuss several important topics in it, including the role, the responsibility, and the authority of the translator. At the end of this paper, the author tries to explain the roots of this particular literary norm on translation and the transition, following the modernization of China, from this view to the modern idea that translation should centre on the source text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]