The Works of Lin Yutang is the first book to provide a comprehensive study of Lin Yutang’s translation theory and translated (and written) works in English as a whole, examined from the perspective of his pursuit of recognition of cultural equity between China and the English-speaking world.
The arc of the book is Lin’s new method of translating China to the Anglophone world, which is crucial to rendering Chinese culture as an equal member of the modern world. This book identifies Lin’s legacy of translation and recognition as his acknowledgement of source and target cultural territories in translation, and at the same time, his questioning of perspectives that privilege the authority of either.
This book will appeal to scholars and students in Translation Studies, World and Comparative Literature, Literary and Cultural Studies, and Chinese Studies. It can also be used as a reference work for practitioners in translation and creative writing.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
0.1 Translation and recognition
0.2 Studying Lin Yutang from the perspective of translation and recognition
0.3 Chapter summary
Chapter 1 Lin Yutang and his view of recognition
1.1 Lin Yutang’s life and works
1.2 Securing recognition: Lin Yutang’s challenge to cultural reductionism
1.3 Lin Yutang’s view of recognition
Chapter 2 Translation, literature and philosophy: Lin Yutang’s three pillars and the space of zhongyong
2.1 Lin Yutang’s theorisations of three pillars and the space of zhongyong
2.2 Zhongshi and foreignisation: Liberating China from the English-speaking world
2.3 Tongshun and domestication: Translating China as intelligible to the English-speaking world
2.3.1 Trans-editing
2.3.2 Trans-creation
2.3.3 Analogy
2.4 Mei and central harmony: A space of zhongyong through translation
Chapter 3 Translation and war: Lin Yutang’s ‘international contact’ vs. The United States’ isolationism
3.1 The United States’ isolationism
3.2 An antidote for isolationism: Lin Yutang’s ‘international contact’ and the war as a joint battle
3.3 Recognising China’s strategic significance as a major ally in the Asia Pacific theatre
3.4 Lin Yutang’s intervention in the Sino-American relations
Chapter 4 Translation and empire: Lin Yutang’s vision of the new world order after the second world war
4.1 Lin Yutang’s denunciation of Britain’s imperialist mentality
4.2 Lin Yutang’s belief in the Atlantic Charter and internationalism
4.3 India’s freedom and racial equality
Conclusion
Index
Biography
Yangyang Long is Assistant Professor in Translation and Interpreting at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. Her research centres on translation, literary studies, and cultural studies. Her works have been published in journals such as The Translator, Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies, Atlantic Studies: Global Currents, Coup de Théâtre, and TranscULturAL. She is working on her second monograph on the translation, adaptation, and performance of Chinese classical opera on the Anglophone stage.
