ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the polarity between historical theories and practices of translation, and elucidates the relevance of past theorizing about translation. It also examines Yan Fu's principles of translation with the help of contemporary functional concepts, more particularly polysystem theory. The three principles of translation which the Chinese translator Yan Fu enunciated in 1898 xin, da and ya achieved canonical status while also being condemned as paradoxical if not contradictory. Yan introduced his three principles in the General Remarks on Translation prefaced to his Tianyanlun of 1898, his first published translation, based on T. H. Huxley's Evolution and Ethics. Yan Fu began his translation of Huxley after China's most humiliating defeat by Japan in 1895. In the same year he released four political critiques in a Tianjin newspaper, which made waves in intellectual circles but did not affect the political system, where he held an insignificant position as navy training officer.
