Rootless Back Translation in Moment in Peking——From the Perspective of Adaptation Theory

Abstract：Moment in Peking is famous as “a modern version of A Dream in Red Mansions”. And that it has been nominated for Nobel Prize in Literature for four times further improved its popularity in all parts of the world. Zhang Zhenyu, a distinguished researcher and translator of Lin Yutang’s works, has translated a lot of Lin’s works. Thereinto, the most extraordi- nary one is the translation of Moment in Peking in 1977, which enjoys con- tinuing popularity. Lin Yutang originally entrusted the translation to Yu Dafu, whose sudden death, unfortunately, left the translation work undone after that. Embracing the desire to fulfill his father’s unredeemed literary debt, Yu Fei, the eldest son of Yu Dafu, took on the translation task and plighted his loyalty to Lin Yutang and his fiction. It took about ten years to make preparation. Finally Yu Fei completed the rendering with the help of substantial first hand material which his father got from Lin Yutang and published in 1991. Actually, some Chinese translation scholars have no- ticed such a kind of writing and its Chinese translation as Lin Yutang’s English creation, however, their ideas are fairly confusing in general. Be- sides, the concepts which they apply are different from each other. Accord- ingly, Professor Wang Hongyin proposed a new type of translation—— rootless back translation. Therefore, there is a necessity to have a pano- ramic translation research for a comparative study of the two translation versions of Moment in Peking. The present research is responding to the call for an effort to make a comprehensive comparison between the rootless back translation of Zhang’s and Yu’s renderings under the framework of Adaptation.

Keywords: Moment in Peking; Adaptation theory; Rootless back transla- tion; Comparison

顺应论视角下《京华烟云》的无根回译

摘 要：《京华烟云》是林语堂用英语写作的长篇小说，蜚声海内外，被誉为“现代 版《红楼梦》”，曾获得诺贝尔文学奖四次提名。翻译家张振玉是研究林语堂的专 家，林语堂作品的多部译文出自他手，他的译本《京华烟云》自 1977 年出版以 来在台湾和大陆相继发行。1991 年，郁达夫长子子郁飞为遂父遗愿，完成林语堂 委托其父的翻译一事，出版译本《瞬息京华》。国内翻译学者已然注意到林语堂 用英文创作中国题材作品及其汉译的特殊性，但是总体上认识比较混乱，所用概 念众说纷纭。因此，王宏印教授提出“无根回译”一说。基于林语堂用英文创作 中国题材作品的特殊性，以及作品在回归其母语语言形态的翻译过程的特殊性， 其中有诸多问题需要探讨并加以解决。本文以顺应论为理论框架，对《京华烟云》 的两个中译本的无根回译现象进行对比研究。 

 关键词：京华烟云；顺应论；无根回译；对比 

Contents

Abstract in English I

Abstract in Chinese II

I. Rootless Back Translation 1

1.1 The definition of Rootless Back Translation 1

1.2 Previous Researches on Rootless Back Translation 2

II. Adaptation Theory 4

2.1 The definition of Adaptation Theory 4

2.2 Key Notions 5

2.2.1