Exploration on the development and conflicts of "the theory of advantage and rivalry"

Abstract

"The Theory of Advantage and Rivalry" put forward by Xu Yuanchong has been debated since the twenty-first century. This theory, different from traditional theories, such as theory of faithfulness, elegance, and expressiveness, brings innovative insights into the translation field and inevitably suffers conflicts from people with diverse perspectives. This new theory has room for improvement, definitely, but it also possesses value for being part of the development of translation studies, especially in the new era. This theory is found to be partially understood, mistakenly comprehended, or discussed from different standpoints, more than translation studies, linguistics, philosophy, and aesthetics, for example. This paper summarizes four main conflicts of this theory, aiming to figure out why these comments formed, what the essence of theory is, and how the theory can be improved. As this theory has contributed to the successful publication of a translated Chinese literature of poetry, for the first time, in Penguin Publisher, London, in 1984, this paper focuses on the translations of Chinese poetry for case analyses in the discussion chapter. In addition, some Chinese poems were rendered again with the guidance of the theory. Through similarities and differences of these translations in different periods, Xu's struggle of constructing his translation theory can be shown. Therefore, comparative analyses are also conducted to explore further how the theory is applied in practice, how reasonable the conflicts are, and the rationality of this theory itself. Furthermore, reflections concerning the development of translation theories on the research are pointed out for reference.