Rewritings in translation as clues of cultural mediation and ideological manipulation: a case study of Lin Shu’s translation of David Copperfield

Abstract

Lin Shu’s Chinese translations of foreign novels at the turn of the twentieth century, contributing partly to the emergence of modern Chinese language and literature, have been criticized for their unfaithfulness and rewriting of the source texts. However, from the perspective of intercultural communication, his rewriting strategies, presenting certain patterns, become valuable clues of cultural mediation and ideological manipulation in his time. Based on a systematic comparative study of David Copperfield and its Chinese translation by Lin Shu, this paper makes a detailed analysis of the language and rewriting strategies in the translation, and summarizes the rewriting patterns. It then discusses how the language strategies and rewriting patterns reflect the translator’s cultural mediation and ideological manipulation of the poetics of translation, which was presented by his multidimensional ambivalent mentality when he as a patriotic intellectual was turning to the Western culture in the historical turning point of great social transformation in China. Underlying the translator’s individual ideology, the manipulation of the mainstream social ideology is also discussed, which reflects the mutual relationship between politics, poetics, and ideology in that special historical period.