Abstract: The New Cultural Movement in the May Fourth Period was featured with translating foreign works into Chinese and proposing abundant translation theories by academic and cultural circles. Advocators of new culture preferred “literal translation” and “faithfulness” as a declaration to break up with traditional culture. Thus, it has easily been taken for granted that all translators followed the literal translation principle in that period. Based on the statistics of the representative journal New Youth in the May Fourth Period, the author concludes that literal and non-literal methods were both adopted and non-literal translation was more diversified than expected. This research reveals that the understanding on faithfulness criterion varied among translators; the influence on translation from the target culture is ubiquitous; and literal translation, though preferred theoretically, did not dominate all translation practice in that period.

Key words: New Youth, the translation of foreign works' titles, translation theory, literal translation