3.3 The Significance of the Two Selected Versions 9

IV. Nationalism in the Retranslations of Robinson Crusoe 11

4.1 Nationalism Transferred through Translation 11

4.1.1 Translators under the Pressure of Nationalism 11

4.1.2 Nationalism from Text to Text 12

4.2 Nationalism in Translation Strategy 15

V. Conclusion 17

Bibliography 19

A Study of the Retranslation of Robinson Crusoe from the Perspective of Nationalism

I. Introduction

The year of 2016 seemed to be a turbulent period. In June the British begun to make a referendum of departing from the European Union (EU) and finally got it successfully, leaving a shock world behind.  When Teresa May took office in No. 10 Downing Street, Brexit was inevitable and there was no way back. Half a year later, Donald Trump won the 45th presidential election, American conservatism has been reinforced more than ever.

There were more to come in 2016. The Middle East was in turmoil. And China experienced three events which were hard to forget: the first was the arbitration of the South China Sea; the second was THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) issue; the last  was 2016 Hangzhou G20 Summit. These events are evident symbols that the  pace of globalization is tampered for a while and nationalism is rising around the world. The new current will cast considerable influence on culture communication and many other areas concerned.

Nationalism can be viewed as the outcome of collision among politics, economy and culture. There is resistance to other cultures, but there is aggression of the culture as well. During the process,  translation is playing a delicate role. It’s a double-blade sword. It brings in and exports cultures in the meantime.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the influence of nationalism on translator's translation behavior in the context of social environment change by comparing two Chinese translations of Robinson Crusoe. The book   and   its   translations   will   be   introduced   in   full   length. And nationalism is defined in the light of translation study. In considering that nationalism is quite a general notion even to translation field, the paper take Robinson Crusoe as an example to demonstrate how nationalism shapes translation in translations and how it changes through time in different translations. The paper will reach a conclusion that nationalism exert a great impact upon translation.

II. Literature review

2.1 The Definition of Nationalism

According to Xu Xun (2015), the word “nationalism” （basically meaning loyalty and commitment, especially a certain national consciousness to a nation）appeared firstly in the context of social movement in 1844. It referred to political resistance against feudal repression and began to sprout in the French Revolution, then    gradually spread widely to Europe. Later it was introduced to China  during Hundred Days’ Reform by Liang Qichao.

The definitions of “Nationalism” vary person to person.According to Ernest Gellner (1983), nationalism is a theory on political legitimacy, which meant “the political and the national unification should be congruent” and the ideological mode is the union (between nations and states to achieve one nation or one state. When Gellner expounded the universality and legality of nationalism, he always focused on that not all states could acquire their political shelters in the form of state. He even asserted that there were no nationalist issues without contemporary state political power.