On Lin Yutang- A case of His Version of Six Chapters of a Floating Life

On Lin Yutang: A case of His Version of Six Chapters of a FloatingLifeAbstract:From the translation theoretical strategies of “domestication” and “foreignization”, Lin Yutang‟s translation of Six Chapters of a Floating Life provides three ways to deal with the cultural differences : using idiomatic expressions of the target language, retaining Chinese linguistic characteristics and changing the syntactic structures. His usage of simple but proper words and idiomatic expressions endows his translation with naturalness and fluency. Lin …s culture attitude-a combination of both eastern and western culture.Key Words:Lin Yutang translation strategy domestication foreignizationLin’s couplet“两脚踏中西文化,一心评宇宙文章”,was his cultural attitude to introduce Chinese culture to the world. In 1933, Lin Yutang put forward his translation standard in his thesis On Translation. Lin Yutang clearly points out three requirements for a translator: a thorough understanding of the source text; a good command of target language; and adequate practice in plus correct understanding of translation criteria and strategies. To ensure a better understanding of these requirements, Lin puts forward three translation criteria: fidelity (to the source text and author); mellifluence (to the target text reader); and aesthetic beauty (to the art).Lin‟s theory transcends those by offering not only theory, but also practical strategies and specific examples.Lin had the “eastwards person introduction west, face west the square person introduction east” as his duty, in his Memoirs of a Quadragenarian he said “One mind seeking the learning of ancients and moderns; two legs straddling the cultures of east and west”. Lin‟s translation of Six Chapters of a Floating Life is a masterpiece, which well illustrates his superb and genius art of translation. The following two aspects will be used to appreciate and analyze Lin Yutang‟s art of translation: his faithful and aesthetic expression in translation and his successful translation of cultural context.Th e following section illustrates how Lin used “domestication” and “foreignization” the terms for explaining two kinds of translation strategies first put forward by Laurence Venuti in the Translator‟s Invisibility in 1995, at ease and successfully translated the cultural context.Ⅰ.Domestication Applied in Lin’s Translation of Six Chapters of a Floating Life Eg. (1)东坡云:“事如春梦了无痕,”苟不记之笔墨,未免有辜彼苍之厚(LinYutang, Six1) .The translated version: Su Tungp said,“Life is like a spring dreamwhich vanishes without a t race.”I should be ungrateful to the gods if I did not try to put my life down on record (Lin Yutang, Six2).Religion forms an important part of human culture and different religions are the reflections of different cultures. In the West, people mainly believe in Christianity, while in China, there are quite a number of people believing in Buddhism and Taoism. The word”苍”is not the same as“God”,but here, Lin translated“苍”as“God”. This is because Lin Yutang from the early years was educated by Christianity and also because he wanted to shorten the distance between the author and the Western readers. It is a typical exampl e of Lin‟s use of domestication strategy in the cultural translation.Eg. (2)惠来以番饼二圆授余,即以赠惠。

曹力却,受一圆而去(Lin Yutang, Six158) .The translated version: Hueilai gave me two Mexican dollars which I gave to Ts’ao, but Ts’ao would not take them; only after my insistence did he receive one dollar before going away (Lin Yutang, Six 159) .In order to achieve the domestication, these examples replaced the cultural imagery, shortened the distance between the reader and translator. The following translation of “园亭布置” is also use domestication. The language is naturally and fluently, it seems the original English.Ⅱ.Foreignization Applied in Lin’s Translation of Six Chapters of a Floating Life In order to introduce the Chinese culture to the West, Lin also adopted the strategy of foreignization. For instance, Lin used transliteration to translate“马褂”as“makua”,“馄饨”as“wonton”,and chose“spending money like dirt”instead of theEnglish idiom“spending money like water”as the translation of“挥金如土”, which vividly conveyed the implicative cultural information and also maintained the characteristic of Chinese language and culture.Eg. (1)其形削肩长颈,瘦不露骨,眉弯目秀,顾盼神飞,唯两齿微露,似非佳相(Lin Yutang, Six 7) .The translated version: Of a slender figure, she had drooping shoulder and rather long neck, slim but not to the point of being skinny. Her eyebrows were arched and in her eyes there was a look of quick intelligence and soft refinement. The only defect was that her two front teeth were slightly inclined forward, which was not a mark of good omen (Lin Yutang, Six 8).Eg. (2)余曰:“卿果中道相舍,断无再续之理。