Lin Yutang has experience in self-translation. His self-translated works include "Ming Liao Zi You", "Bu Yi Kuai Zai", "Selected Poems of Dongpo", "Youmengying", "Banqiao" "Letter from Home", "The Wisdom of Laozi", "Six Chapters of a Floating Life", etc.
As a famous writer and translator, Lin Yutang has made outstanding contributions to promoting cultural exchanges between China and the West, especially in introducing Chinese culture to the West. Lin Yutang's translation is characterized by being smooth and easy to understand, using less "linguistics", and can be understood by readers with middle-level education. This is also the result of his exploration.
In 1936, Lin Yutang "produced" "The Art of Living" and wrote 260 pages. He felt that the language was esoteric and the argument was boring, which would lose readers, so he started over and started over, using a set of words, using Feng Ke. Song, clouds can be seen, rain can be heard, snow can be admired, the moon can be played, mountains can be seen, water can be played, and rocks can be appreciated, etc. to observe the cruel competition and fast pace of modern Western life, so the writing style has changed. Changeable, ethereal and moving.
Lin Yutang’s Translation Principles
Mr. Lin Yutang put forward these three requirements for translators in "On Translation", which require not only a thorough understanding of the original text, but also a certain degree of expression. Ability and mastery of certain translation skills and standards.
Lin Yutang proposed that "to discuss translation, we need to study its textual and psychological issues." In other words, "translation issues can be said to be linguistic and psychological issues."
Lin Yutang believes: "If we want to get a more objective solution to this problem, we should base our argument on the analysis of the psychology of language and writing. We must first understand the facts about the psychology of language and writing, and then we can do What should the translator’s standards and attitudes be?” Mr. Lin Yutang was the first person in the history of Chinese translation studies who most clearly used modern linguistics and psychology as the basis for the “academic analysis” of translation theory.