Shifting the Focus from Learning from the West to Leaning on the Tradition: A Reflection on Constructing the Discourse System of Translation Studies with Chinese Characteristics

Great achievements have been made in Chinese translation studies, but problems still exist in the construction of the discourse system with Chinese characteristics.This paper analyzes the development of Chinese translation studies and finds that its theoretical discourse has been produced mainly by means of "borrowing chickens to lay eggs", or learning from the West.This, however, has led to some negative consequences, the most serious of which is that our theoretical discourse is short of distinctive Chinese characteristics.Therefore, the focus should be shifted from learning from the West to leaning on our tradition.Only by drawing more on the Chinese traditional philosophy, can we produce more distinctive theoretical discourses and build a more distinctive Chinese discourse system.Then several suggestions are offered for the construction of the discourse system, among which the role of Marxist philosophy is especially emphasized.