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Theories

Passive and Hypotaxis- Chinese Culture and EC Translation 杨海容 Yang Hairong, 202070080616，MTI 英语笔译

杨海容 Yang Hairong, 202070080616

Abstract

Under the background of the language differences between Chinese and English and the cultural background of English hypothesis and Chinese parataxis, this thesis discusses how to solve the problem of the translation of English passive voice. It is divided into five parts. The first part of the thesis is about major language differences between English and Chinese; the second part of the thesis is about passive sentences; the third part of the thesis is about parataxis and hypotaxis; the fourth part is about EC translation methods of passive voice and the fifth part is conclusion. In the context of Chinese language and culture, translators can use functional equivalence as a guide to translate English passive sentences through the following translation methods: one could translate English passive voice into Chinese passive Sentences, Chinese Active sentences, Chinese Judgment sentences and Chinese sentences without subjects.

Key Words

parataxis, hypotaxis, passive voice

题目

被动与形合——以中国文化和英汉翻译为视角

摘要

本文在中英语言文化差异的背景和英文形合与中文意合的文化的背景下，讨论如何解决英文被动语态的翻译问题。 本文分为五个部分。第一部分是关于英语和汉语之间主要语言的差异。论文的第二部分关于被动语态。论文的第三部分关于形合与意合。第四部分是英译汉中被动语态的翻译方法。第五部分是结论。在汉语文化的语境中，翻译者可以以功能对等为指导，通过以下翻译方法来解决英语被动语态问题：可以将英语被动语态翻译为汉语被动句、汉语主动句、汉语判断句和汉语无主语句式。

关键词

意合，形合，被动语态

1.Major Language Differences between English and Chinese

English emphasizes on structure, while Chinese emphasizes on semantics. The famous Chinese linguist Wang Li once said: "In terms of sentence structure, Western languages are grammatically restricted, while Chinese languages are dominated by people." (Wang li, 1984) For example:

SL Text 1: This will be particularly true since energy pinch will make it difficult to continue agriculture in the high-energy American fashion that makes it possible to combine few farmers with high yields.

TL Text 1: 这种困境将是确定无疑的，因为能源的匮乏，高能量消耗这种美国耕种方式将很难在农业中继续下去，而这种耕种方式使投入少数农民就可获得高产成为可能。

SL Text 1: The main structure of the sentence “This will be particularly true... since” leads the adverbial clause of reason. In this clause, an attributive clause guided by the relative pronoun that is embedded to modify "the high-energy American fashion". In the attributive clause, “that” is the subject, “makes” is the predicate, and “it” is the formal object. The infinitive phrase "to combine few farmers with high yields" is the real object.

SL Text 2: These new observational capabilities would result in simply a mass of details were it not for the fact that theoretical understanding has reached the stage at which it is becoming possible to indicate the kind of measurements required for reliable weather forecasting.

TL Text 2: 理论上的认识已达到了这样一个阶段，即现在已能指出需要哪种测量方式才能可靠地预报天气。如果做不到这一点，那么上述这些新的观察能力只不过提供了一大堆细节而已。

The frame of this sentence is "These new observational capabilities would result in simply a mass of details...". It is followed by the conditional sentence "were it not for the fact that..." that is, "if it were not for the fact that...;" “that” clause is used as an apposition clause of “the fact”. An attributive clause is embedded in this clause to modify its antecedent “the stage”;  "required for reliable weather forecasting" is a past participle phrase that modifies “the kind of measurements". (Wang li, 1984)

English prefers long sentences, while Chinese prefers short sentences. English is a language emphasizes on structure and ruled by grammar. As long as there are no structural errors, many meanings can often be expressed in a long sentence, while Chinese is totally different in this aspect. Because it is ruled by human, the semantics are directly expressed through words, and different meanings are often expressed through different short sentences. It is for this reason that almost 100% of the English-Chinese translation test questions are long and complex sentences, and the translation into Chinese often becomes many short sentences and vice versa. (Cheng Hongzhen, 2003)

English often uses clauses, but Chinese often uses short sentences. English sentences can not only use very long modifiers in simple sentences to make the sentence longer, but also use clauses to make the sentence more complex. These clauses are often connected to the main sentence or other clauses through the clause guide. It looks intricate but it is a whole. Chinese originally like to use short sentences, and the expression structure is relatively loose. When translated into Chinese, the clauses in English sentences often become some clauses. (Duan Manfu, 2006)

Among nouns such as subject and object, English often uses more pronouns, and Chinese uses more nouns. Moreover, in sentences, nouns and prepositions are more used in English, while verbs are more used in Chinese. English not only has personal pronouns, such as "we", "you", "he", "they", but also relative pronouns, such as "that" and "which". In long and complex sentences, in order to make the sentence structure correct and clear, and to avoid repetition in expression, many pronouns are often used in English. Although Chinese also has pronouns, due to its relatively loose structure and relatively short sentences, too many pronouns cannot be used in Chinese. The use of nouns often makes the semantics clearer.(Xu Jianping, 2003)

English often uses passive sentences, while Chinese uses more active sentences. English prefers to use the passive voice, especially in scientific texts. Although there are words such as bei (被) and you (由) in Chinese that indicate that the action is passive, this expression is far less common than the passive voice in English. Therefore, the passive voice in English often becomes active in Chinese translation.(Ni Wei, Shao Zhihong, 2004)

English often uses variable words and sentence patterns, while Chinese uses repeated words. When English expresses the same meaning, the way of expression is often changed. For example, the first time you may use "I think", and then the second time if you use "I think" again, it is obviously monotonous and repetitive in English. So it should be replaced by expressions like "I believe" or "I imagine". In contrast, Chinese has less requirements for transformable expressions than English. Many transformable expressions in English can be translated into repetitive expressions in Chinese. (Wang Jiayi, 2011)

English language mostly uses abstract concepts, while Chinese uses more concrete concepts. The main reason why it is difficult to translate English to Chinese lies in its complex structure and abstract expression. By analyzing the structure of sentences, long English sentences are transformed into Chinese short sentences, and English clauses are transformed into short sentences in Chinese. In this way, structural problems are often solved. To express abstraction requires the translator to understand the meaning of the original text, the deep meaning of the sentence, and express it in specific Chinese. (Xu Shihong, 2006)

2.Passive Sentences

2.1 The Usage and Reasons of Passive Sentences in English and Chinese

The structural forms of the predicate and non-predicate of English passive sentences are relatively simple. The predicate of the passive sentence changes with the change of English tense, but its basic structural form is only "be" + "past participle". The complication of the explicit form and structure of the passive voice in Chinese is mainly due to the large number of prepositions in the guiding agent's subject and many changes. (Kui Xueyan, Wang lei, 2001)

There are a total of four prepositional vocabulary signs in the passive voice of modern Chinese, namely bei (被) , jiao (叫) , rang (让) and gei (给) . Almost every word has a basic form and an ellipsis of non-finite subject .Bei in Chinese can be replaced with jiao, gei and rang. Gei is a collocation word used with bei, and is no longer a preposition to guide the agent. In ancient Chinese, the most commonly used prepositions are jian (见) and yu (于) . (Kui Xueyan, Wang lei, 2001)

English has two voices: active voice and passive voice. The passive voice is generally used in the cases where there is no need to mention the perpetrator, unwilling to mention the perpetrator, unable to know the perpetrator, or in order to facilitate contextual cohesion. (Kui Xueyan, Wang lei, 2001)

The passive voice is more widely used in English texts for science and technology. According to the statistics of foreign linguists, at least one-third of the finite verbs in English science and engineering textbooks use the passive voice. The reasons for the large use of passive voice in scientific English are following: First of all, Scientific and technological works focus on objective facts, and the passive voice has less subjective color than the active voice; Second, the passive structure highlights the main argument, explains the object, and is eye-catching; Last but not least, in many cases the passive structure is shorter than the active structure. In fact, there are many situations in which the formal English styles, including technical styles, use passive voice in writing. (Kui Xueyan, Wang lei, 2001)

Passive sentences are rarely used in Chinese. Because the passive words in Chinese are often used in conjunction with verbs that have an adverse effect on the action recipient. The other reason is that many sentences with passive meaning can be expressed in active form. In modern Chinese, the passive type is much narrower than the active type, and its special tasks cannot be replaced by the active type. Passive narratives are usually undesirable or negative things, such as being deceived, harmed, or causing unfavorable results. For the passive sentences used in formal English writing, Chinese often uses the form of no subject sentence to express its objectivity. (Kui Xueyan, Wang lei, 2001)

Therefore, the number of passive sentences in Chinese is far less than in English. However, because of the influence of foreign words, the use of passive sentences in Chinese tends to increase, not only expressing unsatisfactory or undesirable things, many expressions of wish or hope can become passive sentences. (Kui Xueyan, Wang lei, 2001)

2.2 Various Forms of Passive Meaning in English

(1)Passive voice

It usually uses the passive voice to express the passive meaning in English. Generally speaking, it is composed of "be + past participle", and it can also be composed of "get /become+ past participle". (Kui Xueyan, Wang lei, 2001)

Passive voice formed by "be+ past participle". As mentioned above, this passive voice is generally used in the situations where there is no need to mention the agent, who is unwilling to mention the agent, cannot know the agent, or to facilitate contextual cohesion, etc. (Kui Xueyan, Wang lei, 2001)

Then, passive voice formed by "get /become+ past participle". The usage of “get and become” as auxiliary verbs in the passive voice, comprehensively speaking, there are the following points: First, the passive voice formed by "get /become+ past participle". It generally refers to the result of the action rather than the action itself, and often contains meanings such as the final, sudden occurrence, and unexpected encounter. For example: (a) She get caught in the storm. (b) He got hurt in the head. (c) Jack and Jane got married finally. (Kui Xueyan, Wang lei, 2001)

Secondly, the passive voice composed by "get /become+ past participle" can express the "gradual change" of the state and emphasize the action process. For example: (d)This water got /became mixed with these solids. (Kui Xueyan, Wang lei, 2001)

Thirdly, the passive voice sentence formed by "get + past participle" does not use the word “by” to express the agent. For example: (e) The company’s core competition was told by this manager. (Kui Xueyan, Wang lei, 2001)

Fourthly, the passive voice sentence composed of "get /become + past participle" is generally not suitable for the following structures: double object, "verb + noun + preposition" structure, subject clause structure and structure with sensory verbs. For example: (f) He taught us Chinese cultures in this semester. (g) We were taught Chinese cultures in this semester. (Kui Xueyan, Wang lei, 2001)

Fifthly, the active form expresses the passive meaning. Some verbs in English are formally active, but they actually express passive meaning. (Kui Xueyan, Wang lei, 2001)

(2)The active form expresses the passive meaning

Some verbs in English are active in form, but they actually express passive meaning. A Chinese translator, Lin Yutang, called this situation "False Active Sentences".(Tang Guoping, Li Fei, 2003)

2.3 Comparison of Passive Meaning in English and Chinese

(1)"be+ past participle" English form and corresponding Chinese forms: (a)It is equivalent to a passive sentence with formal signs in Chinese. (b)It is equivalent to the active sentence with passive meaning in Chinese. (c)It is equivalent to the subjectless sentence in Chinese, especially the passive voice of the formal style in English often corresponds to the sentence without subject in Chinese. (d)It is equivalent to the active sentence in Chinese. (Tang Fenfen, 2012)

(2)The English "get /become+ past participle" form and the corresponding Chinese forms: (e)They are often equivalent to passive sentences with formal signs in Chinese. (f)Sometimes it is equal to the active sentence in Chinese. (Tang Fenfen, 2012)

(3)English active sentences with passive meanings and corresponding Chinese forms: (g)Basically they are equivalent to Chinese active sentences with passive meaning. (h)The present continuous tense in the active voice with passive meaning can also be equivalent to the subjectless sentence in Chinese. (i)The active form of some prepositional phrases and be combined with passive meaning is often equivalent to the passive sentence with formal signs in Chinese. (Tang Fenfen, 2012)

2.4 The Passive Implicit of English Lexical Means

The main means of expressing passivity in English is the passive voice of verbs. (a) The following nouns in English imply passivity: one’s assassination, one’s promotion, one’s discharge, one’s conviction, one’s nomination and so on. (b) Prepositional phrases can also be used to express passive states: at a discount, on penalty, on the shelf, in the custody of, in the pay of, under the influence of, under the attack of, under criticism, under constrain and so on. (c) Many adjective phrases can also be used to express passiveness, such as: be welcome, be beneficiary, be accused of...by, be subject to, be deprived of and so on. From this point of view, in English, it is a syntactic means to express the passive voice by means of verb morphological changes. In inter-language conversion, we must also choose the most suitable way to express. It is not necessary to express the passive meaning in a sentence with a passive verb. (Liu Miqing, 2006)

The passive voice of English is only a grammatical category and has no modal expression function. The active and passive voices of English are generally the same in the deep sense, so there is a conversion relationship between them. After conversion, the semantics of the two are equivalent. For example: (d)People considered him too conservative. (e)He was considered too conservative. Of course, the conversion between active and passive sentences in English is not unlimited. There are many verbs that cannot be converted from active to passive, such as last, lack, become, ensue, suit, recur, happen and so on. This is a question of customary rules and logic. But one thing is certain, after the English active sentence is converted into a passive sentence, there is no meaning added. (Liu Miqing, 2006)

However, the passive voice of Chinese has obvious negative modality. More and more passive sentences are used in modern Chinese, and some positive colors have also appeared. Unfortunately, the unfortunate modality of the passive voice has always been dominant. Therefore, under the background that Chinese uses less passive voice, the process of Chinese-English translation can appropriately and intentionally express more English sentences in passive sentence patterns or express passive meaning. (Liu Miqing, 2006)

2.5 Pragmatic Analysis of English Passive Voice

As for the English passive voice, its pragmatic analysis can be conducted from the following aspects. The establishment of a topic requires the use of the passive voice. The topic is the part of the sentence that indicates someone, something, or a concept, and it is also the object and starting point of the sentence statement. The use of the passive voice has a certain impact on the text structure and the development of the topic. It can make the topic more focused and clear, and it can better predict the development direction of the topic. Topics established by the passive voice are more focused and clearer than those established by the active voice, and can better predict their development direction. (Liu Mingdong, 2001)

The coherence of the text requires the use of passive voice. Coherence refers to the semantic connection between sentences in a text. It is a language system and a basic feature of a text. It is not only related to the topic, but also related to the organization of information, which constitutes a part of the textual component of the semantic system. Discourse does not jump from one topic to another in a disorderly manner, but always develops rationally with a certain topic coherence and the possibility of topic development. Therefore, it is necessary to use the passive voice to ensure that the topic unfolds smoothly and naturally. (Liu Mingdong, 2001)

The politeness principle requires the use of the passive voice. Politeness is a symbol of human civilization and an important criterion for human social activities. As a social activity, language activities are also restricted by this standard. The principle of politeness maintains the equal status of both parties in conversation and the friendly relationship between them. Only under this major premise can people communicate. The specific principles of politeness include: strategy guidelines, magnanimity guidelines, modesty guidelines, approval guidelines and sympathy guidelines. The passive voice is sometimes used to follow the principle of politeness. (Liu Mingdong, 2001)

The balance of sentence structure requires the use of passive voice.English sentences mostly appear in the structure of "S +V +O", often the subject part (S) is shorter, and the predicate part (V +O) is longer. Sometimes the passive voice is used to avoid top-heavy sentence structures (he actor with a longer modifier). The objectivity of expression requires the use of passive voice. Expression is divided into two categories: subjectivity and objectivity. Sometimes subjective expressions are in line with the context and are easy to be accepted, but in some specific contexts, especially in English texts for science and technology, objective expressions are very important, because the subject of English texts for science and technology is often an objective thing, phenomenon or process, so using the passive voice at this time is not only more objective, but also allows the reader's attention to focus on the things, phenomena or processes described. (Liu Mingdong, 2001)

The objectivity of expression requires the use of passive voice. Expression is divided into subjectivity and objectivity. Sometimes subjective expressions are in line with the context and are easily accepted, but in some specific contexts, especially in English texts for science and technology, objective expressions are very important, because the subject of English texts for science and technology is often an objective thing, phenomenon or process, so using the passive voice at this time is not only more objective, but also allows the reader's attention to focus on the things, phenomena or processes described. (Liu Mingdong, 2001)

3.Parataxis and Hypotaxis

3.1 English and Chinese Sentence Characteristics

As it takes form first, English uses form to drive its meaning. Although sentences are ever-changing and many of them have special forms of expression, no matter how they change, no matter how special and complex the formal structure of the sentence is, it is composed of a few basic sentences with subject-predicate structure as the core. In terms of sentence composition, English sentence patterns are divided into several basic types. On this basis, they use various types of words, phrases, clauses and other language entities to expand. (Li Jingmin, 2012)

In terms of sentence types, English sentences expanded on the basis of basic sentence patterns are divided into several basic types according to their structural characteristics, such as simple sentences and compound sentences. Although their internal structures are also flexible and diverse, the formal structure regulations are also very rigorous, and they still cannot break away from the basic framework centered on the subject-predicate structure. (Li Jingmin, 2012)

This is just like what people often say, English sentences are like trees, which have various poses, but they never leave their origins. The main stem is connected to the branches, and the branches are connected with leaves and flowers. In contrast to the rigorous internal structure of the sentence, English speakers have less constraints on the specific language entity that carries a certain information. (Li Jingmin, 2012)

Under the premise of complying with the common language conventions, English users will arrange the information they intend to convey to this sentence or a certain language entity in the sentence group according to the specific needs of sentence construction and their respective writing characteristics and preferences. Under normal circumstances, people do not care what kind of language entity should carry a certain layer of information. The logical relationship between the information carried by these language entities does not necessarily depend on their grammatical functions, but can be determined by people. (Li Jingmin, 2012)

In addition, when arranging information-bearing language entities, English users are often not limited to a single sentence, and may extend beyond the sentence or even a sentence group. However, their first consideration is still allowed in the formal structure specification. The convenience of making sentences within the scope is the diversification of language expression. (Li Jingmin, 2012)

Therefore, the so-called English takes form first, and form controls meaning. Simply put, as long as you observe the premise that the subject-predicate structure is the core of the formal structure convention, and don't try to jump out of the palm of the Buddha, you can cross the sea and show their magical powers. This is a mode of information transmission in which English construction conventions and communication methods are organically unified, which embodies the basic characteristics of the information transmission mechanism oriented to the formal structure, that is, the actual meaning of the so-called English duplication. (Li Jingmin, 2012)

Chinese, on the other hand, focuses on meaning, which is not constrained by the subject-predicate structure like English does. Instead, according to the thinking habits of Chinese users, the information to be transmitted is laid out in the order of logical affair, forming one by one each carrying specific information. The information sections constructed by two language entities are connected by semantic logic as a link to form an information chain. Form and structure of Chinese are far more important than the emphasis on English with the subject-predicate structure as the core formal structure is much more complicated. (Li Jingmin, 2012)

3.2 Definition and Connotation of Parataxis and Hypotaxis

Wang Li (1984: 310) put forward the two concepts of parataxis and hypotaxis and he said, "In Chinese, the meaning is legal, and the connection component is not necessary; in the West, the form is legal and the connection component is in most cases The next is indispensable". Later, many other scholars also elaborated on this concept and its meaning. Lian Shuneng (1993: 48) pointed out that “the so-called hypothesis refers to the connection of words or clauses in a sentence by means of linguistic forms to express grammatical meaning and logical relations. The so-called parataxis refers to Words do not need to be connected by linguistic formal means. The grammatical meaning and logical relationship in the sentence are expressed through the meaning of words or clauses. " (Xu Jun, 2006)

According to our understanding, there must be differences in the form of expression when using different language expressions to express the same communication content. English is different from Chinese. English uses conjunctive elements (such as conjunctions and logical connection elements) to express more and more obvious semantic relationships than Chinese. Foreign scholars have also noticed these differences. For example, Nida (1982: 16) pointed out that the most important distinguishing feature between English and Chinese is no more than hypotaxis and parataxis. In a sense, hypotaxis and parataxis are not only reflected in the differences in the composition of Chinese and English texts, but also in the Chinese-English language context and way of thinking. (Xu Jun, 2006)

3.3 Cultural Explanation of Parataxis and Hypotaxis

From the perspective of cultural linguistics, the characteristics of Chinese emphasizing parataxis and English emphasizing hypothesis are not only a reflection of the differences in the expression patterns of the two languages, but also the embodiment of cultural differences between China and English. Therefore, the comparative analysis of parataxis between Chinese and English will naturally involve the differences between the two modes of thinking and their cultural background. (Li Jingmin, 2012)

The holistic and intuitive thinking habits of Chinese nation are expressed in language, which is the emphasis on parataxis of Chinese. On the whole, the holistic thinking habits of the Chinese people have a strong integration function. Therefore, although the Chinese sentence patterns formed by meaning and legally lack the vocabulary to express the grammatical relationship within the sentence, the Chinese people can quickly grasp them with the holistic thinking habits. Staying at the fulcrum of meaning, integrating the sentence with the peripheral semantic components in the context, and then supplementing the overall content of the sentence with experience, so as to understand the exact connotation of the sentence. (Li Jingmin, 2012)

Moreover, the Chinese people are very good at understanding the true meaning hidden in the words and between the lines, relying on the overall grasp of things. The famous Chinese scholar Professor Wang Li once said: "Western languages ​​are hard and inflexible; Chinese grammar is soft and flexible. So Chinese grammar is mainly expressive." It can be seen that Chinese, which is legally constituted by the Chinese people, is characterized by emphasizing comprehension and implication, savoring illocutionary meanings, and even emphasizing subtlety and pursuing using parataxis to integrate the whole article. (Li Jingmin, 2012)

4.EC Translation Methods of Passive Voice

When translating the passive voice from English to Chinese, one should not blindly translate it literally, but can translate from the perspective of functional equivalence. Functional equivalence theory is the famous American linguist and translator-Eugene Nida proposed. In the 1980s, Eugene Nida published From One Language to Another, in which he proposed functional equivalence, which is the core of Nida's theory. Functional equivalence means that in the process of translation, one-to-one correspondence between the text forms is not forced, but functional equivalence between the two languages should be achieved. It requires the translator to express the content and meaning of the original work, but also try to be equal in form, because some styles are also one of the content that the original author wants to express. (Liu Mingdong, 2001)

(1)Translate into Chinese Passive Sentences

In order to emphasize the action, or do not know the person who sent the action, or in a specific context, or in order to maintain the consistency of the subject clause, or to make the key point, English passive sentences can be translated into Chinese passive sentences. In addition to using the word bei(被) in expression, you can also choose words such as zao(遭), ai(挨), gei(给), shou(受) and wei...suo (为……所) according to the needs of Chinese collocation. (Liu Mingdong, 2001) For example:

SL Text 1: I was touched by warmhearted stories during the pandemic.

TL Text 1: 我为疫情期间发生的感人故事所感动。

(2)Translate into Chinese Active Sentences

Since Chinese habitually uses active sentences, many passive sentences in English can be translated into active sentences in Chinese. When translating, it can be translated into a formally active and passive Chinese sentence, and it can also change the original predicate verb to translate it into a complete active sentence in Chinese, and it can also directly translate the passive voice of the original text into the active voice. (Liu Mingdong, 2001) For example:

SL Text 2: In all, at least 600 people have been declared dead and another 650 missing.

TL Text 2: 总计至少六百人已证实死亡，另有六百五十人失踪。

(3)Translate into Chinese Judgment Sentences

Those English passive sentences that focus on describing the process, nature and state of things are very similar to the table structure, so they can be translated into Chinese judgment sentences and expressed by the structure of Chinese judgment sentences. (Liu Mingdong, 2001) For example:

SL Text 3: Beauty cannot be measured by any absolute standard.

TL Text 3: 美是不可能用任何绝对标准来衡量的。

(4)Translate into Chinese Sentences without Subjects

Chinese emphasizes harmony and loose structure, while English emphasizes form and compact structure. Therefore, the most basic sentence structure in English is the subject-predicate structure. In other words, any English sentence pattern must have a subject,, but Chinese is often eclectic and does not require a subject. (Liu Mingdong, 2001) For example:

SL Text 4: The cost can not be met unless the region has ample food resources.

TL Text 4: 除非该地区具有丰富的食物资源，否则无法满足这种消耗。

In the completion of an action, there are usually actors and recipients. If you want to introduce the perpetrator in English passive sentences, you usually use "by" to elicit it. But it is not difficult to find that many English sentences do not lead to the perpetrator. Therefore, such sentences can be translated into Chinese without subject sentences. (Liu Mingdong, 2001)

5.Conclusion

As Wang Li once said: "In terms of sentence structure, Western languages are grammatically restricted, while Chinese languages are dominated by people." (Wang Li 1984) Through combing the differences between English and Chinese in language expression, sentence structure, and passive voice, explaining the relationship between hypotaxis and parataxis, and using teleology as the guiding theory, the method of translating English passive voice is obtained and examples are given. In the context of Chinese language and culture, translators can use functional equivalence as a guide to translate English passive sentences through the following translation methods: one could translates English passive voice into Chinese passive sentences, Chinese active sentences, Chinese judgment sentences and Chinese sentences without subjects.

6.Reference

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Xu Jun徐珺. (2006). 汉英语篇意合与形合的文化阐释 [Cultural Explanation of Parataxis and Hypotaxis in Chinese and English Text]. 外语与外语教学 Foreign Languages and Their Teaching. (12) 26-29.

Li Jingmin 李靖民. (2012). 英汉语形合和意合研究中的几个问题 [Several Issues in the Study of Hypotaxis and Parataxis in English and Chinese]. 外语研究 Foreign Languages Research. (02) 45-50+112.

Liu Mingdong刘明东. (2001). 英语被动语态的语用分析及其翻译 [Pragmatic Analysis and Translation of English Passive Voice]. 中国科技翻译Chinese Science & Technology Translators Journal. (01) 1-4.

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On Metaphors - 游雨婷 You Yuting, 202070080619, 英语笔译

游雨婷 You Yuting, 202070080619

Abstract

Metaphor is not only a simple linguistic phenomenon, but also closely related to human thinking mode and cultural tradition. In English-Chinese metaphor translation, translators should analyze the psychological causes of metaphor and its hidden cultural information, and adopt corresponding translation strategies in order to accurately and vividly convey the basic information of the original language. If we ignore metaphor in English-Chinese translation, it will not only fail to achieve the translation effect, but also make readers confused or even misunderstood, resulting in an immeasurable consequence.

This thesis aims to discuss the development and issues of metaphor translation. Then, in comparison of the differences between Chinese and English in various aspects, the author aims to seek the most appropriate and effective metaphor translation strategies and skills, and lastly through the comparative analysis of metaphor translation in English versions of Tribute to White Poplar as an example from the perspectives of structural metaphor and ontological metaphor help translators to overcome translation obstacles resulted from metaphors. By truly integrating the language into the specific cultural context, one can help promote the quality of translation.

Key words

Metaphor cultural differences translation strategies different perspectives

题目

论隐喻

摘要

隐喻不只是一种简单的语言现象，它与人类的思维方式、文化传统紧密相连。在英汉隐喻翻译中，译者应分析隐喻产生的心理原因及其隐藏的文化信息，采取相应的翻译策略，以求准确而生动地传达原语言的基本信息。如果忽略英汉中的隐喻翻译问题，不仅达不到翻译效果，还会令读者费解甚至误解，造成无法估量的后果。

本文旨在从隐喻切入，讨论英汉隐喻翻译的发展及问题。其次通过从多个方面比较中英文的差异，从而寻求最合适有效的隐喻翻译策略和技巧，最后从结构隐喻和本体隐喻两个视角对《白杨礼赞》英译本的隐喻翻译进行比较分析，帮助翻译工作者克服由于隐喻带来的翻译障碍。真正将语言融入特定的文化语境，促进翻译质量的提高。 

关键词

隐喻 文化差异 翻译策略 不同视角

1. Introduction

Given the prospect of word economic integration, translation between two languages is in great need. Especially in English-Chinese metaphor translation, the original information could be wrongly transmitted or even lost. The reason for this is that metaphor translation is more a cultural conversion, rather than a simple language shift. So in this thesis, the author focuses on analysing the reasons and proposing strategies for metaphor translation and comparing metaphor translation of different English versions from the perspectives of structural metaphor and ontological metaphor. (Wang Bo 2016,115).

There will be three parts. The first chapter is to give a general picture of metaphor translation which involves its definition, development and reflections. In the second chapter, the author will discuss about the factors affecting metaphor translation, such as geographical and environmental conditions and so on. The third chapter is about strategies and skills to solve problems arose in metaphor translation, such as literal translation, and so on. The last chapter is to make a comparative analysis of metaphor translation in English versions of Tribute to White Poplar as an example from the perspectives of structural metaphor and ontological metaphor. (Wang Bo 2016,115).

2. The Overview of Metaphor

A metaphor is a figurative rhetoric, the use of one thing to denote another. It is the psychological behavior, linguistic behavior and cultural behavior of perceiving, experiencing, imagining, understanding and talking about such things under the suggestion of other kinds of things. (Shu Dingfang 2000,2).

2.1 Definition of Metaphor

In different periods of history, people have different definitions for metaphor. In ancient Greece, Aristotle named the rhetorical phenomenon metaphorical language, believing that it, like simile, is a contrast between different things and a phenomenon requiring the use of modification. (Shu Dingfang 2000,11).

In the early period of China, there was no specific concept of metaphor, only the Chinese words such as "譬", "比" that generally referred to figurative rhetoric appeared in the literature. (Hu Zhuanglin 2004,207), which showed that there was no clear concept of metaphor. At present, the study of metaphor exists in linguistics, pragmatics, semantics, cognitive psychology and other disciplines. American linguist Lakeoff and others hold that metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon, but fundamentally a cognitive one. (Shu Dingfang 2000,2).

Modern metaphor theory advocates that the essence of metaphor is a cognitive phenomenon, language is one of the main forms of metaphor, and metaphor in language has many forms. Understanding the definition of metaphor and distinguishing it from the concept of simile can help translators to deal with the problems in metaphor translation.(Shu Dingfang 2000,2).

Therefore, we should have a clear understanding of metaphor before discussing the metaphor translation skills. The comprehension of metaphor becomes a process of cognitive reasoning of language, understanding the pragmatic intention of the writer through association and inference.(Chen Yulian, Zhang Yingxian 2020,6).Poetry, especially the modern poetry, has a prominent feature in the collocation of words and sentences. Considerable imageries, which contains numerous metaphorical meanings, are existed in Chinese poetry, therefore, metaphor translation must be accurate, complete and expressive.(ZHANG Jie 2020,84).

2.2 The Development of Metaphor Translation

For a long time, how to realize the transformation of metaphor has been an important topic in the field of text translation. In 1918, for example, the western translators and translation theorist Peter Newmark paid great attention to metaphor translation, whose understanding of metaphor translation strategies are based on language form and the semantic equivalence, as well as the discussion of metaphor translation from rhetoric perspective. The criteria for the result of metaphor translation is determined by the rhetoric function usually from the form and semantic level.（Wang Bo 2016,115）.

Newmark believes that metaphor is a figure of speech. He regarded all the extended expression of meaning as metaphors and thought that all the words with multiple meanings were potential metaphors. The shift of the meaning of a metaphor or a specific word, or the personification of an abstract concept, or the use of some words or phrases, do not indicate their literal meaning; rather all imply another meaning. Metaphor can stand alone,which means we can use one word to achieve the rhetorical effect. Extendability refers to phrases, sentences, idioms, proverbs, fables, or even the whole part that can evoke the imagination.(Wang Bo 2016,115).

Based on the above views, he proposed several ways to guide metaphor translation: retaining the same metaphorical images, that is, literal translation, on the condition that it makes target language readers feel natural; turning into simile; replacing the metaphor with the equivalent metaphor in the target language; retaining the same metaphorical image and simpifying the similarity; conducting Interpretive translation. (Wang Bo 2016,115).

However, Maalej points out that there are two main drawbacks of such prescriptive methods: one is that translators do not know how to choose metaphor translation methods, for it is not clear which method should be chosen under what kid of circumstances; Secondly, the translation of metaphor cannot be carried out according to a set of abstract rules, and it must be dealt with according to the structure and function of a specific metaphor in a specific context.(Wang Bo 2016,116).

Compared with Nida, he sees metaphor as a figurative meaning of vocabulary, and it is equivalent in rhetorical function to idiomatic methods. Nida put forward the metaphor translation strategy earlier, that is, translating metaphor into metaphor; turning metaphor into simile; shifting non-metaphor into metaphor. These strategies are relatively general in concept and do not go far in discussion for many aspects of metaphor translation. While Newmark further pointed out that metaphor translation is the epitome of translation of all languages, because it gives translators' various choices: expressing practical meaning, reproducing image, or making appropriate modifications to achieve the perfect combination of meaning and image.(Wang Bo 2016,116).

As for Nida, he sees metaphor as a figurative meaning of vocabulary, and it is equivalent in rhetorical function to idiomatic methods. Nida put forward the metaphor translation strategy earlier, that is, translating metaphor into metaphor; turning metaphor into simile; shifting non-metaphor into metaphor. These strategies are relatively general in concept and do not go far in discussion for many aspects of metaphor translation. While Newmark further pointed out that metaphor translation is the epitome of translation of all languages, because it gives translators' various choices: expressing practical meaning, reproducing image, or making appropriate modifications to achieve the perfect combination of meaning and image.(Wang Bo 2016,116).

The metaphor translation emerged in the early period from Four Books and Five Classics and classic poetry.The problem is that metaphor translation is included in the translation of figurative rhetoric.We seldom take the metaphor as a kind of independent system with its own translation methods and strategies and its internal cause analysis. because of the particularity and complexity of Chinese language and characters, it’s hard to trace its translation results.(Wang Bo 2016,115).

2.3 Reflections on Metaphor Translation Studies

The research on metaphor translation in the past 50 years has made remarkable achievements both at home and abroad. Scholars have conducted detailed and in-depth studies on how to translate metaphor from multiple perspectives and disciplines. Through sorting out, we find that there are still some problems in the study of metaphor translation, and some aspects need to be strengthened. The following are some views on the study of metaphor translation:(Wang Bo 2016,116).

The first one is the center or the focus of the research on metaphor translation. The core of metaphor translation research should be "how to translate". In the study stage of rhetoric-oriented metaphor translation, although there are many thesis in China in terms of the strategies and methods of metaphor translation, great efforts have been made on "how to translate" and some significant progress have been made. In foreign countries, metaphors are considered untranslatable by scholars such as Nida and Dagut. So generally speaking, there are few research thesis in this field during this period.(Wang Bo 2016,116).

In the stage of cognition-oriented metaphor translation, foreign researches are relatively pragmatic. Most of them not only provide explanation for metaphor translation, but also put forward specific methods on how to translate metaphor. Making a comprehensive analysis of the research on metaphor translation in the cognition-oriented stage in China, it is not difficult to see that a great deal of space has been devoted to the interpretation of metaphor translation from different perspectives. There are many research thesis on this aspect, but relatively insufficient research thesis on how to translate metaphor.(Wang Bo 2016,116).

The second is the originality of research. Since the 1980s, there has been a linguistic shift from source language to target language center in translation studies. In this context, domestic scholars still can closely grasp the development of translation studies and study metaphor translation from the perspectives of linguistics and culture. Especially since the cognitive view of metaphor has become the mainstream paradigm of metaphor research. However, if we look at the obtained results, there are few achievements coming from self-creation. Thus, domestic research on metaphor translation lacks originality.(Wang Bo 2016,116).

The third is that blind spots exist in the research field. What are the criteria or standards for a good metaphor translation? At present, there is no unified and specific understanding, and few people have been dedicating themselves to this field of research. We can strengthen relevant research. For example, we can try to study the evaluation system of metaphor translation. It is also advisable to strengthen the research on the acceptability of translation metaphor readers and examine the effectiveness of Chinese culture transmission in English-speaking countries. Describing the translation methods adopted by Chinese translators when translating metaphors is also a feasible way. (Wang Bo 2016,116).

Overall, in research on metaphor translation, we see progress as well as shortcomings which are waiting to be coped with along the way we explore a wider space for metaphor translation.(Wang Bo 2016,116).

3. Reasons for Metaphor Translation

Metaphor is not just a simple linguistic phenomenon, but also is concerned with human thinking mode and cultural tradition. In English-Chinese metaphor translation, translators should analyze the reasons of metaphor translation and its hidden cultural information so as to accurately convey the general information of the original language.(Guo Huiqing 2013,122).

3.1 Geographical and Environment Factors

It’s clear that metaphor is closely associated with culture. And culture reflects the local conditions and is the representative of a region. With the extension of time, the local cultural characteristics shaped by geography and environment will become more distinct. It is called regional culture. It’s a symbol of specific ecology, folk customs, habits, and civilization. The regional culture bears the brand of the targeted region with uniqueness and stability for it integrated into the environment and formed something special. At the same time, people in different areas create various cultures. (Guo Huiqing 2013,122).

Regional culture exerts great influence on vocabulary, sentence patterns, as well as the way people use metaphor. Different regional cultures enable different nations to produce various cognitions toward the same thing. One may find it hard to exchange conversations with different groups of people, yet still see it as a beautiful regional feature. Because of their different life experiences, geographical locations, and political environments, English and Chinese nations are bound to boast their own national personalities, adding a strong national color into their languages. (Guo Huiqing 2013,122).

For example, the “east wind” in Chinese literature reminds people of the genial warmth, while “the west wind” goes the opposite way, recalling a taste of bitterness. People across the national boundary tend to make use of “east wind” and “west wind” to imply something else in their literary works yet with different or even totally opposite meanings. And that meaning gap in metaphor translation is caused by different features of geography and environment. Thus, translators should attach great attention to the geography and environment when they do metaphor translation.(Guo Huiqing 2013,123).

Each nation's unique natural environment and regional characteristics make its language contain typical national characteristics. China has been a major agricultural country since ancient times. In the long feudal society, people lived a self-sufficient life that men did farm work and women engage in spinning and weaving.(Guo Huiqing 2013,122).

Therefore, the famous proverbs of our people bear bright agricultural colors, for example: Fishing industry and navigation industry play an important role in boosting British economy. The life style of sailing and fishing has left a deep mark on English language, such as: when the ship comes home(好运来临); Ships that pass in the night(萍水相逢). Here, we use ship to imply opportunity, luck and people, instead of using its literal meaning. Therefore, attention must be paid to the regional differences, and treat metaphor translation in a right way. (Guo Huiqing 2013,122).

3.2 Religious Belief Factors

Westerners have a deeply rooted Christian tradition, while Chinese have long believed in Buddhism and Confucianism, which determines the difference between two languages in terms of metaphorical expression. For example, in Chinese, there are sayings like "Laying down the butcher’s knife to become the Buddha" (放下屠刀，立地成佛) and "Saving a life is better than building a seven-win Buddha"(救人一命胜造七级浮屠). In English, there are sayings such as "Every dog has his day and Every his hour", which reflects the equality doctrine of Christianity.(Guo Huiqing 2013,123).

Religious belief can be regarded as the universal cultural characteristics of all mankind. Religious culture constitutes an important part of the whole national culture, formed by religious consciousness and religious belief of a certain nation. The differences of religious culture reveal itself in respect of worships and taboos and languages are more or less affected by the religious differences.Most of the Westerners believe in Christianity; thus their language is closely linked to this religion. Thus, in English, some idioms are often related to Christianity, while in Chinese, some things connected to Buddhism are often borrowed for figurative rhetoric. (Guo Huiqing 2013,123).

For example, "as patient as Job", "as poor as Lazarus", "as rich as Croesus". The characters as “Job”, “Lazarus”, and “Croesus” in these idioms used as metaphors originate from the Bible. However, some Chinese idioms derive from Buddhism such as "not enough to go round"(粥少僧多). (Guo Huiqing 2013,123).

Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, these three religions prevailed in ancient China, and they still have a profound influence on the Chinese people now, therefore it’s no wonder that one can find many religious words such as “Buddha” and “Bodhisattva” “the Jade Emperor”, “Avalokitesvara”, in daily life. Then they gradually evolve into some typical phrases like “presenting Buddha with borrowed flowers,” “random acts of kindness”, “do not burn incense in spare time, but cram for the moment” and so on. (Guo Huiqing 2013,123).

And a majority of people in many western countries regard the Bible as their behavioral standard because of their belief in Christianity. One can find many English idioms from the Bible, such as “sell one’s birth right for a mess of pottage”, “God helps those who help themselves” and so on. The Bible as a classic work of Christianity has played an immeasurable role in the development of western language. (Guo Huiqing 2013,123).

Through a comparative analysis of Some Chinese idioms and English idioms derived from religions, historical stories, fairy tales or fables, it is not difficult to find that there are many cultures in both Chinese and English that share the same meaning though in different forms. For example, this English sentence “sow the wind and reap the whirlwind” can be expressed as “善有善报，恶有恶报” in Chinese. Both of them stress karmic retribution. (Guo Huiqing 2013,123).

Take the English phrase "to meet one's Waterloo" as an another example, it refers to this historical fact that Napoleon was defeated at The battle of Waterloo. In Chinese, there is a similar allusion, "败走麦城". Different historical allusions are quoted, but the meanings of the two expressions are identical. When using idiomatic expressions to carry out metaphorical meaning, we should pay special attention to the significance of the vehicle in English culture and the basic principle of its image transformation.(Guo Huiqing 2013,123).

In the metaphor translation practice, one should take the religious differences of different ethnic groups into consideration, lifting the mysterious veil of religion. At the same time, one should avoid imposing foreign religious culture and belief on other cultures, which would end up like a big or even absurd joke. Only based on the full understanding of different religious belief, can one successfully complete the metaphor transformation that is agreeable and acceptable to readers.(Xu Aihua 2019,64).

3.3 Cultural Background Factors

From the process of the generation of metaphor, we can know that metaphor is the creation of national psychology based on the similarity of things. This kind of national psychological creation contains rich cultural connotation, and different life customs and cultural background will inevitably lead to the difference of metaphor（Xu Aihua 2019,64）. Metaphors are frequently used to constitute strong emotional expressions within human communication. The sentiment of a metaphor is decided by many factors, including its context, target, cultural background, etc(.Chang Su, Junchao Li, Ying Peng, et al 2019,33).

Therefore, in the process of English-Chinese Metaphor Translation, cultural differences should be considered first. In the process of metaphor translation, one should not only be familiar with the culture of the source language, but also with the culture of the target language, so as to achieve the purpose of communication.（Chang Su, Junchao Li, Ying Peng, et al 2019,33）.

People tend to use idioms and simple words serving as metaphorical expressions to deliver imaginary effect in literary works. There are also cultural differences between Chinese idioms and English idioms that contain figurative rhetoric. The difference of cultural background between Chinese and Western countries determines the difference of metaphor in English and Chinese. For example, the Chinese expression “杀鸡取卵” can be spelled as "To kill the goose that lays golden eggs " in English, while the Chinese word for chicken turns into a goose. The corresponding Chinese idiom “雨后春笋” is turned into "spring up like a mushroom" in English. Translators should take cultural factors into account when doing metaphor translation.（Chang Su, Junchao Li, Ying Peng, et al 2019,33）.

Of course, this kind of difference caused by cultural background doesn’t only appear in idioms, but also in a single word as follows: The word “death” in almost all languages is a taboo. Euphemistic expressions for death in English and Chinese both have its own characteristics, showing cultures of different nations. For example, in China, Buddhism calls it “圆寂”, and Taoism names it “仙逝”. The death of the elderly is called “寿终”, “谢世”; the death of the young is called “夭折”, and the death of the middle-aged is called “早逝”. （Chang Su, Junchao Li, Ying Peng, et al 2019,33）.

Therefore, regarding social status, age, gender of the dead, attitude of the living toward the dead are all presented in the euphemism used. While in English, they replace “death” with “go to west”, “to be taken to paradise”, and “to be asleep in the arms of God”. Because the westerners hold the view that every man must give to God an account of what he has done on earth at the final judgment. （Chang Su, Junchao Li, Ying Peng, et al 2019,33）.

While in English, they describe “death” by using expressions as “go to west”, “to be taken to paradise”, and “to be asleep in the arms of God”. Because the westerners hold the view that every man must give to God an account of what he has done on earth at the final judgment. （Chang Su, Junchao Li, Ying Peng, et al 2019,33）.

Another example is that getting old is the law of nature, but people tend to have different psychological reactions to this word “old” given different cultural backgrounds. In China, the word “old” is a positive word and symbolizes one’s wisdom and rich experience, and one often refer it to the senior who is high above in the company management. (Guo Huiqing 2013,124).

The word “old” gradually becomes some positive idioms like “an old hand is a good hand”. Sometimes, one addresses someone as the old man in order to show respect to the elderly, so the meaning of age is reduced. While in English, “old” appears to be a negative word, which means useless and worthless. So it’s kind of a taboo in English. When translating, translators should replace “old” with “elderly” or “senior”. (Guo Huiqing 2013,124).

Unfamiliar with the cultural back ground, mistakes are usually made in using metaphor or doing metaphor translation. Take “cowboy” as an example. In China, many translators think cowboy literally as someone outstanding, so they interpret it as one running a business as a cowboy. The fact is that the genuine image of the cowboy is someone who is independent, unconstraint and act on its own will in westerner’s mind. The real meaning goes opposite that he runs business with dishonesty and a lack of experience and is sloppy in work. (Guo Huiqing 2013,124).

It’s obvious that in the translation progress, the primary issue to be dealt with is to overcome and solve cultural differences so as to avoid cultural shock. Impossible as it may be to achieve the exact equivalence between the source culture and the target culture, one may realize the equivalence of sense through the means of perspective conversion.(Guo Huiqing 2013,124).

To sum up, errors made in metaphor translation are not only brought by the vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, but by the fact that translators’ sole attention to the equivalence of language forms yet ignoring the underlying cultural meaning. In cross-culture communication, cultural background, thinking patterns, conventional habits and behaviors all have a role to play. Translators must respect the readers’ aesthetic psychology. It is essential for translators to strengthen learning in culture. Through contrast one can find the appropriate metaphor translation skills and strategies to improve the quality of translation so as to the same metaphorical effect to the target reader. (Guo Huiqing 2013,124).

4. Translation Strategies for English-Chinese Metaphor Translation

Throughout the development of human society, due to the geographical and environmental differences and other reasons, a rich civilization system has been formed. But objectively speaking, due to the similarity of human external living environment, there are many similarities in terms of people’s thoughts and cognition. Thus, there are feasible ways to address problems in English-Chinese metaphor translation known as translation strategies.(Xu Aihua 2019,64).

4.1 Literal Translation

Literal translation is the first stage of translation in which we simply transfer words from one language to another. It is also called “word-for-word” translation. Strictly speaking, it strives "to keep the sentiments and style of the original". We usually resort to this kind of translation when we want the reader in the target language to understand the overall meaning of the text in the source language. This is different from the higher levels of translation in which the interpretation of the source text varies from one person to another person as the style, linguistic expressions and undertones differ.(Xu Aihua 2019,64).

Mangy differences exist between languages. As far as English and Chinese are concerned, they also have some commonalities in some aspects which is also the application basis of literal translation. For translation, the most common and simplest method is literal translation. It is not easy for a translator to quickly catch the hidden meaning of metaphor and translate it. It requires a certain cultural accumulation. It is worth emphasizing that literal translation does not mean translating the sentence literally. The translator should keep the rhetorical devices and language structure of the original text and adopt literal translation to make it easier for readers to understand. (Xu Aihua 2019,64).

For example, the English sentence “An eye for An eye and a tooth for a tooth” can be translated into “以眼还眼，以牙还牙” in Chinese. This kind of idiom containing metaphor is straightforward with less complicated metaphorical meaning. Thus, as long as the literal meaning of the source language is delivered and understood, the corresponding target language can be well understood, which is relatively simple for most readers.(Xu Aihua 2019,65).

To sum up, when the translator adopts the strategy of literal translation in metaphor translation, the translator needs to have a deep understanding of Chinese and Western cultural background and find the similarities between them, so as to make readers understandable with metaphorical and vivid effect.(Xu Aihua 2019,65)

4.2 Free Translation

Free translation aims to convey the meaning and spirit of the original without paying much attention to the lexical details. The unequal information is caused by the cultural background, and so on. In this case, free translation can be adopted. In the process of metaphor translation, it is necessary to make appropriate trade-offs when the metaphorical images cannot be fully preserved and cannot be replaced. Therefore, in the process of translation, we should carefully examine the linguistic and cultural characteristics of the source language and the target language. And we should adopt free translation to effectively maintain the information transmission and aesthetic value of metaphor. (Li Chunying 2020,1).

For example, the sentence “Don't show the white feather to the enemy”. In the original text "white feather " implies " weakness and cowards ", but in Chinese "white feather "has no such meaning. If “white feather” is translated as " white feather of some animal ", readers will definitely have no clue of what the whole sentence means. (Li Chunying 2020,1).

Therefore, it is necessary to interpret the meaning and transfer its metaphorical meaning. Take another example, when we integrate literal translation with free translation in metaphor translation, then the English sentence “Like a duck to water” can be translated as “如鱼得水” in Chinese. Here, we’ve managed to achieve the goal of conveying both original meaning and its metaphorical message. (Li Chunying 2020,1).

Besides, in the process of free translation, we should not stick to the form but pay attention to the harmony of the form and structure of language. From the point of view of purpose, free translation mainly conveys the idea of the original text to the reader, and it should realize the flexible processing of the words and texts according to the context. For example, "To face the music" can be translated as" 面对现实" in Chinese. Here, “music” stands for “reality” instead of its literal meaning.(Xu Aihua 2019,65).

Therefore, free translation can fill in the blanks where literal translation doesn’t fit in. When translators do metaphor translation, free translation can help deliver the metaphorical meaning more vividly.(Xu Aihua 2019,65).

4.3 Metonymy Translation

Due to the different yet similar natural and social environments, including climate, geographical environment, cultural tradition and religious belief, many metaphorical vehicles in English and Chinese are almost the same, although they are actually different. Some scholars have pointed out that different nations may have different perspectives toward the same world, which leads to the synonymy music of different forms. In short, the vehicle is different but has common ground. Metaphor not only contains the characteristic connotation of the language itself, but also the words that cannot be expressed in a straightforward manner(Li Chunying 2020,1).

At this time, according to the custom of the target language, the vehicle in the original language can be changed into the vehicle familiar to the target readers. Therefore, we can adopt the strategy of metonymy translation. For example, the Chinese words “傻笑” can be expressed in English as "grin like a Cheshire cat" . This shift is successful because the Cheshire cat is kind of silly but a very lovely cat in England. The Chinese idioms "多此一举" can be expressed in English as “carry coals to Newcastle”, as the “Newcastle” once was a famous British coal port. (Xu Aihua 2019,65).

According to the custom of the target language, the vehicle in the original language can be changed into the vehicle familiar to the target readers. Therefore, we can adopt the strategy of metonymy translation. For example, the Chinese words “傻笑” can be expressed in English as "grin like a Cheshire cat" . This shift is successful because the Cheshire cat is kind of silly but a very lovely cat in England. The Chinese idioms "多此一举" can be expressed in English as “carry coals to Newcastle”, as the “Newcastle” once was a famous British coal port. (Xu Aihua 2019,65).

In summary, using the strategy of metonymy translation is a good solution to problems arose in metaphor translation as it takes advantage of different and familiar vehicles to convey clear information to the target readers.(Li Chunying 2020,1).

5. Metaphor Translation in English Versions of Tribute to White Poplar As An Example

Metaphor is not only a rhetorical device, but also a way of thinking, which can guide people's actions. Lakoff believes that human beings' understanding of the objective world is based on their own experiences, and metaphor belongs to the conceptual system, which is ubiquitous. The last chapter is to make a comparative analysis of metaphor translation in English versions of Tribute to White Poplar as an example from the perspectives of structural metaphor and ontological metaphor.(Li Yanhong 2015, 19).

5.1 Theoretical Framework

In 1980, he and Johnson put forward the concept of conceptual metaphor for the first time in the book Metaphors We Live by, which became an important symbol of the birth of conceptual metaphor. Although conceptual metaphor is ubiquitous, it also depends on the context.(Li Yanhong 2015, 19).

Lakoff divides conceptual metaphors into three categories: orientational metaphor, ontological metaphor and structural metaphor. This classification can be said to cover almost all the conceptual metaphors. Orientational metaphor is the basis and an image schema metaphor, that is, it takes the spatial concept as the original domain and constructs other non-spatial target domains (Lan Chun 1990, 4).

Ontological metaphor refers to describing abstract concepts with the certain physical entities. Structural metaphor refers to the construction of another concept with the structure of one concept, and the words that talk about various aspects of one concept are used to talk about another concept, thus producing the phenomenon of polysemous word. Based on the comprehensive analysis of the reasons affecting metaphor translation and the strategies of metaphor translation by many scholars, we’ll then analyse metaphor translation in different English versions of Tribute to White Poplar as an example from the perspectives of structural metaphor and ontological metaphor.(Li Yanhong 2015, 19).

5.2 Metaphor Translation from the Perspective of Structural Metaphor

Structural metaphors play the most important role because they allow us to go beyond orientation and referring and give us the possibility to structure one concept according to another. Here are some examples.(Li Yanhong 2015, 19).

E.g.1

SL text:白杨树实在是不平凡的，我赞美白杨树。(Tribute to White Poplar 1941).

TL text 1: The white poplar is no ordinary tree. Let me sing its praises.(Zhang Peiji 2007)

TL text 2: The white poplar tree is by no means a common tree. I praise it!(Zhang Mengjing, Du Yaowen 1999)

E.g.2

SL text:让那些看不起民众 、贱视民众 、顽固的倒退的人们去赞美那贵族化的楠木(那也是直挺秀颀的)，去鄙视这极常见、 极易生长的白杨树罢，我要高声赞美白杨树!(Tribute to White Poplar 1941).

TL text 1: The reactionary diehards, who despise and snub the common people, can do whatever they like to eulogize the elite nanmu (which is also tall, straight and good-looking) and look down upon the common, fast-growing white poplar. I, for my part, will be loud in my praise of the latter!(Zhang Peiji 2007)

TL text 2: Let those who look down upon the masses, disrelish them and are stubborn to retrograde the duke nanmu, which is also a straight and graceful tree. They may go on despising this white poplar tree, which is frequently seen and grows so very easily. But as for me, I’ll continue to praise the white poplar tree!(Zhang Mengjing, Du Yaowen 1999)

A core idea of these sentences is that “树是人”. People's cognition and understanding of trees originates from people. When people talk about trees, they will think of a series of words to describe people, such as “不平凡”、“婆娑”、“好女子”、“赞美”、“贵族化”、“鄙视” in the text. This refers to the "cross-domain mapping" of conceptual metaphors, which draws an analogy between the concepts of "tree" and "people". In the first source text, to translate “平凡 ”, Zhang Peiji uses "ordinary", while Zhang Mengjing and Du Yaowen use "common". (Li Yanhong 2015, 19).

Although they choose different words, they are both used to describe people. Both sides adopt literal translation to restore the metaphor in the original text and translate the metaphor into the same metaphor. In the second example, although the words used by both sides were different, Zhang Peiji's "Eulogize", "elite", "look Down Upon", as well as Zhang Mengjing and Du Yaowen's "Praise", "Duke" and "despising" were all used to describe people. Therefore, they both restored the meaning of the original text and retained the images in the original.(Li Yanhong 2015, 19).

5.3 Metaphor Translation from the Perspective of Ontological Metaphor

Ontological metaphor, also called entity metaphor, also plays an important role.(Li Yanhong 2015, 19).

E.g.3

SL text:当汽车在望不到边际的高原上奔驰，扑入你的视野的，是黄绿错综的一条大毡子。(Tribute to White Poplar 1941).

TL text 1: When you travel by car through Northwest China’s boundless plateau, all you see before you is something like a huge yellow-and-green felt blanket.(Zhang Peiji 2007)

TL text 2: When your car is speeding along a boundless highway, what meets your eyes is a huge blanket of yellows and greens mingled together.(Zhang Mengjing, Du Yaowen 1999)

When the car is driving on the plateau, the people in the car see the scene. When Zhang Peiji translated this sentence, he added the element of "something like" to adapt to the English context and changed the metaphor into simile, which not only retained the image and meaning of the original, but also made the translation more convenient. Zhang Mengjing and Du Yaowen , on the other hand, adopted literal translation and retained the metaphorical structure in the original.(Li Yanhong 2015, 19).

E.g.4

SL text:然而同时你的眼睛也许有点倦怠, 你对当前的 “ 雄壮 ” 或 “ 伟大 ” 闭了眼，而另一种味儿在你心头潜滋 暗长了———“单调”！可不是？单调，有一点儿吧？(Tribute to White Poplar 1941).

TL text 1: Meanwhile, however, your eyes may become weary of watching the same panorama, so much so that you are oblivious of its being spectacular or grand. And you may feel monotony coming on. Yes, it is somewhat monotonous, isn’t it?(Zhang Peiji 2007).

TL text 2: However, at the same time, your eyes may feel somewhat tired and close before the “magnificent” and the “great” that lie in front of you. And another sensation rises in your heart monotonous! Isn’t it monotonous, maybe a bit?(Zhang Mengjing, Du Yaowen 1999).

The metaphor used in this sentence materializes the words “雄伟”、“壮大”、“单调”, and gives them characteristics that you can close your eyes to when you are tired; They can also grow in your mind and make for interesting reading. In Zhang Peiji's translation, we can see that the translation does not use metaphor, but translate directly according to people's normal thinking, and adopt the strategy of "translating metaphor into non-metaphor".(Li Yanhong 2015, 19).

Zhang Mengjing and Du Yaowen retain the organic structure of the metaphor in the original text, personify the two words “伟大”、“雄壮”, and retain the "container metaphor" in the ontological metaphor in the second half of the sentence, which not only retains the thinking and cognitive characteristics of the original text, but also conveys the effect of semantic rhetoric.(Li Yanhong 2015, 19).

6. Conclusion

To sum up, metaphor translation is not merely a transformation of one language to another. It’s a complexity involving multiple factors. The purpose of metaphor translation is to re-express the original information, faithful to its style, geographical and environmental condition, cultural environment, religious belief and so on. Still, people shouldn’t impose thoughts on the translators and deny their role in language transformation only in pursuit for the full fidelity to the original text, for there is no exactly identical thing in the world. (Wang Bo 2016,117).

As language is the shell of ideas, shaped by cultural background in particular, applying the method of metaphor translation helps better convey the information carried by the source language. Conversion Strategies like literal translation, free translation and metonymy translation are applicable. And the analysis of metaphor translation in different English versions of Tribute to White Poplar as an example from the perspectives of structural metaphor and ontological metaphor will give readers an understanding of metaphor translation. (Wang Bo 2016,117).

At long last, the author of this thesis hopes the above discussion gives readers a better understanding of the role of metaphor in cross-cultural translation and gives translators an insight into future translation practice. However, for the author has little talent and learning, the argument may be superficial. The author will keep learning from predecessors and peers.(Wang Bo 2016,117).

7. References

• Chen Yulian, Zhang Yingxian. Cognitive-Pragmatic Strategies for English Translation of Colloquial Metaphors in Political Discourse.[J]. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and Translation. 2020, 6(3)-12.

• Chang Su, Junchao Li, Ying Peng, et al. Chinese metaphor sentiment computing via considering culture.[J]. Science Direct. 2019, 352:33-41.

• Li Chunying. Translation of Metaphor from the Perspective of Cognitive Linguistics.[J]. Education, Society and Human Studies. 2020, 1(1)-11.

• ZHANG Jie. Metaphor Translation from the Perspective of Conceptual Metaphor Theory: Based on the Analysis of Imagery“Hong Sushou”in Song Ci. [J]. Studies in Literature and Language. 2020, 21(1):84-87.

• Guo Huiqing. 郭卉青.(2013). 浅议影响隐喻翻译的主要因素.[A Brief Discussion on the Main Factors Affecting Metaphor Translation].[J]. 晋中学院学报[Journal of Jinzhong College], 30(05):122-124.

• Hu Zhuanglin. 胡壮麟.(2004). 认知隐喻学.[Cognitive Metaphor].[M]. 北京大学出版社[Peking University Press].

• Li Yanhong. 李艳红.(2015).概念隐喻视角下《白杨礼赞》两个英译本比较研究.[A Comparative Study of Two English Translations of Tribute to White Poplar from the Perspective of Conceptual Metaphor].[J].考试周刊[The Exam Week],(65):19-20.

• Lan Chun. 蓝纯.(1999).从认知角度看汉语的空间隐喻.[Spatial Metaphor in Chinese from a cognitive perspective][J].外语教学与研究[Foreign Language Teaching and Research],(04) :5-10.

• Shu Dingfang. 束定芳. (2000). 隐喻学研究.[Studies in Metaphor].[M]. 上海外语教育出版社[Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press].

• Wang Bo. 王勃. (2016). 概念语法隐喻视角下的英汉翻译探讨.[A Study on English-Chinese Translation from the Perspective of Conceptual Grammatical Metaphor].[J]. 黑龙江教育学院学报[Journal of Heilongjiang Institute of Education],35(07):115-117.

• Xu Aihua. 徐爱华. (2019). 中西方差异视角下英汉隐喻翻译策略研究.[A Study on Metaphor Translation Strategies in English and Chinese from the Perspective of Chinese and Western differences].[J]. 海外英语[Overseas English],(20):64-65.

• Zhang Mengjing,Du Yaowen. 张梦井,杜耀文.(1999).中国名家散文精译.[Chinese Famous Prose Translation][M].青岛出版社[Qingdao Press].

• Zhang Peiji. 张培基.(2007). 英译中国现代散文选.[A Selection of Chinese Modern Prose][M]. 上海外语教育出版社[Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press].--You Yuting (talk) 13:31, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

A Comparative Study of Liang Shiqiu’s and Lu Xun’s Translation Views 王源 Wang Yuan

Abstract

Both Liang Shiqiu and Lu Xun were productive writers and translators. They held different translation views. Lu Xun has adopted literal translation and hard translation in different periods, claiming that “tranlsation should rather be faithful than smooth”. His translation views were highly consistent with his political views, which were to change people’s conservative and old thinking patterns.

Liang Shiqiu took readers as the priority and emphasized the unity of faithfulness and smoothness, which meant a text should be both faithful and readable. Having been influenced by Confucianism and Babbitt’s new humanism, Liang put “humanity” as the highest standard of translation. The paper aims to give a comparative study of Liang Shiqiu’s and Lu Xun’s translation views.

keywords

mean translation view; new humanism; hard translation; Lu Xun; Liang Shiqiu

摘要

鲁迅和梁实秋是中国著名文学家、翻译家和思想家。他们两个有着不同的翻译观。鲁迅在不同的时期分别采用直译和硬译的方法进行文本翻译，主张“宁信而不顺”的翻译原则。他的翻译观和政治观是高度一致的，即改变国民保守而陈旧的思维模式。梁实秋以读者为第一要义，强调“信”“顺”统一，即译文既要忠实于原文，又要通顺可读。在儒家思想和白璧德新人文主义思想的影响下，梁实秋成为一名坚定的人性论者，同时也形成了他独特的“中庸翻译观”。本文将对梁实秋和鲁迅的翻译观进行对比研究。

关键词

中庸、新人文主义、鲁迅、梁实秋

1.1.1 Confucianism

Liang Shiqiu was born in a scholarly family. Influenced by his father, Liang Shiqiu was fond of reading classics, and among them, he has read many Confucian works. Confucianism is the mainstream of Chinese tradition. It is the first source which has influenced the formation of Liang Shiqiu's translation views. The basic spirit of Confucianism is “mean”, which is regarded as the doctrine of all the confucianists. The Chinese characters of the “mean” is “中庸”. The first character means “appropriateness” or “moderation”, while the second one “庸” means “use” or “application”. Therefore, the combination of “中” and “庸” is the unity of cognition and practice. (Yan Xiaojiang,2009:29)

The doctrine of “mean” has existed in different aspects, such as in education, ethics, politics and aesthetics. For example, Confucius said “To learn without thinking is confusing, to think without learning is dangerous”, which is to emphasize the balance of learning and thinking. “Pleasure but not lust, sorrow but not injury” also tells us the danger of being extreme.Besides,humanism was the tradition of Confucianism. It has always been concerned with the social reality and life, reflecting the idea of "putting people first". Confucius' basic concepts such as "benevolence," "ritual," and "filial piety" have had a profound impact on Chinese culture, not only laying the foundation of humanism for Chinese philosophy, but can be said to be the foundation of humanism for all times and all peoples.Confucianism has been deeply rooted in Liang’s mind when he was young,and had a lasting influence to the the formation of Liang Shiqiu's translation views.(Yan Xiaojiang,2008:30)

1.1.2 Babbitt's new humanism

Confucianism was deeply rooted in Liang Shiqiu's heart since he was young, which formed the axis of his whole philosophy of life. His experience of studying in the United States made him accept Babbitt's new humanism thought, because to a large extent, the new humanism thought is similar to the traditional Confucian culture. In an interview with Ms. Qiu Yanming in his later years, Liang Shiqiu said: "Professor Babbitt of Harvard University made me change from romanticism to serious classicism, partly because of his excellent knowledge, and partly because he was proficient in Sanskrit and Confucian classics, and formed new humanism by integrating Chinese and Western thoughts. Babbitt's new humanism can be traced back to Aristotle. There are four basic points in his thought: The first is the dualism of human nature, which regards man as the combination of good and evil. Second, the doctrine of the mean is regarded as the highest moral philosophy in life. The third is to regard abstinence as the way to the perfection of human nature. The fourth is to regard a few sages as a positive force to guide people upward. Babbitt's new humanism had a profound influence on Liang Shiqiu's philosophy of life, which further influenced his translation views. (Yan Xiaojiang,2009:30)

1.1.3 Liang Shiqiu's literary thought

Liang Shiqiu's literary thought can be conculded into four points. Fisrt,imitation and discipline. Liang Shiqiu believed that the essence of literature is the imitation of human nature, but it was not mechanica nor a subjective description, but a measured way to reflect the characteristics of life, showing the original appearance of good and evil. In addition, people should keep a serious attitude hold a spirit of moderation toward literature. Second,Liang Shiqiu was deeply influenced by Chinese and Western culture and lived in a family environment with exquisite etiquette. Therefore, his inner spiritual temperament showed obvious aristocratic consciousness. He made a distinction between the literati and the populace, and thought that the litterateur was a genius and a leader. He could show the people's anger and suffer towards the present situation in an artistic way.Third,Liang Shiqiu thought that the function of literature is to perfect human nature with the ethical value of literature, which is consistent with the Confucian tradition and Babbitt's humanism. Fourth,Liang Shiqiu believed that literary criticism was a kind of value judgment, and the standard of judgment was fixed, universal and permanent human nature.Like Confucianism and Babbit's new humanism, Liang's literary thought also greatly influended the information of his translation views.(Yan Xiaojiang,2009:39-44)

1.2.1 The first period (1903-1906)

After the defeat of the Opium War, people began to introduce and learn the advanced ideas and technologies of the West in order to find a way to save their lives. Inspired by the slogan “ Traditional Chinese values aided with modern management and technology”, Westernization Group have translated a large number of works, mainly on military and scientific works. After that, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao initiated the Reform Movement of 1898, attempting to save China by changing state institution. The focus of translation also shifted from technology to politics, laws and academic research. (Wang Yanling, 2009, 39)

During the period of the Sino-Japanese War, two great translators appeared in China, Yan Fu and Lin Shu. Yan Fu was mainly engaged in the translation and interpretation of social science theories. At the same time, Lin Shu began to translate foreign novels. He mainly translated Italian into Chinese, with many abridgements and changes to the original texts. At this time, Lu Xun went to Japan to study, and soon published his maiden translation De la Terre à la Lune. (Wang Yanling, 2009, 39)

Lu Xun’s early translations were deeply influenced by Lin Shu and Yan Fu. When he was studying in Tokyo, he would look for and read every translation work from Lin Shu. Lin Shu did not know English at all, and his translations were done by listening to the dictations of other people, understanding them and then translated them through his own profound Chinese skills. Therefore, domestication was his major translation technique. Having read dozens of Lin Shu’s translations, Lu Xun also applied domestication into his own translation. What’s more, in some translations, he would made some additions and deletions. (Wang Yixing, 2017, 38)

1.2.2 The second period (1907-1927)

With the deepening of the national crisis, Lu Xun gradually realized that the numbness and ignorance of the people was the root of the backwardness and weakness of our country. The national crisis in the modern history of China has made Chinese people face a dilemma: to maintain their own culture, or to learn from the strengths of the West? Lu Xun believed that we had to absorb fresh and new ideas from other countries. (Wang Yanling, 2009, 39)

In 1909，Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren translated “A collection of foreign novels”. The work adopted a new translation method, which not only have maintained the contents and style of the original, but also has done no changes of the chapter and format. In 1918, he wrote to his friend Zhang Shoupeng: “ I think Chinese should accept foreign languages in later translations.” Therefore, we can see Lu Xun adopted literal translation, attempting to accept and absorb foreign languages to develop and enrich Chinese, and to resurrect China. (Wang Yanling, 2009, 39)

From the perspective of culture, the New Culture Movement, which advocated democracy, science and vernacular Chinese, was prosperous at that time. As one of the leaders of the movement, Lu Xun realized the importance of introducing advanced culture and abandoned the dross of traditional Chinese culture. The reason why Lu Xun chose literal translation was that he wanted to popularize vernacular Chinese and push the development of Chinese. (Wang Yanling, 2009, 39)

1.2.3 The third period (1928-1937)

In this period, with the deepening of national crisis and the spread of Marxism, it was urgent to establish Chinese proletariat class, Lu Xun’s translation strategy was developing accordingly. After revolution, a general “political anxiety” emerged among people. This kind of anxiety should be released according to some channels, and translating advanced foreign works could erase the anxiety to some extent. (Wang Yanling. 2009, 39)

In his later translation activities, he not only advocated literal translation, but also “hard translation”. By using “hard translation”, he tried to introduce new expressions and syntax to change Chinese people’s conservative and corrupt thoughts. In fact, the adoption of this extreme translation strategy was not for literary purpose, but mainly political purpose.

2.1.1 Be a translator caring both readers and original works

Liang Shiqiu advocated that translation activities should prioritize the need of readers, believing that the purpose of translation was to faithfully express the meaning of a work in another language for those who do not understand the original language. The translator's duty was to make the translation as smooth as possible without losing the original meaning. Therefore, the translation must be faithful and smooth, conform to Chinese norms and must not be translated into Europeanized text. In the course of his debate with Lu Xun, he proposed the unified translation concept of “faithfulness” and “smoothness”. He did not agree with Lun Xun’s idea that “tranlation is better to be faithful than be smooth” or Zhao Jingshen’s idea that “translation is better to be smooth than be faithful”. He believed that bad translations could be reflected in the following aspects. First, it does not accord with the meaning of the original text. Secondly, it fails to convey the strong tone of the original text. Third, it is unintelligible. If one of these three points is satisfied, it is a bad translation; if all three points are satisfied, it is the worst translation. (Liang Shiqiu,1933)

Liang Shiqiu took the reader as the priority and emphasized the unity of faithfulness and smoothness. He concluded the relationship between “faithfulness” and “smoothness”, “People often say that the best translation is one which does not be read like a translation. However, it is only true when the translation is faithful to the original text and also the language of the translation is smooth. If one only knows the general meaning of the text, and then translate it in his native language fluently, it can only be considered as free translation, which is acceptable to be used in some normal articles. However, a large part of the value of a literary work lies in the subtlety of its use of words, so the translator must also be careful with the words.” (Liu Tianhua,1900:22)

Liu Bingshan once commented on Liang Shiqiu's translation: "Liang's translation is not based on the beauty of the language, but on the purpose of preserving the truth, sticking closely to the original work, not easily changing the original text, not avoiding all kinds of difficulties, and doing his best to convey the original meaning of Shakespeare. His translations are meticulous, euphemistic and clear, and can maintain the original characteristics of Shakespeare's plays. (Liu Bingshan,1992)

Liang disagreed with Lu Xun’s advocation of “hard trasnaltion”, and regarded it as word-by-word translation. He criticized Lu Xun's claim that the original shortcomings of the Chinese text was the reason for the difficulty of his translation. “Chinese and foreign languages are different, and there are grammars that can not be found in Chinese, so this is where the difficulty of translation lies. If the grammar, syntax and lexis of both languages were exactly the same, would translation still be a job? (Liang Shiqiu,2002)

2.1.2 Be a translator advocating liberalism literature

Liang Shiqiu was one of the representatives of Chinese liberalism literature theory in 20th century. He claimed that literature was derived from humanism, based on humanism and ended in humanism. He was a determined humanist, denying the class nature of literature and opposing the use of literature as enlightenment and political tool. Liang said: “Universal humanity is the basis of all great works .... Pure humanity is the only criterion of literary criticism.” In his mind, literature was literature, and the core of literature was to describe humanity. Liang Shiqiu's literary thought was reflected in the selection of works to be translated, which should be classical works and should reflect "permanent humanity". In his article "On Mr. Lu Xun's "Hard Translation," Liang Shiqiu pointed out that the primary purpose of translation was to introduce first-rate literary works to the nation: "I believe that works of scholarly and permanent value should be given priority in translation." Liang Shiqiu advocated "reading first-class books and translating first-class books" and opposed translating foreign works without discrimination. His translation works, such as the complete edition of Shakespeare’s plays, The Wuthering Heights, and Silas Marner, all have met his translation principles.

2.1.3 Be a scholarly translator

Liang Shiqiu taught at several universities and was a rigorous scholar. His strict attitude was reflected in his translation attitude. He pointed out: “ If a translator cannot completely understand what he is going to translate, then he is not a responsible translator. When encountering quotations from the classics, we should take trouble to look them up and annotate them so that the readers can understand.” (Liang Shiqiu,1967) This showed that translation was not only a simple act but also a rigorous academic work for Liang Shiqiu. His translation attitude reflected on his translating process of the complete edition of Shakespeare’s plays.

In the process of translating Shakespeare’s plays, Liang realized that translation works sometimes should do some research at the same time. “ Translation should properly combine with research, and without researching, one may not know how to translate precisely.” (Liang Shiqiu,1967) Therefore, he managed to collect different editions of Shakespeare, as well as various sources related to him. Day by day, his collection was more complete than any universities in China. In the end he chose the Oxford edition of the complete works of Shakespeare. Regarding the obscene words and jokes in this version of Shakespeare's play, Liang Shiqiu believed that the gags in the play originally had their own significance in the context of the times. Even though obscene words were involved, they were harmless and could sometimes be considered to have a psychological health implication. In addition to translating the contents of the works, Liang Shiqiu also conducted a large number of studies. In each part of The Complete Works of Shakespeare, there was a preface detailing the history of the edition, the dating of the writings, the sources of the stories, the history of the stage, and the study of the text. The contents of the works or linguistic techniques such as puns and colloquialisms were extensively annotated, a method that some experts called "scholarly translation". Research showed that Liang Shiqiu was "the first expert scholar to introduce the British and American Western traditions of Shakespearean studies, opening the way for the study of Oriental Shakespeare in Taiwan, China." (Chen Shufen,2002)

2.2 Lu Xun's translation views

Lu Xun once wrote to Qu Qiubai, “Translation should rather be faithful than smooth". The importation of new contents and new forms of expressions advocated by Lu Xun were precisely what made his translations innovative. He advocated that the reader "must take the trouble to chew", rather "a few bites and then swallowed". This process of chewing was precisely the process of understanding and absorption by the readers. Lu Xun’s statement “rather be faither than smooth” indicated his advocation of literal translation. Literal translation required translators to express the original text faithfully, and remained the language characteristics at the same time. For example, for the names of characters and places in foreign literary works, many translators have been accustomed to make them easy to read for Chinese readers, but Lu Xun thought it was unnecessary to do so, believing the exoticism and national color of the original work should be preserved. His early translation version of De la Terre à la Lune contained a large number of names of people and places, all of which were adopted transliteration. In the process of translation, with the introducing of new contents and new expression, we can have a better understanding of the cultural characteristics and social condition hidden in the text.

In Lu Xun’s translations, he tried hard to reappear the language characteristics of the original text, unique cultures and ethos of the society, all to make sure the “foreignness” of the translations. It not only preserved the characteristics of the original text, but also respectd the author and facilitated the readers access to foreign cultures, thus expanding their horizons and enriching their knowledge. In fact, Lu Xun's "hard translation" is only an alternative to "direct translation," and the word "hard" in Lu Xun's "hard translation" is only for certain syntactic lexicons. The "hard translation" advocated by Lu Xun was only intended to be more faithful to the original text. Lu Xun always insisted on translating with an analytical and differentiated attitude, and he advocated different styles of translation according to the contents of the translated work (general or theoretical book) and the status of the reader (general reader or expert). (Chen Fukang,2000:295)

Lu Xun had once mentioned in his translation work, “From the translation, Lunakarsky's thesis is clear enough. However, due to incapability of the translator and the original shortcomings of Chinese, there are many obscure points after the translation. If the short sentences in the long sentences are dismantled, the concise and sharp tone of the original is lost. Therefore, there is nothing I can do but to do hard translation.” (Chen Fukang,2000:291)

In response to Liang Shiqiu's criticism of his "hard translation" view of translation, Lu Xun explained his views on "hard translation" from an academic perspective, mainly with the following meanings. First, there was a difference between "hard translation" and "word-by-word translation", and it was not a deliberate "distorted translation". Second, The "hard translation" (mainly referring to the translation of scientific literary theories and other revolutionary theoretical works) had its own target audience. Third, "My translations, which are not intended to be enjoyable but uncomfortable. People who are opposed to my ideas often feel "bored, disgusted, and resentful"; and those "critics" who know little about theories should not be greedy for pleasure but try to study these theories. " Fourth, The "hard translation" was not only for the sake of not losing the original concise and sharp tone, but also for gradually adding new syntax, which will be assimilated into your own after a period of time. Fifth, “there will always be better translators in this world, who can translate without distorted, hard or word-by-word translation. At that time, my translation will be eliminated, and I am just here to fill the space from ‘nothing’ to ‘better’.” (Cheng Kangfu,2000:292-293)

3.1 Liang Shiqiu's transaltions

Liang Shiqiu's translation of Shakespeare's works was based on the strategy of foreignization, which mainly contained two levels of connotation: the first refers to the linguistic form, and the second refers to the cultural content. On the level of linguistic form, Liang Shiqiu focused on introducing new expressions and strived to expand and enrich certain norms in the target language culture. On the level of cultural content, Liang mainly introduced the original text without any deletion, allowing readers to appreciate the original and exotic culture as much as possible. (Yan Xiaojiang,2009)

Liang Shiqiu's translation of Shakespeare's works took its artistry, and the strategy of foreignization helpd to allow readers to confront the differences of foreign cultures and thus expanded their horizons. On the form of names, Liang Shiqiu did not advocate shortening the translation of names in Shakespeare's works to the Chinese style. He said humorously, "Foreigners often have such long, wordy and eccentric names, so why should we bother to give them names and surnames?" In the process of translation, he usually adopted transliteration. For example, he translated “Julius Caesar” into “朱利阿斯西撒”，but not “凯撒大帝”. Likewise, he did not translate Antony and Cleopatra into a title which is charming like movie title, but chose transliterating into “安东尼与克利奥佩特拉”.(Yan Xiaojiang,2009)

Another two examples can show Liang Shiqiu’s loyalty faithfulness to original text.

Example 1

梁实秋译文： 卡 先生，适才发生了这样不幸的事故，我们没有时间劝导我们的女儿：您知道，她对她的表兄提拔特是甚微友爱的，我也是很喜欢那孩子：唉，我们有生即有死。现在很晚了，她今晚不会下楼了：说实话，若非您在这里，我一个小时前就早已经上床了。 巴 在这悲伤的时候也不便求婚。夫人，晚安：请代我向小姐致意。

朱生豪译： 凯欧莱特夫人 伯爵，舍间因为遭逢变故，我们还没有时间去开导小女；您知道她和她那个表兄提博尔特是友爱很笃的，我也非常喜欢他；唉！人生不免一死，也不必再去说他了。现在时间已经很晚，他今夜不会再下来了；不瞒您说，倘不是您大驾光临，我也早在一个小时以前上床啦。 帕里斯 我在你们正在伤心的时候来此求婚，实在是太冒昧了。晚安，伯母；请您替我向令媛致意。

This is a conversation between Madame Capulet, Juliet's mother, and Paris, a young nobleman. Since both speakers are persons of status, both Liang Shiqiu's and Zhu Shenghao's translation use formal style. Zhu Shenghao, following the Chinese tradition of "demeaning oneself and respecting others," uses the terms "伯爵"， "小女" ，"伯母"，"令媛” ， with a flavor of the old Chinese literati. Liang Shiqiu uses the terms "先生" ，"女儿"，"夫人" ，"小姐"，which can be used both in the west and east, with polite and respectful overtones, showing that there is a certain distance in the relationship between people.

Example 2

PORTIA If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father’s will. I am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable, for there is no one among them but I dote on his very absence, and I prey God grant them a fair departure.

梁实秋译： 波 如果我活到西逼拉那样老，我也愿意贞洁如戴安娜而死，除非是按照我父亲遗嘱的方法出嫁。我很高兴这群求婚的人如此知趣，因为这些人当中没有一个不是我深愿他快快离开的，我求上帝准他们平安归去吧。

朱生豪译： 鲍西娅 要是没有人按照我父亲的遗命把我娶去，即使我活到一千岁，也只好终身不字。我很高兴这一群求婚者都是这么懂事，因为他们中间没有一个人不是我唯望其速去的；求上帝赐给他们一帆风顺吧！

This scene is the response of Portia, a rich girl, to Nerissa, a maidservant. In this case, Zhu Shenghao translated “Sibylla” into “living to one thousand years”, which may be easier to be accepted by readers yet the domestication strategy has erased the exotism of original language. Liang Shiqiu translated “Sibylla” literally and added some notes to explain the allusion, which has efficiently expressed the “foreignness” and also helped Chinese readers to learn the allusion. “Diana” is the god of the moon, which has the implication of “chastity”. Zhu Shenghao translated it into “终身不字”，meaning “never get married the whole life, the semantic meaning of which is close to “as chaste as Diana”,yet the important information “chastity” has not been translated, while Liang Shiqiu’s transliteration did not miss the information.

3.2 Lu Xun's translations

Lu Xun's translations can be roughly divided into three stages. The first stage is Lu Xun's early translations, which were mainly adaptation and compilation. In the second stage, literal translations were used. He said in his article ：“ All translations must take into account both sides. On the one hand, it must be easy for readers to read, and on the other hand, it must be faithful to the original work and preserve the foreigness. The third stage is to adopt hard translation. He believed that Chinese was an imprecise language with inherent flaws. And in order to make the translation not lose its precision, new expressions and syntax should be introduced. Lu Xun tried to improve the imprecision of the Chinese language through hard translations, so as to change the national thinking habits and transform the national character. Next, this paper will give two examples to reflect Lu Xun's ideas of literal translation and hard translation.

Example 1

Er ging durch die gute Stube，wo alles sauber und ordentlich dastand wie immer-die hohen Lehnstühle unter ihren weiben uberzügen wie Leichen in ihren Totenhemden． An dem einen Fenster hing ein Drahtkafig － aber leer， mit weit geoffneter Türe． er gleich nach

“Nastaszia! ”schrie Pater Ignatius， und grob hallte seine Stimme durch die stillen Ｒaume，die verlegen schienen，da er gleich nach der Tochter Beerdigung so schreien konnte．

“Nastaszia，”rief er leiser，“wo ist der Kanarienvogel?”

Die Kochin，so verweint dab ihr die Nase rot wie eine Ｒübe im Gesichte glnzte，erwiderte grob: “Wo soll er sein? -weggeflogen ist er．”

“Weshalb habt ihr ihn hinausgelassen?” Pater Ignatius zog die Brauen drohend zusammen． Nastaszia brach in Tranen aus，und die Augen mit den Zipfeln ihres Kopftuches wischend，stammelte sie:

“Frauleinchens Seele hat ．．． ihn ．．． gerufen ．．．，wie durften ．．． wir ．．． ihn denn ．．． halten?”

鲁迅译： 伊革那支入客室，见全室整洁，弗殊 平时，几衣纯白，卓立如死人临敛。呼其 婢曰，“那思泰娑，”则自觉声在虚室中， 至复犷厉。窗外悬鸟笼，阑槛已启，其中 虚矣。因 复 微 呼 曰: “那 思 泰 娑，鸟 安 在?”婢 哀 毁，鼻 已 如 芦 萉，嗫 嚅 对 曰， “自……自然去矣! ”伊革那支蹙额曰， “胡为纵之?”婢复泣失声，掣韨角拭其 目，咽泪曰，“此性命，……此女士性命， ……何可留耶! ”

Although the translation adopted Classical Chinese, yet readers have a basic knowledge of Classical Chinese can feel the fluency and elegance of the translation. Lu Xun abandoned the practice of arbitrary additions or deletions and rewrites in the translation field at that time, and faithfully preserved the spirit of the original work. However, this kind of “faithfulness” is neither word-to-word translation, nor stiffly borrow syntax structure of the original text. For example, he combined seven paragraphs into one. Putting a single sentence as a paragraph is normal in modern Chinese While it is quite wired in Classical Chinese. Therefore, Lun Xun adopting domestication was to cater to the reading habits of Chinese readers. Besides, Lu Xun also made adjustment in some detailed descriptions. For example, the original meaning of "erwiderte Grob" in German, "replied rudely", but it was translated into “嗫嚅”, meaning “ replied haltingly”. The chef’s attitude changed from impatience into hesitation and fear. Lu Xun probably had fully considered the culture of target language and the receptive ability of readers. Lu Xun’s translation strategies were flexible and was totally different from “hard translation” claimed in his later translation period. (Xie Haiyan, 2020, 52) In another example, Lu Xun’s “hard translation” had fully in practice.

Example 2 Maksimowa，hier fragt jemand nach Ihrem Zimmer，” erklarte der Angekommene，ein langer hagerer Student． Er ging als erster durch den Korridor，in dem die Luft sauer und dampferfüllt war， wie in dem schmutzigen Vorraum einer Badeanstalt． Er horte nicht weiter auf das， was die Greisin sprach，schob sich durch den Korridor，an Koffern und Vorhangen， hinter denen sich irgend etwas rührte，vorbei und verschwand in seinem Zimmer． Erst als er seine Sachen abgelegt hatte und in roter Bauernbluse mit offenem Kragen ohne Gürtel dastand，fiel ihm der neue Mieter wieder ein und er fragte die Alte， die ihm einen siedenden Samowar brachte…

“玛克希摩跋( Maksimova), 这里有人问你的房子呢。”上来的人告诉说，是 一个瘦而且长的大学生。他先向那空气 又酸又湿，仿佛浴场的腌臜的前房一般的 廊下的那边走。他也不再听老女人说什 么，一径走过了堆着行李和挂着帐幔，那 后面有什么正在蠢动的廊下，躲进他自己 的屋子里去了。他放下物件，穿着畅开领 口没有带子的红色的农家衣的时候，才又 想到新来的客人，便问那老女人，恰恰捧 着煮沸的撒摩跋尔进来的……

Both texts are detailed descriptions of dwelling environments, characters and language, but here the translation is stiff, full of Europeanized syntax, and in some places even obscure. The original (German) language is similar to English in that several adjectives can be placed before nouns and a long sentence can contain several finite clauses. These syntactic features are very different from the Chinese syntax, so in the process of translating into Chinese, the translator has to disassemble the text and replace them with multiple phrase structures or phrases. The juxtaposed adjectives should also be either combined or split into phrases as needed. Lu Xun’s translation strictly obeyed the syntax structure of German yet was too “faithful” to read. Besides, Lu Xun also kept heterogeneous information on purpose. For example, the word “Samowar” is a kind of metal teapot in Russia, which has no counterpart in Chinese. A translator can adopt domestication, using a word that Chinese readers are more familiar with, or use the word “teapot”. However, Lu Xun transliterated it into “撒摩跋尔” so that readers may find it hard to know the meaning of it. (Xie Haiyan, 2020, 56) It can be seen that if the collection of foreign stories adopted literal translation, the labourer Suihuilov should be a hard translation. Excerpt above is clear and easy to understand, even if a mediocre translator can also easily and smoothly translate this paragraph of text, while Lu Xun's translation is quite rigid and stiff. This translation has showed Lu Xun’s typical translation -- hard translation, which has fully reflected his determination to reform Chinese and to change the thinking pattern of Chinese people. (Xie Hai, 2020, 57)

4.1 Liang Shiqiu

First, cultural conservatism should be opposed, while the principles of openness and absorption should be promoted. Taking the value system of Babbitt’s new humanism and the spirit of classicism as references, Liang advocated freedom and independence of thoughts, hoping to import new ideas, new literature and new culture through translation activities. This open vision helped the local people to learn from and absorb the heterogeneous culture. Translation is the bond of cultural communication. Translators should not only consider nationality, but also treat the other with tolerance and openness. Human culture is exactly developing in the process of understanding and communicating. (Yan Xiaojiang,2008:285)

Second, cultural radicalism should be opposed, while the principles of filtration and creativity should be promoted. Liang Shiqiu protected traditional culture with reason, and emphasized historical continuity of culture and the values of tradition. Liang tried hard to resurrect Chinese traditional culture by introducing western modern culture. The biggest characteristic of cultural radicalism was that it was more destructive than constructive, and even completely abandoned its own tradition and copied western modern culture. Therefore, translators should on the one hand maintain the good of Chinese culture, and also learn new cultures and expressions on the other. (Yan Xaiojiang,2008:286)

Third, cultural conflicts should be avoided while hospitality and order should be promoted. Liang Shiqiu combined the artistic spirit of ancient Greece, Irving Babbitt’s new humanism and Confucianism’s spirit of "moderation", and finally found the juncture between the heterogeneous discourses of Chinese and western traditional culture, and constructed and strengthened the liberal cultural ideal with classical spirit. This principle of compatibility and moderation set an example for resolving cultural conflicts and realizing the ideal of harmony. An important characteristic of cultural conflictionism was that it exaggerated the conflict of culture and ignored the feature of accommodation and complementarity between cultures. Each culture has its own inherent rules. Differences and collisions are the process of communication between heterogeneous cultures. Only differences can maintain self-identity, only collisions can promote development, and only diversity can present prosperity. However, the recognization of differences does not mean erasing consensus, and real consensus does not obliterate differences. We should grasp the problem of contemporary Chinese cultural identity in the tension structure of globalization and localization with understanding, communication and integration, striving to construct the modernity of Chinese literature and culture, participating in the world dialogue with artistic creation with national characteristics, opposing to replace another culture with one culture, and insisting on inheriting foreign culture critically. (Yan Xiaojiang,2008:287)

In a word, Liang Shiqiu's "mean" translation view not only formed his own theoretical system by combining observation with cognition, but also put this rational system into practice, which promoted the communication between traditional and modern culture, foreign and local culture, individual and common culture, so as to optimize cultural integration. In today's context of cultural pluralism, we must update our values and ways of thinking, understand the relationship between cultural identity and context with the concept of compound identity, and realize the rationality and effectiveness of cultural integration. （Yan Xiaojiang,2008:287)

4.2 Lu Xun

In the comparison between Chinese and foreign languages, Lu Xun realized the imprecision of Chinese grammar and thus associated it with the "imprecision of Chinese thinking". He tried to introduce the expressions of foreign languages into Chinese through literal translation, and to promote the modernization of the Chinese language. Although there were many difficulties at the time, Lu Xun's efforts did, to a certain extent, contribute to the development of vernacular Chinese and the "Europeanization" of Chinese, and he also succeeded in absorbing the expressions and vocabulary of foreign languages. Even though the foreign grammar that Lu Xun borrowed from his direct translations at that time is not fully used today, and many of the expressions have been completely abandoned today, it is because Lu Xun pioneered the introduction of foreign expressions and persevered with them that modern Chinese today has rich and flexible syntax that can be extended and contracted, and sentences that are long but not chaotic and well-organized. This fully proves Lu Xun's foresight and wisdom. (Wang Yanling,2009:38)

Lu Xun’s translation views still have some practical significance in modern society. We can get some inspirations after reviewing Lu Xun’s translation views. On the one hand, western translation theories should be introduced. On the other hand, Chinese translation studies should be systematic, scientific and unique through constantly concluding, digging, refining and sublimating. We should treat translation theories Dialectically and developmentally and only in this way can translation theory studies have some breakthrough and creation. With the accelerated process of globalization, China is ushering in a new round of translation climax, and good academic ethos and translation ethics are the guarantee of translation quality. ( Wang Yanling,2009:38)

Conclusion

From the analysis of several texts above, we can see clearly that Lu Xun and Liang Shiqiu share some similarities and differences in their translations practice. From the perspective of translation views, both Liang Shiqiu and Lu Xun adopted literal translation. Liang Shiqiu emphasized the consistence of “faithfulness” and “smoothness”, claiming that translations should be faithful to the original work and also be readable. With the influence of Confucianism and Babbitt’s new humanism, he has formed a “mean” translation view, which means that his translation were not extreme but appropriate and moderate. Lu Xun’s translation works mainly adopted literal translation and even “hard translation”. Compared with Liang Shiqiu, he claimed that translation works should “rather be faithful than smooth". In his opinion, Chinese is not precise enough, thus new syntax and expressions should be introduced to improve and enrich Chinese. The so called “hard translation” appeared in Lu Xun’s later translations, which were unreadable and unacceptable. However, the political function was more important than its literary purpose.

From the choice of translation works, Liang Shiqiu encouraged translators to translate classics which are based on humanity such as Shakespeare’s works. He was a determined advocator of humanism, denying the class nature of literature and opposing regarding literature as the tool of enlightenment and politics.

Lu Xun, however, was quite different. He translated a lot of Soviet literary works and wanted Chinese people to learn from their rebellious and revolutionary spirit. Much of his translations had political function, aiming to change Chinese people’s conservative and "corrupt" thoughts.

From the purpose of translating activities, Liang Shiqiu put “humanism” as the core of his translation works. His purpose of translation was very pure, which was to translate western classics, to give the Chinese people the pleasure of aesthetics and spirit.

Lu Xun, however, was more “utilitarian”. The purpose of his translations was to bring more new culture and absorb new expressions to enrich Chinese. Lu Xun was living in an era when China was weak and corrupt, he wanted to use his translations as weapons to fight with corruption, ignorance and conservatism.

Language during history is very much formed by literary masterpieces and by foreign influences, especially through translations. Lu Xun lived in a time, when the new language baihua still needed to build a vocabulary. Therefore, also Lu Xun's hard translation has paid into the globally compatible Chinese we have today. With the rich vocabulary Chinese has today, also due to his translations and foreign lean words floating into China and being absorbed and transformed, Chinese is a rich language today and Lu Xun's argument, that Chinese was lacking appropriate terms, is not valid any more. However, in his time, his argument had its historical importance.

Rrferences

• Fang Mengzhi. 方梦之. (2004). "译学词典". [A Dictionary of Translation Studies]. 上海外语教育出版社[Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press] 296.

• Yan Xiaojiang. 严晓江. (2008). "梁实秋中庸翻译观研究". [On Liang Shiqiu's View of "mean" in Translation]. 上海译文出版社 [Shanghai Translation Publishing House] 32-52.

• Wang Yanling. 王燕玲. (2009). "鲁迅翻译观的形成及其现实意义". [The Formation of Lu Xun's Translation Theory and its Practical Significance]. 时代教育 [TIME EDUCATION] 39-40.

• Wei Sichao. 魏思超. (2011). "直视鲁迅“硬译”观". [A Direct View of Lu Xun's "Hard Translation"]. 文学教育 [Literature Translation]. 24-25.

• Jin Boya. 金博雅. (2011). "鲁迅和梁实秋的文学翻译对比研究". [A Comparative Study of Literary Translation Between Lu Xun and Liang Shiqiu]. 北方文学 [Northern Literature] 118-119.

• Liu Fang. 刘芳. (2014). "论鲁迅直译观的形成及其历史意义". [On the Formation and Historical Significance of Lu Xun's Literal Translation]. 名作赏析 [Masterpieces Review] 123-125.

• Xie Haiyan. 谢海燕. (2020). "协商直译: 重论鲁迅的直译与《域外小说集》". [Negotiating Literal Translation: Ｒeinterpreting Lu Xun’s Literal Translation and Collection of Foreign Short Stories].绍兴文理学院学报 [JOUＲNAL OF SHAOXING UNIVEＲSITY] 51-60.

• Zheng Chun. 郑春. (2017). "再谈鲁迅的翻译以及“硬译”". [The Second Discussion on Lun Xun's Translation and Literal Translation]. 广西师范学院学报 [Journal of Guangxi Teachers Education University] 6-11.

• Chen Fu. 陈芙. (2017). "鲁迅的“硬译”与译者惯习解析". [Analysis on Lu Xun's "Hard Translation" and His Habitus]. 浙江理工大学学报 [Journal of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University] 505-510.

• Song Liulin. 宋柳霖. (2019). "“信”与“顺”的交锋——鲁迅和梁实秋翻译论战的分歧探析". [The Confrontation Between "Faithfulness" and "Smoothness"——On the Differences in the Translation Debate Between Lu Xun and Liang Shiqiu]. 校园英语 [Campus English] 241-242.

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--Wang Yuan (talk) 05:57, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

A Brief Introduction to Deconstruction and Venuti's Translation Strategy of Foreignization 徐佳 Xu Jia 202070080613 MTI英语笔译

Abstract

Deconstruction, founded in a critique of structuralism, emphasizes the uncertainty of textual meaning and denies the supreme authority of the original author. As a representative figure of deconstruction, Derrida's theories have had a great impact on the Western traditional theories. Under the influence of deconstruction, Venuti proposed the translation strategy of foreignization, criticizing the "invisibility" of translators and arguing that the purpose of translation is to protect and reproduce cultural differences, which contributes a lot to translation studies.

Key words

Deconstruction; Domestication; Foreignization

题目

解构主义及韦努蒂的异化翻译策略刍议

摘要

解构主义是在对结构主义的批判中建立起来的，强调文本意义的不确定性，否认原作者至高无上的权威性。德里达作为解构主义的代表人物，其理论观点对西方理论传统产生了巨大冲击。在其思想影响下，韦努蒂提出异化翻译策略，批判译者“隐身”，认为翻译的目的是要保护再现文化差异，其理论具有一定的进步意义。

关键词

解构主义；归化；异化

Introduction

Translation has a long history and translation studies have gone through a long journey. In the 20th century, along with the changes in the fields of philosophy and literature, linguistic and cultural shifts emerged in translation studies, and new translation schools have sprung up one after another. Among them, the most controversial one is Deconstruction and its translation views. Deconstructionism is established in the criticism of structuralism, with decomposition as its main feature, systematically deconstructs the concepts of "structure" and "meaning". It focuses on overturning the traditional concept of translation fidelity so as to highlight the central position of the translator, thus opening up new horizons for contemporary translation studies.

The Emergence of Deconstruction and Derrida’s Theories

Deconstruction is an all-open critical theory that emerged from France in the late 1960s, which questions rationality and subverts tradition. It takes interpretive philosophy as its philosophical foundation, advocates pluralism, and aims to break the closedness of structure, eliminate logos-centrism, and overturn the western philosophical tradition of binary oppositions.

Jacques Derrida, a French philosopher, is the father of deconstructionism. He wrote an essay named "Structure, Symbols, and Play in the Language of the Humanities" , which was publicly read at Johns Hopkins University in 1966, thus marking the birth of deconstruction. In the United States, it has received unprecedented spread and creative development. Among many scholars, the most influential was the "Yale School" represented by Paul Derman, Geoffrey Hartmann, Hillis Miller and Harold Bloom. They interpreted and popularized the ideas of Deconstruction, leading to its tremendous impact and flourishing in North America.（Wen Hong 2010,185）

Deconstruction is a critical inheritance of structuralism. Structuralism holds that everything has its structure, which determines the essence of things, and to study the essence of things needs to study their deeper structure. Deconstructionists, on the other hand, believe that structuralism is inherited from the dualistic mode of thinking in traditional western philosophy, which always establishes one original and one center for the world, such as the idea, God, man, etc. Around the original and the center, the world is formed and there are a series of two oppositions, such as subject and object, sound and writing, reason and sensibility, truth and error, philosophy and literature, etc. The former always takes precedence and the latter is a kind of derivation, dependence or exclusion of the former.（Xie Tianzhen 2000,314）

Its attack against structralism mainly focuses on the binary opposition between sound and words. The long-standing western tradition of valuing sound over words assumes that meaning comes before words, and that words themselves are of little importance, but merely serves as megaphone for expressing meaning. Derrida called it "logocentrism," which is another name for reason, truth, subject, being, essence, etc. Derrida traced and extensively gave examples that written words had been looked down upon. For example, Plato once claimed that words are the invention of children, while language embodys the wisdom of adults. Aristotle also believed that language are the representation of inner experience, while words, the representation of language, is the medium of medium, so it is in a secondary position.(Ren Shukun 2000, 55)

Derrida, however, introduced the concept of "archetypal words," which raised the status of written words to a new level. In his view, words is the original and prototype of language and it is the prerequisite of all linguistic phenomena and construction of meaning. In addition, Derrida created a new word "differance", which is only one letter different from "difference" and has the same pronunciation. This difference, which can only be seen in words but cannot be told in speech, makes the western tradition of emphasizing sound over writing collapse. (Ren Shukun 2000, 55)

Thus, we can see that deconstruction, though based on the criticisim of structuralism, actually points at the western tradition of rationalism. According to Derrida, deconstruction is a thought about being and metaphysics. It thus lead to a discussion of the authority of being, or the authority of essence, and such a discussion or interpretation cannot simply be generalized as a negativistic destruction. (Fan Zhongying 1997, 36)This sentence can be understood in two ways. first, deconstruction represents a spirit of rebellion in that it dares to think about, discuss, and reinterpret authoritative philosophies that have existed for thousands of years.Behind the radical attitude of deconstruction lies a profound spirit of questioning tradition, a determination to destroy any form of rigidity and privilege. (Huang Zhending 2005,21)

Deconstruction has always been regarded as a thoery of merely breaking without establishing. According to Derrida, however, deconstruction cannot simply be generalized as a negative destruction. Actually, breaking itself implies building. Through denying the "truth" of the structuralism and metaphysical traditions, deconstruction aims to create a pluralistic, tolerant and open system. Deconstructionism is undeniably revolutionary for its total rejection of binary opposition. And at the same time, since it acknowledges the coexistence of multiple logics constituted by varied traditional factors, the revolution is relative. (Huang Zhending 2005,21)

Generally speaking, every ideological trend is marginal, fragmented, and even radical at its inception, and so is deconstruction. Compared to structuralism, it is still unmature. Nevertheless, deconstruction, with its continuous negation against the thinking mode of binary opposition and its thoroughness in decomposing it, is an evolving and vigorous ideology.

The first thing Derrida's deconstruction theory wants to eliminate is the concept of "structure", which is the cornerstone of structuralism. He launched a fierce attack on the logos-centralism and instead emphasize the uncertainty of the meaning of the text. In his theory, Derrida created a series of terms that he called "new concepts" such as "trace", "differance","dissemination", "decentering", etc. Take "dissemination" as an example. According to Derrida, dissemination is the inherent ability of all words. It does not convey any meaning, for the production of every meaning is the result of "differance". Every reading is a search for "trace" of the seeds that have been disseminated, and every reading is a re-understanding of what seems to have met before. (Wen Hong 2010, 186)

Roland Barthes, another representative of deconstructionism, compares the text to an onion, which has many layers but no core, no original, and unity is its superficial phenomenon. This metaphor suggests that the meaning of the text is uncertain and that the search for the original meaning of the text is futile. Barthes asserted that "the author is dead", which completely denies the author's creativity and crushes all attempt to trace the author's original meaning. The intertextuality and indeterminacy of textual meaning make reading a concrete act associated with the specific times and reading subjects, which strongly breaks the traditional view that reading is only a passive consumption of texts, and greatly promotes the enthusiasm, initiative and creativity of readers. (Bai Xiaohong 2012,21)

Indeed, apart from literary criticism which necessarily analyses and evaluates the work from the critic's subjective view, the phenomena of distorting the meaning of original for one's own profit are not rare, and even general reading is never a passive absorption of the ideas in the work. This point of view, in fact, has long been embodied in the keynote of reception aesthetics, which explicitly emphasizes the role of human in textual relations and the great initiative of participants in discourse communication. It actually reveals that in the rich and complex history of all language and text, there lies the rich and complex history of human spiritual activity. This process can by no means be summed up in Hegel's rigid dialectical model of "positive-negative-combination".(Bai Xiaohong 2012,21)

Like other fields of the humanities, translation community is inevitably impacted by the ideas of deconstruction. Traditional translation theories regard the original text as an unshakable authority, which is always above the translation and translation activities. Fidelity exists as a supreme standard for translation, and the discussion of equivalence has always been a hot topic in the translation community. Deconstruction reveals the relationship between texts. It argues that since every text is born in a specific historical environment, there is no absolute equivalence between the original text and the translation, and any factors that affect human thinking, such as ideology, values, ethics, morality, cultural traditions, political system, etc., will affect the translation. (Huang Zhending 2005,19)

Therefore, any original text is always in the process of being constantly rewritten, and every reading and translation of the original text means a reconstruction of the original text rather than a tracing of the original meaning. Translation involves two languages and two cultural systems, and deconstructionists believe that the purpose of translation is to pretect and reproduce the differences between languages and cultures instead of eliminating them with sameness. There is no accurate and fixed meaning of translation, and even a detailed retelling can produce new meanings that give life to the original. (Ren Shukun 2000, 55)

Before the advent of deconstruction, Walter Benyamin, a German translation theorist, put forward ideas related to deconstruction in his book "The Task of the Translator" in 1923, and thus he has been widely regarded as the founder of deconstructionist translation theory. Benyamin uses the term "pure language" to explain the differences between languages, which refers to the universal language shared by all human beings before they built the Tower of Babel. According to Benjamin, a pure language is complete and abstract, and the many languages used today derive from it. Only when these languages complement each other can it be possible to reproduce the whole picture of a pure language. The essence of language can be grasped only in the differences of specific languages. Therefore, translation should try to reflect these differences. The languages we use today is fragments of pure language, and so are the original text and its translation. Since they are fragments, their main characteristics are fragmentation and mutilation, and the task of the translator is to find and reflect the formal characteristics of the fragments. (Xie Tianzhen 2000, 316)

Venuti’s Translation Theory of Deconstruction

In the late 20th century, under the influence of deconstructionism, many translation theorists put forward some new views, including Edwin Gentzler, Ander Lefevere, Susan Bassnett, Theo Hermans, Gideon Toury, Lawrence Venuti, etc. Putting translation in the overall social and cultural context, they reconsidered many factors affecting translation, and tried to build new translation theories. Among them, Venuti's theory has been recognized as a representative one.

In 1992, Venuti compiled a collection of essays on translation named Rethinking Translation. In the preface of the book, he mentioned several neglected issues, mainly the marginal status of translators and its causes, and called for a rethinking of translating. In 1995, he published Translator's Invisibility, a masterpiece on the history of Western translation over 200 years, which is a representative work of foreignizing translation theory that drew much attention in the late 20th century. The book describes the situation and behavior of translators in Anglo-American cultures, traces the history of transparent discourse in English translation that has emerged since the seventh century, and reveals the various cultural hegemonies that originated as smooth discourse. (Zhao Shang2007,76)

The ultimate goal of Venuti's translation theory of foreignization is to have translators and readers reflect on the violence of nationalism in translation, and thus they can have an expectation to feel linguistic and cultural differences when translating and reading translations. Deconstruction has rewritten the history of western translation by rejecting the viewpoint of western-centralism and advocating an equal relationship between national cultures and languages. This naturally links translation studies with power, ideology and colonialism, regarding translations as a political act. Of course, the aim of it is not to raise the value of every foreign culture by treating Anglo-American culture as an object of racial discrimination. It focuses on how to study and practice translation as a site of differences at the theoretical, critical and textual levels rather than emphasizing homogeneity, as is popular nowadays.(Zhao Shang2007,76)

Objections to Domesticating Translation

Venuti build his translation theory on the basis of deconstruction, and his definition of translation is as follows: "Translation is a process that the translator replaces the chain of signifier in the source text with that in the target language." (Venuti 1998, 22) Since meaning is produced by relations and differences in a potentially infinite chain, there will always be differences and delays and will never be the whole of an original text. Both the foreign text and the translation are derivative and are made up of different linguistic and cultural materials. Therefore, neither the foreign author nor the translator is the original author, and the meaning of the work is so unstable that it can transcend the intent of the work. This is very different from the traditional concept of translation.

Traditionally, it is believed that the author is the original creator of a unique text where he expresses his own feelings and has absolute authority and ultimate right to interpret it. Given this, the translator's work can only be an imitation of the original text, and the translation is neither self-expressive nor unique, but a derivative of the it. This concept has ruled the translation world for a long time, decisively placing the translator in a subordinate position to the author and the translation to the creation. Translated text has always been compared with the original text, and any deviation from it is considered a flaw or even a shame. In order to increase the faithfulness of the translation, translator goes to great lengths to hide himself, by erasing as much as possible linguistic and cultural differences and assimilating the original text with the linguistic features and values of the target language. A translation based on such a strategy will be immediately accepted by the target language readers. Therefore, the ideal translation that translators have long strived for is one that makes the reader feel as if they were reading the author's original text in the target language.(Ren Shukun 2004,56)

Venuti have different ideas. Under the influence of deconstructionist thinking, Venuti points out in the preface of his book Rethinking Translation that "a translation can never be faithful to the original text, and is always more or less free. It is never definite, and always has an addition to or subtraction from the original. It can never be a transparent representation, but only an interpretive transformation, revealing the multiple meanings and ambiguities of the foreign text and translate them into other multiple and divergent meanings." (Venuti 1992, 67) He began his book, The Invisibility of the Translator, by quoting Norman Shapiro: "I think translation should be transparent and not look like a translation. A good translation is like a piece of glass, you will not notice it without tiny imperfections such as scratches and bubbles. Ideally, of course, there should be no flaws at all. It should not draw attention on itself." (Venuti 1995, 81)

"Invisibility" describes the condition and activities of translators in contemporary Anglo-American culture. According to Venuti, such a smooth and transparent translation gives the reader a sense of fidelity and thus becomes the translator's major pursuit. However, a fluent translation conceals the subjective interpretation of the translator, and also obscures the process of mediation between the original text and the translation and that between the author and the translator. In this way, the hard work of the translator is eclipsed by the authority of the author, and many cultural and linguistic differences are also tucked away.(Huang Zhending 2005,20)

According to Venuti, the meaning of a work is plural. A translation only temporarily fixes one meaning of the work, and it is based on different cultural assumptions and interpretive choices, and subject to the constraints of particular social forms and different historical epochs. Meaning is plural and indefinite, and it is by no means an unchanging and unified whole. Therefore, translation cannot be measured by the mathematical concept of equivalence of meaning or one-to-one correspondence, while the norms of exact translation, the concepts of "fidelity" and "freedom" are historically-determined categories. Translation is built by translation and translation. It is the relationship between the translation and the cultural and social conditions resulting from it that allows the translation to survive.（Feng Yihan 2006,41）

Among contemporary translation schools, Nida's translation theory is a typical one of domestication. Naida argues that the translation of dynamic equivalence is to pursue the complete naturalness of the words, (Nida 2004, 159) the essence of which is to eliminate linguistic and cultural differences in inter-linguistic communication. Venuti, however, pointed out that the so-called communication, which originates from the culture of the target language and is at the same time controlled by it, is in fact a selfish interpretation. Thus, this kind of communication is an appropriation of foreign texts for one's own profit rather than information exchange." Nida's translation theory that takes communication as a starting point does not adequately take into account the ethnocentric distort that is inherent in the translation process. Naida's advocacy to produce the same response in the readers of the target language and in the readers of the source language is a kind of cultural violence that denies the differences between languages and cultures.（Wen Hong 2010,186）

Advocacy for Foreignizing Translation

The concept of foreignizing translation goes back to Schleiermacher, a German theologian and philosopher. He put forth two methods of translation in 1813, "The translator should either try not to disturb the author and keep the reader close to him, or he should try not to disturb the reader and keep the author close to the them."(Lefevere 1992, 74) The former refers to the foreignizing method, which advocates deliberately breaking the linguistic and cultural norms of the target language by preserving some exotic expressions in the original text so that the readers can learn and enjoy the foreign culture.

Moreover, foreignizing translation cannot be simply equated with paraphrase. While the latter involves only the linguistic operations of translation, foreignizing translation, as defined by Venuti, involves two links. The first is the selection of materials, which means what to translate, and the second is the language conversion strategy, which means how to translate. As long as one of the two links involves foreignization, the translation strategy can be defined as foreignizing translation. The debate between foreignization and domestication focuses on whether to close to the culture of the source language or to the culture of the target language. According to Venuti, the prerequisite of foreignizing translation is that there are cultural differences and communication is complicated by cultural differences between and within linguistic communities. Foreignizing translation acknowledges and tolerate differences and create cultural differences in the target language.（Ren Shukun 2004,57）

A translator who prefers foreignization may not only change the means of expression of the translated text, but also choose to translate foreign texts that challenge the foreign literary norms in the target language. Translation is a process of finding common ground between languages and cultures, especially in the search for similar information and similar forms or skills of expression. This search which is necessary for the translator is often confronted with differences. But translator can never, and should never, erase all differences. A translation should be a place where different cultures coexist and the reader can learn about them. Therefore, Venuti's translation strategy of Foreignization, to some extent, is a kind of cultural intervention, which challenges and questions the attempts to suppress foreign things, and highlights the linguistic and cultural differences by placing the readers in a foreign-mannered text.（Feng Yihan 2006,42）

Specifically, in the use of translation methods, it reflects a difficult and obscure translation style, and even uses ancient words of the target language to provide readers with a new reading experience. Ezra Pound's translation of Cathay and Nabokov's translation of Pushkin's poetic novel Eugene Onegin both use the foreignizing methods. In the history of English literature, the debate between Arnold and Newman is actually a debate about domestication and foreignization. Newman was dissatisfied with the translation style of Homer's works in Victorian England. He thought this kind of translations were too slender and elegant that were favored by the so-called elite, or "great tradition" culture of England. Instead, He chose the "small tradition," that is, the foreignizing method, translating Homer's works into popular lyrical songs, in which a mixture of ancient words, ballads and awkward sentences replaced the serious and straightforward expressions. (Liu Junping 2019, 416)

Preference for Minority-oriented Translation

According to Venuti，the use of any language can mark power relations, and at any historical moment it is the control of the dominant linguistic form over minute variables. (Venuti 2004, 75) These tiny variables are the so-called "residue", which is opposed to the dominant forms of language, including dialects, archaic languages, colloquialisms, technical terms, and so on. Residues are proposed and applied to prevent the rigidity of language use and kept it alive and fresh.

With the existence of residues, language use cannot be completely systematized and regularized. The concept of "residue" suggests that linguistic forms are closely related to specific social and historical environment. Residues have supplemented, corrected, and even subverted the mainstream language by transforming, delegitimizing and denaturalizing it, and thus have promoted its development. In order to release the residues, the translator has to innovate his concept so as to achieve the transformation of linguistic and cultural differences.(Guo Jianzhong 2000,51)

Venuti believed that a good translation is a minority-oriented one, which embraces heterogeneity and allows for the existence of unfamiliar, exotic, non-standard, and marginal languages and rules. "Minority translation" means releasing not only linguistic "residues" but also cultural "residues". The marginal texts and translations, as measured by mainstream values, are what Venuti prefers. He said, "I prefer to translate texts that are marginal and weak in my own culture, and that serve to marginalize the dominant linguistic and cultural forms of the English language.“ (Venuti 1998, 32) Today, with the further development of globalization, the economic and political dominance of the United States has marginalized the languages and cultures of other countries. To oppose the global hegemony of English and its culture is exactly what Venuti's advocacy aims at.(Ren Shukun 2004,57)

Minority translation never to acquire more, never to establish new standards and rules, but to promotes cultural innovation and understanding of cultural differences through the production of more linguistic variables. In resistant translation, "residual" means going beyond transparency in the use of language, even undermining it with varying degrees of violence. Such new ideas reflect the awareness of unequal relations in translation. In Venuti's view, translation cannot be a simple and egalitarian activity. It is racially superior in nature, either out of reverence for a foreign culture or out of pride in one's own culture. (Ren Shukun 2004, 57)

The positive significance of foreignization is that it can introduce and absorb foreign cultural nutrients, bring new elements to local culture and language, and thus promoting communication and penetration among different cultures and languages. At the same time, foreignization strategy makes translation alienate from the target language culture, frees the readers from the cultural spell that has confined their reading and writing, which in essence is a counteraction against the ethnocentrism in the target language culture.

Application of Foreignization and Domestication

When it comes to the choice of adopting foreignizing or domesticating translation strategy, we should first consider which one is more conducive to cross-cultural communication and mutual understanding between people with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Since translation is a process of intercultural communication in nature, the translator should take into consideration the inter-subjectivity and dialogue generation between texts rather than merely foreignizing or domesticating sentences accoring to grammar. They should bear in mind it's a process of cultural interaction.（Bai Xiaohong 2012,21)

The theory of inter-subjectivity focuses on the consideration of whether or why I, as a subject, can know another subject, and not just regards the cognitive activity of human beings only as a dualistic subject-object cognitive act. Therefore, translating is not a monologue. However, it is important to emphasize that due to the different levels of readers, the translator can not make every reader satisfied and understand the translation. For different readers, the translator may make necessary changes to the translation. It not follows the translator's subjective judgement to adopt foreignizing or domesticating translation strategy, but depends on the actual situation.（Bai Xiaohong 2012,21）

Since translation services the target readers, the translator should, no matter which translation strategy is adopted, try to think of them and build a bridge across the cultural gap between the original text and the target readers. So how to find a balance between these two strategies? On the technical level, we should stick to one principle when handling the issue of domestication and foreignization, namely a dialectical view of their relationship. With their respective advantages, the two strategies play different roles and satisfy different needs. They are not incompatible just because they have distinctive orientations.(Wang Yingping 2011, 216)

In fact, no translation is completely based on a single approach of domestication or foreignization. As Lu Xun once commented, “there is no such thing as a thoroughly domesticated translation in the world. Those who claim to be so are fuzzy things that, under close examination, should not be considered as translation in proper.” A good translation is always a mix of both domestication and foreignization. Besides, we should avoid any tendency towards extremes in this matter. Only by striking a balance between those two poles can we produce a work with both original flavor and good acceptance.(Wang Yingping 2011, 216)

Conclusion

Vernuti's deconstructionist view of translation shows the incoherence between the original text and the translation and that how the translator is involved in cultural production. He analyzes the power relations behind the text and gives us a new perspective on translation studies.

However, the resistant strategy that he put forward is marginalized in the translation community. The reasons are as follows. First, the word "resistant" implys the passive defensive status of this strategy and its weakness to counteract the mainstream. Second, in order to release the residues, the translator usually chooses a marginal text to resist the influence of the mainstream. Third, once the text is selected, the translation would depart from the mainstream and to create something new in terms of language, text, rhythm, narrative mode, etc. Such a translation that defies the translation tradition is hardly accepted by a large number of readers in the short term. Thus, the marginal position of Venuti's foreignizing translation strategy is inevitable.

Translation is never going in an unaffected way. Both foreignization and domestication are in fact the products of influenced translation activities. On theoretical level, it is difficult to say which is better, because translation practice shows that each of them plays an irreplaceable role in the target language and culture and fulfills its own mission.

From the perspective of development, cultural exchanges are becoming more and more frequent, and translation, as one of the forms of it, is actually a process of cultural integration. Culture itself is an open system with an inestimable capacity for tolerance, so It is easy for the target readers to accept new things from the source culture through foreignization. The translator should choose translation strategies with comprehensive considerations and find a balance between cultural equivalence and acceptability, and thus achieving the best effect of cultural exchange and literary appreciation.

There is no specific, prescriptive mode for deconstruction in Derrida’s and Venuti’s theories. The importance lies in their unrestricted thinking and revolutionary spirit, which reminds people to rethink traditions and to consider more complex factors that determine the relationship between languages. However, the deconstructionist view of translation is by no means perfect. Its deliberately pursuit of differences and disregard for unity will inevitably lead to confusion. Therefore, it is undoubtedly beneficial to translation research if we objectively see the advantages and disadvantages of the deconstructionist view of translation.

Reference

Fan Zhongying 范仲英. (1997).实用翻译教程 [A Practical Course Book on Translation].北京：外语教学与研究出版社.Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press

Ren Shukun任淑坤. (2004).解构主义翻译观刍议——兼论韦努蒂的翻译思想和策略 [Humble Opinions on Deconstructive Translation and Venuti's Translation Thoughts and Strategies]. 外语与外语教学 Foreign Language and Their Teaching (188) 55-58.

Lin Qiuyun 林秋云. (1998).德里达的解构主义理论[Derrida’s Theories of Deconstruction].外国文学评论.Foreign Literature Review

Lawrence Venuti. (2004). The Translator’s Invisibility.上海：上海外语教育出版社.Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

Lawrence Venuti. (1992). Rethinking Translation：discourse, subjectivity, ideology. London; New York: Routledge.

Andre Lefevere. (1992). Translating Literature. New York: Modern Language Association Of America.

Xie Tianzhen 谢天振. (2000).翻译的理论构建与文化透视[Theoretical Construction and Cultural Perspective of Translation].上海：上海外语教育出版社.Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

Eugene Nida. (2004). Toward A Science of Translating.上海：上海外语教育出版社. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

Liu Junping 刘军平. (2019).西方翻译理论通史[A General History of Western Translation Theory].湖北：武汉大学出版社. Huibei: Wuhan University Press.

Lawrence Venuti. (1998). The Scandals of Translation. London; New York: Routledge.

When Hong 温弘. (2010).解构主义翻译理论及韦努蒂的翻译策略 [Deconstructive Translation Theory and Venuti's Translation Strategies]. 甘肃科技 Gansu Science and Technology 26(15):185-187.

Zhao Shang 赵尚. (2007).解构主义与韦努蒂的异化翻译策略 [Deconstruction and Venuti's Translation Strategy of Foreignization]. 常州工学院学报(社科版) Journal of Changzhou Institute of Technology( Social Science Edition) 25(6):75-77

Bai Xiaohong 白晓红. (2012). 论解构主义翻译观的进步性与局限性[On the Progressiveness and Limitations of the Deconstructionist View of Translation]. 长春教育学院学报Journal of Changchun Education Institute 28(6):20-21.

Huang Zhending 黄振定. (2005). 解构主义的翻译创造性和主体性[The creativity and subjectivity of translation in deconstructionism]. 中国翻译 Chinese Translators Journal 26(1):19-22.

Feng Yihan 封一函. (2006). 论劳伦斯•韦努蒂的解构主义翻译策略[Venuti's Translation Strategies of Deconstruction]. 文艺研究 Studies in Literature and Art (3):39-44.

Guo Jianzhong 郭建中.(2000). 韦努蒂及其解构主义的翻译策略[Venuti and his Translation Strategies of Deconstruction]. 中国翻译 Chinese Translators Journal(1):49-52.

--Xu Jia (talk) 12:58, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Jia

Translation Aesthetics

Aesthetic Representation of Two Versions of Wang Wei's "Niao Ming Jian" from the Perspective of Translation Aesthetics - 凌子瑾 Ling Zijin, 202020080618

凌子瑾 Ling Zijin

Abstract

Wang Wei is a master of landscape poetry, and his poems have important aesthetic value. "Niao Ming Jian" is a representative work of his landscape poetry, which has a relatively high aesthetic significance. Aesthetic reproduction is an important factor to judge the success of a translation. Based on Liu Miqing's theory of translation aesthetics, this paper makes a comparative analysis of the two English translation versions of "Niao Ming Jian" to explore how these two translators make the aesthetic elements in the source text reproduced in the target text.

Key words

Translation Aesthetics; Aesthetic Representation; Poetry Translation; Comparative Study

题目

翻译美学视角下译本的审美再现——以王维《鸟鸣涧》两译本为例

摘要

王维是山水诗的集大成者，其诗歌具有重要的美学价值，《鸟鸣涧》是王维山水诗中的代表作品，具有较高的美学研究意义。审美再现是评判译文是否成功的重要因素。本文从刘宓庆的翻译美学理论出发，对《鸟鸣涧》的两个英文译本进行对比分析，探究不同的译者是如何使得原文中的美学要素在译文中得到再现的。

关键词

翻译美学；审美再现；诗歌翻译；对比赏析

1. Introduction

With the increasingly close communication between China and the international community, the translation of poetry has become an important part of telling Chinese stories. And translation is the basis for the international dissemination of literary works. Translation is one of the ways of information transmission, which is not only a technology, but also an art. Poetry itself is a literary and artistic form with aesthetic thoughts. Due to the close relationship between poetry translation and beauty, whether the translation can convey the beauty of the original poem has become the main criterion to judge whether the translation is good or not. On this point, Liu Miqing proposed translation aesthetics and systematically explained this subject in his An Introduction to Translation and Aesthetics. He incorporated aesthetics into translation and proposed to reproduce the beauty of the original text in translation. (Li Yafeng 2016,4)

Wang Wei's landscape poetry represents the highest achievement of landscape poetry in the flourishing Tang Dynasty. In the history of the development and the aesthetic formation of Chinese classical poetry, it has an influence and status that cannot be underestimated. "Niao Ming Jian" is the representative work of Wang Wei's landscape poems, so its aesthetic value is self-evident. Written in the stable and unified Tang Dynasty, this poem focuses on the tranquil beauty of the spring mountain at night. In this poem, you can not only see the charming environment of the spring mountain dotted with bright moon, falling flowers and birds, but also feel the peaceful and stable social atmosphere of the Tang Dynasty. (Shi Yue 2002, 3)

Both Yang Xianyi and Xu Yuanchong have made a lot of contributions to translation studies. They are recognized for their translation skills(both of them were awarded Lifetime Achievement in Translation), but they have different views on literary translation, which can be seen from the comparative study in chapter 4. From the perspective of translation aesthetics, this paper takes "Niao Ming Jian" and its two English versions as research objects to explore how the two translators realize the aesthetic representation of the Chinese version in their English translation.(Yan Haifeng 2017)

2. Translation Aesthetics

In the history of Chinese literature, the earliest development of translation aesthetics can be traced back to the time of the Three Kingdoms. When someone proposed that "it is necessary to follow the essence without decorations".(Wang Wenjing 2020，7) Up to now, there have emerged such related aesthetic translation theories as "faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance", "spirit likeness" ,"delivering" and “principle of three beauties”. In A Dictionary of Translation Studies of Fang Mengzhi, translation aesthetics is defined as: revealing the aesthetic origins of translation studies, discussing the special significance of aesthetics to translation studies, interpreting the scientific and artistic nature of translation with the aesthetic point of view, putting forward standards of beauty in translating texts with different style, using the basic principle of aesthetics, analyzing and solving the aesthetic problem in dealing with interlingual transference.(Fang Mengzhi 2004:296)

Translation aesthetics is the marriage of translation and aesthetics. Almost all traditional translation theories in China are related to aesthetics, and translation aesthetics is one of the basic characteristics of Chinese translation studies. Based on Chinese traditional aesthetics, translation aesthetics, starting with the aesthetic subject and object of translation, not only emphasizes the aesthetic information on the level of sounds and words, analysis of the rhythm, rhyme and translation methods, but also explores the aesthetic factors of emotion, aspiration, meaning and image in the non-formal system, thus laying a practical theoretical foundation for translation aesthetics. From the perspective of translation aesthetics, the purpose of translation is to achieve aesthetic representation between languages.（Yang Yanni 2010,3）

The concept of translation aesthetics was put forward by Professor Liu Miqing in 1994. At first, it combined aesthetics and translation to examine the aesthetic feeling of ancient poetry translation. In An Introduction to Translation and Aesthetics, Liu Miqing specifically explains the general process and specific strategies of translation aesthetics. According to Liu Miqing, "the theories and propositions of traditional Chinese translation theory are basically derived from Chinese classical philosophy and aesthetics, especially classical literature and art". In addition, he also stressed that "theoretical proposition and methodology of Chinese translation theory can be traced back in Chinese classical philosophy and aesthetics.” The aesthetics as the theoretical basis of translation, not only pay attention to the correspondence at the language level, but also the correspondence of the beauty represented in the target text and that in the original text, in order to show the beauty of the original text as possible.（Liu Miqing 1994）

Translation aesthetics holds that translation contains the aesthetic subject and aesthetic object. The aesthetic subject refers to the reader and translator of the text, while the aesthetic object refers to the target language text and the source language text. By subjectively transforming the source text, the aesthetic subject maximizes the aesthetic value of the source text into the target text in the process of transforming one language text to another, so as to ensure that the aesthetic elements in the source text can be reproduced in the target text.(Wang Wenjing 2020,7) In An Introduction to Translation and Aesthetics, Liu Miqing divides aesthetic object into formal system and non-formal system, that is, aesthetic appreciation of the linguistic form of the original text and the emotion expressed in the text.(Liu Miqing 2005)

The beauty in the linguistic form (including pronunciation) of the original text is aesthetically called the beauty in the form of material existence, which is usually "intuitive and sensible" and generally appeals to people's vision and hearing. In the aesthetic composition of the original text, what opposed to the representational elements is the non-representational elements. The non-formal beauty of the original language has no direct relationship with the language form, and it is usually non-intuitive. Because it is not directly reflected in the structure and form of words, sentences and sentence groups, it is usually "uncounted", which is called "non-quantitative factor".(Liu Miqing 2005)

The aesthetic composition of linguistic forms can often be counted, such as the number of parallel sentences, rhymes and figures of speech in a paragraph. Generally speaking, it can be counted to obtain a number, the non-formal beauty of language cannot. It is impossible for us to get any quantitative results after analyzing the temperament of a text, such as artistic conception, beauty, momentum, modality, charm, style and so on. But these elements are crucial to the aesthetic value of a text. In short, from the perspective of aesthetics, these non-formal aesthetic compositions of a language are called non-quantitative obscure collection. In Chinese classical poetry, the concentrated expression of this collection is artistic conception.(Liu Miqing 1986)

The "representation" of aesthetic representation is to transform the source language into the target language, and the aesthetic representation is to transform the beauty of source language into the beauty of the target language. The essence of the representation in the art of translation is to transform the introspective understanding of the source language text into an explicit and intuitive form, that is, to find the best artistic expression form for the source language.（Li Qijiu 2009,4）

3. Appreciation of "Niao Ming Jian"

The original text of "Niao Ming Jian"

人闲桂花落，

夜静春山空。

月出惊山鸟，

时鸣春涧中。(Collected Tang Poem 1705)

The main idea of this poem is: in this quiet place, sweet osmanthus flowers gently fall in the quiet night, making the spring forest emptier and quieter. As the moon rose, it made the birds who were perching among the trees to sing, with their crisp calls reverberating through the open mountain stream. This poem is supposed to be written between 713 and 741 ( The Flourishing Kaiyuan Reign Period of the Tang Dynasty), when the poet was in a trip to the regions near the Yangtze River. The poem describes the quiet and beautiful scenery in the mountain on a spring night, and focuses on the tranquility and calmness of the spring mountain at night. The whole poem is intended to highlight the tranquility, but Wang Wei treated it by moving scenes. This kind of technique of contrast shows the poet's meditative mind to a great extent.(Zhuang Chengyuan 2018)

"人闲桂花落，夜静春山空" is the poet’s depiction of scenery by sound, which skillfully uses the technique of synesthesia to combine the dynamic scene “花落” and "人闲" together. Both the blossom and fall of the flowers belong to the sound of nature. Only people who let their hearts really free down, put down the sincere infatuations to worldly thoughts can promote their spirits to a state of “空”. It was late at night, obviously the viewer could not see the falling scene of osmanthus, but because of the "夜静" and the calmness of heart of the viewer, he can still feel the blooming osmanthus falling off the branches, floating down and landing. And readers also seem to have entered a "fragrant forest and flower rain" scenery. The "春山" here also leaves room for us to imagine, because it is "春山", we can imagine the noisy picture of the day: singing birds, green trees, lovely flowers, children’s laughter and so on.(Xue Tao 2020)

When night falls, the environment becomes quiet, the tourists leave, the daytime noise disappeared, the mountains are empty. In fact, "空" not only refers to the empty of the mountain, but also the heart of the poet because only people who have free and easy mood can capture the scene that others cannot feel. The last two lines “月出惊山鸟，时鸣春涧中” describe a dynamic scene to highlight the quietness of the mountain stream. “惊” and “鸣” seem to break the tranquility of the night, but in fact serve as a foil to describe the empty and leisure in the mountain by sounds. (He Chunhua 2018)

The moon emerges behind the clouds, quiet moonlight streams down, a few birds awake from their sleep and twitter from time to time. These beautiful things, with the spring streams running in the hill, put a colorful picture in front of the reader. The birds, of course, accustomed to the silence of the mountain, seemed to have a kind of freshness and excitement when the moon rises. But the brightness of the moon changes the landscape immediately before and after its rise.

Wang Wei was in the heyday of Tang Dynasty. The background of Wang Wei's "月出惊山鸟" is a stable and unified society in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. Although the birds suffer from shock, it is by no means a kind of shock . They will not fly out of the spring stream, or even take off at all, but occasionally chirp among the trees. "时鸣春涧中", they are not so much "startled" but feel fresh to the moon. In this poem, you can not only see the charming environment of the spring mountain dotted with the bright moon, falling flowers and birds, but also feel the peaceful and stable social atmosphere of the Tang Dynasty.

4. Appreciation of Two English Versions of "Niao Ming Jian"

(1) The Gully of Twittering Birds

translated by Yang Xianyi

Idly I watch the cassia petals fall;

Silent the night and empty the spring hills;

The rising moon startles the mountain bird

Which twitter fitfully in the spring gully.(Wang Dan 2014)

(2) The Dale of Singing Birds

translated by Xu Yuanchong

I hear osmanthus blooms fall unenjoyed;

When night comes, hills dissolve into the void.

The rising moon arouses birds to sing;

Their fitful twitter fills the dale with spring.(Huang Jing 2010)

4.1 Formal System

The formal system of poetry mainly consists of rhyme and form, an audible one and a visual one, both of which are objective and perceptive. The existence of the formal system is the basis for poetry, that is, the reason why poetry is poetry rather than any other literary genre is that it has its own unique formal system. Therefore, the 2 translators，Yang Xianyi（Xin Hongjuan 2012,3） and Xu Yuanchong, translate poetry by poetry in order to represent the beauty of the poetic form. Below, the author will appreciate the two English versions by Yang Xianyi and Xu Yuanchong from the two aspects of rhyme and form.(Sun Banggen 2007）

4.1.1 Beauty of Rhyme

Zhu Guangqian thinks that "poetry is a pure literary form with melody". In literary works, especially in poetry, sound is the most basic unit of delivering aesthetic value. Although the translator cannot find the phonetic rules corresponding to Chinese poetry in English language, he can reproduce the "phonetic beauty" of the original poem by using English language rules. The beauty of rhyme in poetry mainly includes the beauty of rhythm and rhyme. First of all, in terms of rhythm, the original poem basically conforms to the basic meter of rhythmic poetry. In Yang Xianyi's translation (hereinafter referred to as translation 1), the rhythm of the poem is roughly as follows: (Zhu Guangqian 1998)

/--/--/-/-/（11） /--/--/--/-（11）

-/-//--/-/（10） -/-/--/-//-（11）

In dealing with each line, translator basically take the trochaic form. Although its antithesis is not neat but it is easy to read, largely represents the musical aesthetic feeling of the original poetry. Besides, the trochaic rhythm can give readers a kind of feeling that firstly there is a sound, and then fell silent, which is in accordance with the tranquil atmosphere in Niao Ming Jian. The rhythm of Xu Yuanchong's translation (hereinafter referred to as translation 2) is roughly as follows:

-/-/-/-/-/（10） -/-/-/-/-/（10）

-/-/-/-/-（9） -/-/-/-/-/（10） The translator adopts iambic pentameter to translate the poem, which has a strong sense of rhythm and can be called as a standard English metrical poem. In terms of the representation of rhythm, both translation 1 and translation 2 are well done, while the rhythm of translation 2 is more in line with the characteristics of the original poem, so translation 2 is better.

The rhyme in poetry is an important factor at the level of rhythmic beauty. Rhyme can make the rhythm of a poem produce harmonious auditory aesthetic satisfaction. In terms of rhythm, the original poem strictly adheres to the rhyming rules of “Lü Shi”. The rhyme at the end of the second and fourth lines is used to create an echoing effect of distant bells in the mountains, making the mountain seem emptier and lonelier.(Yang Yanni 2010,3) In translation 1, the translator uses many assonance in his lines, such as "silent", "night" in the second line; "Fitfully" and "gully" in the fourth line.

The translator also used alliteration, such as "idly", "I" in the first line; "moon", "mountain" in the third line. However, translation 1 does not rhyme at the end of the line. It has the advantage of being free from the restrictions of meter and the language is accurate and fluent. But it also has disadvantage that it loses the beauty of rhyme to some extent.(Tao Yingnian 2017)

As for the translation 2, we can find the end rhyme of the translation 2: /d/ in the first and second line; /ing/ in the third and fourth line. And the rhyme scheme of this translation is aabb. This scheme type can convey the rhythmic beauty of Chinese traditional poetry for its end rhyme is complete. In addition, the first two lines of poetry end with a phone /d/, giving us a feeling of an abrupt stop. The last two lines end with/ing/, leaving a sense of melody for the reader, which is in line with the /ong/ rhyme in the original poem. It can be said that in terms of conveying the rhythmic beauty of the original poem, translation 2 not only represents the original poem, but also makes the target text sounds better than the original one. Therefore, compared with translation 2, translation 1 is slightly inferior in representing the rhythmic beauty of original poem.(Huang Jing 2010)

4.1.2 Beauty of form

Liu Miqing (2005) believes that the beauty of symmetry and antithesis in Chinese classical literature can be called "The elegance of Beauty", which is unique to Chinese.(Liu Miqing 2005) Externally, the four lines of the original poem, with five words in each line, form regular rectangles. From the inside, we can see that the first line and the second line form a parallel structure: “人闲” and “夜静”; “桂花” to “春山”; “落” to “空”. (Tao Yingnian 2017,8) Antithesis constitutes the important factor of the beauty at the level of the form.(Liu Miqing 2005)

The beauty of the translated poem at the level of form is that its words and sentences are in accord with the length and symmetry of the original poem in antithesis and meter.In the translation 1, the number of words in each line is 7, 8, 7,and 7. In translation 2, the number of words in each line is 6, 8, 7 and 8. Both versions conform to the formal characteristics of the poem. From the appearance of the two translations, both of them have achieved the demand to translate poetry by poetry ,representing the formal characteristics of the original poem.

In terms of syllables, the number of syllables in each line of translation 1 is 11, 11, 10 and 11. The number of syllables in each line of translation 2 is 10, 10, 9 and 10. Both of the form of the two translations are in compact structure, thus achieving the representation of beauty of the original poem. In addition, the third and fourth lines of translation 2 adopt parallel structure, which to some extent represents the antithesis beauty of the original poem.(Huang Jing 2010)

4.2 Non-formal System

The non-formal system of poetry is mainly embodied in the artistic conception of poetry. Artistic conception is an important category in Chinese poetics. Artistic conception consists of two aspects: meaning and context. Meaning refers to subjective thoughts and feelings, while context refers to objective life and scenery. In artistic works, meaning and context blend together to form artistic conception. The conveying of artistic conception is directly related to the intuitive and sensible overall linguistic image, but the essence of its beauty is not intuitive and sensible. It usually comes from the feeling, ambition, intention of the artist and the overall artistic beauty of the work, which can easily remind us of the so-called "不著一字，尽得风流".（Li Qijiu 2009）

In poetry, the meaning that a poet wants to express is often conveyed through the images in ancient poems, which are either embodied in scenery or embodied in things. Therefore, when translating Chinese ancient poems, finding the right images is the key point to catch the artistic conception of the whole poem. In order to achieve the aesthetic representation of artistic conception in the translated poem, the translator's poetic sentiment, knowledge of literature and language skills are indispensable. Sometimes the inaccurate translation of one word will change the whole artistic conception and cause the translation to deviate from the original text. In the process of translating poetry, the representation of rhyme and form is the basic step, and that of artistic conception is the completion of the task of translating poetry.（Wu Tong 2018,16）

4.2.1 Beauty of artistic conception

Yang Xianyi and Xu Yuanchong, the translators of the two translations selected in this paper, have different views on the transfer of the beauty of artistic conception. When talking about the principle of literary translation, Yang Xianyi points out that the general principle is that the content of the original text should not be increased or decreased. He has emphasized the principle of faithfulness for many times and he doesn't think the translator should explain too much when translating. The translator should try to be faithful to the image of the source text. If there is no equivalent in translation, some of the meaning of the original must be sacrificed. Xu Yuanchong, on the other hand, believed that among the beauty of sound, form and meaning, meaning was the most important, followed by sound and form.(Xu Yuanchong 2006)

Translators play two roles in the process of translation: text reader and text producer. Translators must give full play to their subjectivity on the basis of a deep understanding of the content and aesthetic value of the original text, and creatively reproduce the verve and artistic conception of the original text, so that the readers of the translated text can truly experience the beauty in reading. In the following, the author will start from the title and analyze the two translators' representation of the artistic conception of the original poem.

The title of the original poem is "鸟鸣涧", which is a modifier-head structure. In this structure, "鸟鸣" modifies "涧". This structure emphasizes the static state of the noun "涧". Translation 1 and 2 respectively translate the title as two noun phrases "The Gully of Twittering Birds" and "The Dale of Singing Birds" , which are similar to the modifier-head structure of the original poem. The head nouns "The Gully" and "The Dale" are modified by "of Twittering Birds" and "of Singing Birds", highlighting the quiet state of the mountain, which conforms to the artistic conception of the original poem. Two title is identical structurally, but differ in the words used.(Tao Yingnian 2017)

The translation 1 translates "涧" as "gully", which the Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary (hereinafter referred to as "the dictionary") interprets as: "a small, narrow channel, usually formed by a stream or by a rain". "涧" in the Xinhua Dictionary is defines as a gutterway in the mountain, so the translation 1 corresponds to the original poem; Translation 2 translates "涧" into "dale", which is defined as "Valley, ESP, in Northern England" in the dictionary. But "涧" in original poem just refers to an ordinary mountain stream, which is still far from a dale.

Then is the translation of "鸟鸣", defined in the dictionary as "when birds twitter, they make a series of short high sounds"; Translation 2 translates "鸟鸣" as "singing". Translation 1 uses onomatopoeia to translate it, which is more vivid in sensory image; While translation 2 uses personification to highlight the melody of bird songs, which brings people a more graceful feeling and a more harmonious artistic conception.

It can be said that translation 1 adopts literal translation while translation 2 adopts free translation. Although both of them can reflect the activity of bird, translation 2 compares it to singing, on the basis of being faithful to the original text, adds a more poetic aesthetic feeling from the aesthetic point of view, and the images described are more easily accepted by readers.

Next comes the translation of the poem's first line. First of all, in terms of the treatment of "人", both translation 1 and translation 2 add the subject "I" to translate "人" into the poet himself, because Chinese sentences do not necessarily have the subject while English must indicate the subject. Although it is difficult to achieve complete equivalence, it is also a relatively reasonable translation method. On the translation of "闲", translation 1 cut to the chase, using the word "idly" indicates that the state of the viewer, it is in line with the original text in the idle state of mind; Translation 2, which puts "unenjoyed" at the end of the line, meets the need of rhyme but adds translator's creative content. But there is not unenjoyed feeling in the original poem, so translation 1 is better here.

Next, on the translation of "桂花", two translation appear difference. In translation 1, "桂花" is translated into "cassia petals". The author looked it up in the dictionary and discovered that its meaning is the petal of cinnamon tree; in translation 2 it is translated into "osmanthus blooms" , which is almost synonymous to the translation 1. Both translation 1 and translation 2 take the same way to translate it, that is, using the proper noun.

As for the "桂花" in this poem, scholars have different explanations. One explanation is that there are different kinds of "桂花", such as spring flowers, autumn flowers and perpetual flowers. What is written here is a kind of spring flowers. Another view is that literary and artistic creation does not necessarily follow life. It is said that the painting by Wang Wei called Yuan An Lying in the Snow has green plantains in the snow. Things that cannot appear together in real life are allowed in literary and artistic creation. However, this poem is one of five poems that written for his friend's house. Each of these five poems is written in a realistic way, which is similar to the landscape painting. Therefore, it is reasonable to translate "桂花" to the osmanthus that blossoms in spring. However, in English, there is not so fine classification of osmanthus, so it is difficult to find a counterpart. The two translators have tried their best to translate it, and their translations of "桂花" are understandable. In addition, it should be noted that the ways the two translators deal with the connection between the viewer and osmanthus are different. Translation 1 uses "watch" to see the flowers falling down, while in translation 2, the word "hear" is used, which is different from the usual setting of appreciating flowers and is the result of the translator's thoughtful and creative translation. Hearing the sound of falling petals can better reflect the empty of the poet's heart than seeing, thus better representing the tranquility of the mountain stream.（Yan Guoying 2010）

Translation 1 Adopts the parallel structure when translating the second line, using the literal translation method to combine the silent night with the empty mountain stream. It is a static description without the description of the sequence of the events, reproducing a kind of vague beauty; in translation 2, "夜静" and "山空" are in time sequence, belongs to the dynamic description, showing the night's coming and the mountain becomes silent. The stationary state in the original poem becomes a process from a dynamic situation station to static one, successfully represent the hidden grammatical relations in the original poem. Therefore, for the translation of the second line, both the two translators have strong point.

In the translation of the third line, the translation of "惊" is of great importance for it serves as a key to show the skills of polishing words of Wang Wei. In translation 1, it is literally translated into "startles", which means"cause a person or animal to feel sudden shock or alarm" in the dictionary. But are birds really startled? According to the appreciation of the original poem in the last chapter, the birds are not startled but only disturbed by the moonrise. "Startles" here is somewhat abrupt and the beauty of the original poem is not represented, so it is not an appropriate translation; Xu Yuanchong translates it into "arouses", which is defined as "evoke or awaken a feeling, emotion, or response”in the dictionary. Compared to the translation 1, translation 2 is not only more natural but also gives the reader a sense of harmony between human and nature.(Yang Yanni 2010)

The last is the translation of the fourth line. The two translations are basically the same in terms of words and translation methods, except the difference in sentence pattern. The translation 1 uses a non-restrictive attributive clause to combine the third line and the fourth line together, which means that the translator deal with the "月出" and "鸟鸣" as two simultaneous events, that is to say, there is no sequence between the moonrise and bird's singing, which is inconsistent with the original poem. The translation 2 deals these two lines with two sentences, perfectly embodying the relationship between the rise of the moon and the song of birds, which fits well with Wang Wei's state of "painting in poetry".(Zhao Dongli 2009)

5. Conclusion

By analyzing the two translations above, the author finds that in poetry translation Yang Xianyi attaches importance to form and Xu Yuanchong to meaning. Yang Xianyi prefers literal translation while Xu Yuanchong prefers free translation. In terms of formal system translation, Yang Xianyi's grasp of the beauty of rhyme is a little bit inferior to that of Xu Yuanchong, but in terms of the grasp of antithesis in poetry, both translators have demonstrated exquisite translation skills, each with its own advantages. Therefore, it can be seen that the mastery of source language and target language is very important in translation. In terms of the translation of non-formal systems, namely artistic conception, both translators represent the image beauty of the original poem to a large extent, but Xu Yuanchong's translation is better because Yang Xianyi uses more literal translation, which is slightly rigid. Xu's translation is more cohesive and readable, giving people a dynamic and harmonious aesthetic feeling.

Although there are differences between Chinese and Western cultures, a good translation can still represent the appearance, scenery and feelings of the original poem. From the perspective of translation aesthetics, the combination of literal translation and free translation is necessary in order to realize the aesthetic representation of poetry in translation. In terms of translation, both formal system and non-formal system should be taken into account to represent the beauty of poetry in sound, form and meaning. This also gives the corresponding aesthetic requirements for the translator, the translator must constantly improve their language skills and appreciation ability, in order to achieve continuous breakthroughs in aesthetic representation.（Wang Jie 2009,4）

References

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• Fang Mengzhi. 方梦之. (2004). 译学词典. [A Dictionary of Translation Studies]. 上海外语教育出版社[Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press] 296.

• Huang Jing, Li Shijun. 黄婧，李仕俊. (2010). 从翻译美学角度对比《鸟鸣涧》四种译文. [Comparison of Four Translations of "Niao Ming Jian" from the Perspective of Translation Aesthetics]. 外语 [Foreign Language] 130.

• Lao Qinyao, Luo Zhenting. 劳琴姚，罗正婷. (2017). 翻译美学视角下审美效果的再现——以《醉翁亭记》两译本为例. [ Aesthetic Representation of Two English Versions of "Zui Wen Ting Ji" from the Perspective of Translation Aesthetics] 安徽文学 [Anhui Literature] 49-51.

• Liu Miqing. 刘宓庆. (2005). 翻译美学导论. [An Introduction to Translation and Aesthetics]. 北京：中国对外翻译出版公司[Beijing: China Translation and Publishing Corporation].

• Tao Yingnian. 陶迎年. (2017). 从音、形、意三美对比《鸟鸣涧》五种英译本.[Comparison of Five English Translations of “Niao Ming Jian” from Beauty in Sense, Sound and Style]. 语言应用研究 [Language Application Research] 143-145.

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--Ling Zijin (talk) 14:16, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

An Chinese Aesthetic Study on Ezra Pound's Four Poems of Departure in Cathay - From the Perspective of Xu Yuanchong's "Beauty in Sense" Principle 石迪文 Shi Diwen, 202020080638

Abstract

At the dawn of the 21st century, Ezra Pound, intrigued by Chinese classical poetry, gave fresh impetus to the American New Poetry Movement. One of his works in this period, Cathay, involves nineteen Chinese poems selected and translated from Ernest Fenollosa’s notes, with contents spanning a thousand years from the Spring and Autumn P eriod (770B.C.-476B.C.) to the Tang Dynasty (618-907), in which Chinese classic poetry reached its acme and Confucian aesthetic philosophy of poetry and Taoist aesthetics dominated.

The study is focused on its four Poems of Departure, all originally written by Li Bai (李白), including "Separation on the River Kiang", "Taking Leave of a Friend", "Leave-taking near Shoku" and "The City of Choan". Its main contents involve interpretation and further exploration of the Chinese classic aesthetic values in Pound's version from the perspective of Xu Yuanchong's "Beauty in Sense" principle, by which it will prove that Pound's creative translation of Chinese classical poetry still possesses some Chinese classical aesthetic concepts.

Key Words

Ezra Pound, Cathay, Chinese classical aestheticism, Beauty in Sense Principle

题目

从许渊冲意美原则来看庞德《华夏集》中离别诗四首的中国美学研究

摘要

二十一世纪初，伊兹拉·庞德所领导的新诗运动从中国古典诗歌中寻找推动力，他在此期间所创译的《华夏集》从费诺罗萨笔记中选取了19首中国古典诗，横跨历史千年，从孔子编纂《诗经》的春秋时期(公元前770-公元前476年)到李白诗歌十二首的盛世唐朝(618年-907年)，这段时期中国古典诗达到艺术巅峰, 孔子所提出的诗歌美学观念成为古代诗歌理念主流之一，与道家美学双河并流。本篇论文将聚焦于四首诗人挑选成章的离别诗，均来自李白诗歌，分别是《黄鹤楼送孟浩然之广陵》、《送友人》、《送友人入蜀》以及《登金陵凤凰台》。论文主要内容是从许渊冲的意美原则阐释和进一步发现庞德译作中保留的中国古典美学价值。通过这种方式，本文试图证明庞德对中国古诗的创造性翻译中仍具有中国古典美学观念。

关键词

伊兹拉 · 庞德，《华夏集》，中国古典美学，意美原则

Introduction

Ezra Pound (1885-1972), one of the most influential and controversial figures in American literature, has received floods of praises and condemnation about his Cathay, a creative translation of nineteen Chinese poems, which introduces Confucian principles of poetry to American Imagist Movement. It not only rose against the exaggerative and mannered expression of Victorian style to boost the development of Western poetry but also set one of the important achievements in the history of Sino-Western cultural exchanges. The work involves nineteen Chinese poems selected and translated from Ernest Fenollosa’s notes, with its contents spanning a thousand years from the Spring and Autumn period (770B.C.-476B.C.) to the Tang Dynasty (618-907), in which Chinese classic poetry reaches its acme and Confucian aesthetic philosophy of poetry and Taoist aesthetics dominated. 

The study concentrates on Four Poems of Departure in Cathay, including "Separation on the River Kiang" (《黄鹤楼送孟浩然之广陵》), "Taking Leave of a Friend" (《送友人》), "Leave-taking near Shoku" (《送友人入蜀》) and "The City of Choan" (《登金陵凤凰台》), all of them originally written by the poet Li Bai, who was born in the most glorious age of Tang Dynasty. Its main content involves the reinterpretation of Pound's version from the perspective of Xu Yuanchong's "Beauty in Sense" Principle, by which to prove that Pound's creative translation of Chinese classical poetry still possesses Chinese classical aesthetic concepts. Besides, the article will testify the reasonability of the application of the principle to the appreciation of Pound’s translation, and deepen the learning of Chinese classical aesthetics.

The Introduction of Xu Yuanchong’s “Beauty in Sense” Principle

Beauty in sense in the translation of classical poetry comes first in the Xu Yuanchong’ Three Beauties. Generally speaking, Beauty in sense originates from the similarity in sense when doing the translation work; however, similarity in sense is just the superficial structure and beauty in sense belongs the deep one. (Xu Yuanchong, 1984: 64) Firstly, it puts forward Confucian aesthetic thoughts and Taoist aesthetics: one stresses the neutralization beauty of “gentleness” and “sincerity” (温柔敦厚); the other concerns about the imagery beauty of Chinese classical images and its artistic conception.

More precisely, Confucius advocates that the personal emotions expressed in poems should not be observed directly or thoroughly but be clouded, or to say, recorded emotional experiences of the real or imagined world should be presented in a roundabout and implicit way and brim with a beauty of moderation in content, i.e. “joyous but not indecent, mournful but not distressing, without resentment and slander ("乐而不淫, 哀而不伤, 怨而不谤"-《论语·八佾》).”

In Taoist thoughts, the Way (“道”) originates from the Nature and the Nature breeds a ultimate beauty as Chuang Tzu said, “Heaven and earth have their great beauties but do not speak of them; the four seasons have their clear-marked regularity but do not discuss it; the ten thousand things have their principles of growth but do not expound them ("天地有大美而不言，四时有明法而不议，万物有成理而不说。圣人者，原天地之美而达万物之理"-《庄子·外篇·知北游》).”

Taoism attached importance to the employment of natural images that not only echoes the neutralization beauty in poetic content but also creates an aura of a certain artistic conception(意境), concerned with the Taoist doctrines “object observed by object (以物观物)” , “both subject and object dissolve (物我两忘)” and “Heaven and earth were born at the same time I was, and the ten thousand things are one with me("天地与我并生，而万物与我为一"-《庄子.齐物论》),” as Wai-lim Yip says, “Taoist aestheticism is inspired by the unique technique of expression of observation and experience in Lao Tse (《老子》) and Chuang Tzu (《庄子》)”. (叶维廉，2004: 1)

Taoism puts forward that simplicity and plainness come to revive when the subject in poetry actively retreats from the governing place to leave more space for object and in return all objectives create a harmony with the subjective feelings. Thus, the reproduction of images is critically fundamental in the translation of Chinese classical poems and the love for images even contributes to a series of juxtaposition of imagery.

The Sense Beauty in Four Poems of Departure

Four Poems of Departure, all originally written by Li Bai and concerned with the theme of parting from Pound’s views of point, are " Separation on the River Kiang "(《黄鹤楼送孟浩然之广陵》) , " Taking Leave of a Friend " (《送友人》), " Leave-taking near Shoku " (《送友人入蜀》) and " The City of Choan " (《登金陵凤凰台》) respectively. Li Bai, a famous poet in the Tang Dynasty at its most prosperous time, always had the ambition for political achievement under the influence of Confucianism but with most of his talent in poetry he failed and exiled to the south-west.

In his life, he never settled down, and the restless energy of his life found its counterpart both in the speed with which he set down his compositions and in their propulsive sweep while the vigour and flamboyance of much of Li Bai’s poetry hides a deep core of loneliness. (Vikram Seth, 1992: 19) Impacted by Taoism, His emotion always seems to be related with the Nature and even the speaker in poem seemingly becomes superseded by the natural things while the emotion exists, flowing in a harmonious natural space of poetry. What’s more, the four poems following the tradition of Confucian philosophy in poetry turn an emotional surge into trickles of feelings.

The Sense Beauty in "Separation on the River Kiang"

  "Separation on the River Kiang"(《黄鹤楼送孟浩然之广陵》) is the first poem in Four poems of Departure, telling a story of parting with an intimate friend along the River Kiang. The original poem and Pound’s version are:  

黄鹤楼送孟浩然之广陵

(唐）李白

故人西辞黄鹤楼，烟花三月下扬州。

孤帆远影碧空尽，唯见长江天际流。 

Separation on the River Kiang

By Ezra Pound

KO-JIN goes west from Ko-kaku-ro,

The smoke-flowers are blurred over the river.

His lone sail blots the far sky.

And now I see only the river,

         The long Kiang, reaching heaven.

In the content of the first two lines, the translator mistranslates “故人”, “黄鹤楼” and to be more exactly he simply transliterates the Japanese version ("こじん" and “こうかくろう”) of the two nouns into their English version（KO-JIN and Ko-kaku-ro). The three words KO-JIN, Ko-kaku-ro, Kiang transliterate the related Japanese Kanji(日语汉字), whose accents originate from ancient Chinese pronouncation. Although the imitation is against its original meaning, it adds a hint of exoticism to the translation.

However, Pound maybe not a good Japanese learner because "こじん"(KO-JIN) refers to a dead person but not "故人" (an old friend). Furthermore, “烟花” means fireworks while Pound splits the word into “烟” (smoke) and “花” (flower) and invents a new compound word “smoke-flowers”. As for the last lines, he adopted a strategy of creative translation rather than word-for-word translation.

From the view of Xu’s Beauty in sense, Pound, though careless about the counterparts of culture-loaded words, successively transfers the sense beauty to his readers. Firstly, the translation follows the tradition of the original’s style for there is no intention of directly telling others the unwillingness of departure but the word “lone” betrays all sentiments, not only the solitude of the friend but also that of the poet himself. Besides, the version echoes the Taoist philosophy “object observed by object ” , “both subject and object dissolve ”.

The verse like an ink wash painting in which the white river-mist (“smoke-flowers”) unified with sky and river turns into being a Chinese art paper with the lone sail “blotting” while even though the sight of boat is blurred, the poet stands still and gazes at his friend’s receding figure, disappearing into nothing. At this time, all feelings are silent in the rimless mist only with a word “lone” left behind to be pondered on, rising up to a state of relieve and broad mind. In the last two lines, all things except the river vanish from the sight, leaving the world to the speaker and his gentle melancholy.

Thus, Pound represented the “gentleness” and “sincerity” in emotional expressions. Moreover, he preserved the imagery beauty of “lone sail”(孤帆) and “far sky”(碧空). A lone sail sets for someplace under the far sky, which seems a metaphor that compares the friend with the boat and the uncertainties with the sky. That shows the speaker is afraid of what the future will be with his friend. From the pespective of spatial structure, the “sail” as a point, the “river” as a line, the “sky” as a plane, all of these get combined and condensed into one sentence, easily transporting readers to the poetic space. While the infinite extension of “river” in the last sentence strengthen the comparison between the vastness of space and the tininess of human, reproducing the Taoist idea in the original that Man is an internal part of the Nature.

Furthermore, it is worthwhile noting that the word “reaching” in the last line to some degree depicts the river flow for the inflectional morpheme “-ing” imitates the movement, unfolding the picture in which river melt into the sky in the mind. All in all, the poem is spiritual alike with the original not only in the style of emotional expression but also in the imagery beauty, both of which are underpinned by the deep understanding of Confucian and Taoist aesthetics in the original.

The Sense Beauty in “Taking Leave of a Friend”

"Taking Leave of a Friend"(《送友人》) is the most sentimental in the four poems. The original poem and Pound’s version are:

送友人

(唐）李白

青山横北郭，白水绕东城。

此地一为别，孤蓬万里征。

浮云游子意，落日故人情。

挥手自兹去，萧萧班马鸣。

Taking Leave of a Friend

By Ezra Pound

Blue mountains to the north of the walls,

White river winding about them;

Here we must make separation

And go out through a thousand miles of dead grass.

Mind like a floating wide cloud.

Sunset like the parting of old acquaintances

Who bow over their clasped hands at a distance.

Our horses neigh to each other

          as we are departing. 

The first word “blue” is fabulous for its pun on the sad tone of the whole poem. Likewise, “a thousand miles of dead grass” in the fourth line also reflects the speaker’s mind state by keeping the original exaggeration. However, the translation of “孤蓬” into “dead grass” should be more elaborated for “蓬” is a typical drifting plant, called fleabane. Thus, the original describes it “孤”(lonely) while “dead” in Pound’s version goes too far, though it echoes the sad parting. Pound does not directly describe the speaker but the object, successfully weakening the expression of strong feelings and allowing readers to take a glance at his sorrow. In the fifth line, the parallel of wandering clouds and the setting sun emerge readers in empathy for the parting to come but the expected high-tide is absent, superseded by a shift of perspective:

Our horses neigh to each other

as we are departing. 

  The poet and his friend wave hands to each other without any words or close contact and leave. In tranquility, the rising sadness of the former part is blocked out by use of personification, providing the time for regaining elegance when the horses’ neighs as tribute to each other. On the whole, the poem realizes the sense beauty for its control of the speaker’s emotional expression. As for imagery beauty, all the images like mountain, river, cloud are well kept. Besides, “ Mind like a floating wide cloud ” misinterprets the original line “浮云游子意”, which means that young men like clouds never be settled instead of on the way for realizing their aspirations. 

Furthermore, it is a pity that the translating of the line “挥手自兹去” is omitted because the casual and silent action of waving hands by comparison with their horses’ whicker suggests their relationship as Confucius said “The friendship between gentlemen appears indifferent but is pure like water ("君子之交淡如水"-《庄子·山木》)”. Although there are omissions, the imagery beauty is well-interpreted, especially in the last line. The description of horses’ behavior is so realistic that the poem touching a chord with readers at once prints a lifelike painting on their minds and presents their reluctance to part in a roundabout way.

Moreover, Pound conforms to the concise principle of the original and put a series of prepositions into use such as “to” in “mountains to the north” and “ neigh to each other”, in order to amplify the types of sentences and simplify the expression. To be more precise, a long sentence with verbs obviously contrasts with short sentences, which contributes to the formation of natural musical qualities. For example, the first and second line set a context for the parting with specific words to describe like “blue”, “white” and “winding”.

However, detailed writing immediately become replaced by the intermission separating a long sentence into a short one ( “Here we must make separation”) and a long one. The former gives readers a chance to slow down the music rhythm, which can also be considered as a suspension of the high tide. Because the latter, the longest sentence in the poem, with exaggerative words like “thousand” and “dead” crystalizes the strongest emotional expression. Like Chopin’s Etudes, op.10 No.3 (Tristesse), the contrast of low and high notes rises up a kind of musical beauty, unique to English language.

What is following is a pair of metaphors, alleviating the tension but the second longest sentence does not leading the poetic music to its second high-tide. All of these turbulent feelings are ended by two separate short lines “Our horses neigh to each other” “as we are departing”, echoing the thirds line “Here we must make separation”. On the whole, Pound’s version creatively endowed the poem with the musical qualities of English language and at the same time the compactness and simplicity of Chinese poetic sentence structure still dominate. Overall, its irregularity corresponds to the ups and down of the speaker’s uneasiness.

Furthermore, he broke out the grammatical rules to compact the diction of images, particularly in the first two lines “Blue mountains to the north of the walls, White river winding about them”, which makes use of preposition to replace the two verbs “横” “绕”. Similarly, in the line “浮云游子意，落日故人情”, Li Bai directly juxtaposes the images “浮云” (wandering clouds) “落日” (the setting sun) and personal emotions “游子意”(wanderer’s feeling) “故人情” (nostalgia for old friends) while Pound employs the preposition “like” to connet the nouns and its figurative meaning. Actually, Pound does not really understand Li Bai’s intention that instead of metaphor he just aims to reach a Taoist balance by a simple juxtaposition of natural images and emotion, leaving more uncertainty for readers to imagine.

The Sense Beauty in “Leave-taking near Shoku”

  "Leave-taking near Shoku"(《送友人入蜀》) is written to a friend who has been relegated to a barren territory, called Shu (蜀) and the parting is near:

送友人入蜀

(唐）李白

见说蚕丛路，崎岖不易行。

山从人面起，云傍马头生。

芳树笼秦栈，春流绕蜀城。

升沉应已定，不必问君平。

Leaving-taking near Shoku

By Ezra Pound

THEY say the roads of Sanso are steep,

Sheer as the mountains.

The walls rise in a man’s face,

Clouds grow out of the hill

          at his horse’s bridle.

Sweet trees are on the paved way of the Shin,

Their trunks burst through the paving,

And freshets are bursting their ice

          in the midst of Shoku, a proud city.

Men’s fates are already set,

There is no need of asking diviners.

In the original poem, metaphor and exaggeration are used to describe the hostility of the journey in the first five lines, both of which are well-preserved in the translation. Even though the areas of Shu is mountainous with treacherous roads and thousands miles away from the capital city, the speaker positively find scenery beauty: “芳树” “春流”, translated to“sweet trees” and “freshets” respectively by Pound. It is obvious that “春流” is mistranslated for he wrongly equals it with the image of rising river with ice melting.

Actually, Shu (蜀) or to say Sichuan Province, has four seasons warm like spring, thus it is impossible for the scene “freshets are bursting their ice” to happen. Briefly speaking, Pound over-translates the line. By and large, the first stanza fundamentally reproduces both the arduous trip to Shu and its enchanting landscapes.

However in the last part, the friend is afraid of uncertainties in making fortune as well as the dangers in the journey, thus always turning to a fortune-teller for suggestions. The last two lines, or to say, an epigram, “升沉应已定，不必问君平” is paraphrased as “Men’s fates are already set, There is no need of asking diviners” . Although “君平”, a Chinese literary allusion to a physiognomist, is unavoidably omitted, the entire translation resonates Confucius’ words “Junzi keeps his elegance and tranquility in distress but the petty will completely lose the morality of human ("君子固穷, 小人穷斯滥矣"-孔子《论语·卫灵公》)” .

In purpose to summon up his friend’s courage to face the challenge instead of being a coward who loses gentleman’s elegance, being threatened by the unknown and begging for unrealistic assistance. In a broad sense, this poem encourages people in troubles to conquer fears with optimism and keep the brave spirit in heart no matter what is confronted with, not only brave to be self-reliant in life but also be self-dependent in spirit. All in all, Pound’s version except for some errors is a perfect match for the original in content: (1) the reproduction of images in English language essentially preserves the imagery beauty; (2) the smart and brief interpretation of the last epigram keeps Chinese philosophical beauty.

By analyzing the entire poem, we can find that sentences with link-verb predicative are comparatively increased like “Sweet trees are on the paved way of the Shin/Their trunks burst through the paving” and “And freshets are bursting their ice” . By using the be form, the verb “burst” directly presents the dominance of trees’ shadowing the track, spiritually alike to the Chinese verb “笼” while its progressive form becomes more dynamic and vivid, which elaborately conveys the vitality of river, though it deviates from the meaning of “绕” (wind). What’s more, other be forms also can be seen in the last line. When people read it, the speaker’s affirmation can make them convinced of his thought, miraculously retelling Li Bai’s encouragement to his friend.

The Sense Beauty in “The City of Choan”

The last poem “The City of Choan”(《登金陵凤凰台》) distinct from the previous three poems of departure seems to be more about a contemplation of history in a historical site (called Phoenix Terrace, 凤凰台) than a parting. The reason for why Pound classifies it into Four poems of Departure may be that parting in a broad sense is a farewell to anything such as the speaker’s leave from Choan, which actually misinterprets the original.

登金陵凤凰台

(唐)李白

凤凰台上凤凰游，凤去台空江自流。

吴宫花草埋幽径，晋代衣冠成古丘。

三山半落青天外，二水中分白鹭洲。

总为浮云能蔽日，长安不见使人愁。

The City of Choan

THE phoenix are at play on their terrace.

The phoenix are gone, the river flows on alone.

Flowers and grass

Cover over the dark path

          Where lay the dynastic house of the Go.

The bright cloths and bright caps of Shin

Are now the base of old hills.

The Three Mountains fall through the far heaven,

The isle of White Heron

          splits the two streams apart. 

Now the high clouds cover the sun

And I can not see Choan afar

And I am sad.

In the first two line of the original, by comparing the prosperity of a dynasty to the phoenix, an auspicious sign in the ancient China, the speaker clarifies the truth that a dynasty no matter how powerful it is will not escape from changes in the passage of time (a parallel to the coming and leaving of phoenix) while nature keeps its law functioning, with all that used to be prosperous now reduced to a wilderness. In Pound’s version, the basic meaning and the main image phoenix are well preserved but there is a call for improvement.

Explicitly, the culture-loaded words are literally translated, possibly leading to some misunderstandings. For example, “晋代衣冠”(official uniform in Jin Dynasty) is a metonymy for the ruling class in Jin instead of clothing itself. After pondering on the fall of Jin (“Shin”) and the rise of Wu ( “the Go” ) , the speaker casts his sight on the real scene before him: “三山半落青天外，二水中分白鹭洲”, translated as “The Three Mountains fall through the far heaven/ The isle of White Heron splits the two streams apart”, which completely reproduces the geographic space in the original for the translator by describing the vertical space through the use of the verb phrase “fall through” and the planar space “splits...apart”.

In the last line of the original, the image of sun is employed to symbolize the central power of the country while the “high clouds” (a metaphor for treacherous officials ) obscure it, suggesting that corrupted and crafty officials blind the monarch to justice. Thus, as a loyal subject with integrity, he suffers a false charge and “can not see Choan (长安), a capital city here as a metaphor for the ruler) afar”, which implies that his political fantasy goes down. The depression for the monarch’s ignorance is mixed with his growing feeling of disillusionment.

Its translation, on the basis of keeping the metaphor, also represents the the neutralization beauty of “gentleness” and “sincerity” for his “I am sad” reproduces the meaning of “愁”. The simplest words are the most touching words. All worries for the country and grudges against the tribulations are condensed into the three words. All in all, the original’s sense beauty in both metaphor and emotional expression is perfectly reproduced in Pound’s translation.

When reading the poem, people can find that the poem is incredibly full of alliteration and repetition, which seems not to be Pound’s free style. In the first part, repetition of Phoenix appears in the beginning of the first two lines, representing the repetitive sound of “凤 (fèng)”. Besides, in the line “The bright cloths and bright caps of Shin/ Are now the base of old hills”, the repetitions of “bright” and the phone [s] in “cloths”, “caps” and “base”give the version some qualities of classical music, which sound suitable for the historical theme. Overall, the translation divides the original into two stanzas: one concerning the contemplation of historical changes; the other about the view of the historical views (The Phoenix Terrace) before his eye and his deep sorrow for his suffering, which explicitly separate the poem into the past and the present.

In the poem, time integrates with space and at the same time nature integrates with the speaker’s aspiration, revealing the contradiction between Confucius’ Rushi (入世) and Taoist Chushu (出世). The former refers to the aspiration “To establish intention for the world; to shoulder mission for the people; to inherit discontinued learning for the late saint; and to initiate peace for all ages ("为天地立心，为生民立命，为往圣继绝学，为万世开太平"-张载《横渠语录》)” accepted by Chinese literati throughout generations under the influence of Confucius, which is also presented by the speaker; the latter showed in the historical and natural changes in the poem means transcendence from worldliness and the government should be in harmony with the Nature as Lao Tzu said :

Heaven and Earth are not kind.

They regard all things as offerings.

The sage is not kind.

He regards people as offerings.

Is not the space between Heaven and Earth like a bellows?

It is empty, but lacks nothing.

The more it moves, the more comes out of it.

A multitude of words is tiresome,

Unlike remaining centered.

Conclusion

All the four poems are in a melancholy tone but they are distinct from each other in Beauty in Sense. The first poem “Separation on the River Kiang” in the most gentle but most overwhelming way expresses negative emotions with only one word (“lone”) betraying the speaker’s sorrow while at the same time integrated with the boundlessness of the River Kiang, which keeps and reproduces the original imagery beauty tactfully; In “Taking Leave of a Friend”, Pound adopts a series of figures of speech such as hyperbole and metaphor, essentially representing the artistic conception of the original, though there are some mistakes in comprehension.

“Leave-taking near Shoku” perfectly retells the original, or to say, it is the most loyal one to the original text, particularly in the last but the most important lines, which really give the best interpretation of the speaker’s intention; The last poem “The City of Choan” is improperly involved in Pound’s selection of four poems of departure due to the tiny misunderstanding of the last line in the original but the translation excellently reproduces the historical vicissitudes and the beauty of spatial construction in the original.

In China most of the researches on Cathay have been concerned with the translation comparison of selected texts, all of which have attached importance on the aesthetic presentation of the Pound’s version. But actually, Chinese traditional aesthetic philosophy has not been ever further studied by our English learners such as the Confucian and Taoist artistic philosophy. Thus, it is worth noting the problem that the related researches are fixed in form and monotonous in content. To solve it, studies about Cathay in the future should be underpinned by the Chinese cultural learning and new findings will take root in the untrodden soil of Chinese classical culture.

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A Study on the Four Levels of Translation Based on Newmark’s Theory 张玲 Zhang Ling 202070080623 英语笔译

张玲 Zhang Ling 202070080623

Abstract

Faithfulness, which is regarded as the basic standard of translation, has always been put in the first place in traditional translation standards. To appreciate the quality of a translation, we mainly see whether the translation can accurately express the meaning of the original text and be faithful to the original. On the level of translation, many translators have put forward their own views. Peter Newmark, British translation theorist, once put forward the view of "textual level, referential level, cohesive level and level of naturalness". According to Newmark's point of view, in the process of expression, the translator must be responsible for the original text and the translation at these four levels, so as to faithfully express the meaning of the original text. From the perspective of level, this paper analyzes the four levels and how the translation should be faithful to the translation.

Key Words

textual level; referential level; cohesive level; level of naturalness

题目

从纽马克的翻译理论看翻译的四个层次

摘要

传统的翻译标准一直将“信”摆在首位，即“忠实”，并将其作为翻译的基本标准。鉴赏一篇译文的质量，我们主要会看译文是否能准确表达原文的意思，忠实原文。关于翻译的层次，许多翻译学家都提出了自己的见解，英国翻译理论学家纽马克的曾提出“文本层次、所指层次、粘着层次和自然层次”的说法。按照纽马克的观点，在表达的过程中，译者必须在这四个层次上对原文和译文负责，才能做到忠实地表达原文的意思。本文将具体分析这四个层次，从层次的角度来分析翻译的忠实性。

关键词

文本层次 所指层次 粘着层次 自然层次

Textual Level

Textual level refers to the literal meaning of the original text. It focuses on determining the specific meaning of a word. In the process of translation, it is the first level that translators should pay attention to, because any translation comes from the original. It is not only the beginning but also the end of translation activities. (Xu Ling, 2005)

To a great extent, to be responsible for and faithful to the original text is that we must be faithful to the literal meaning of the original. The phenomenon of polysemy exists in both English and Chinese. In the process of understanding the literal meaning of the original text, we often encounter the difficult point of how to deal with polysemy. A polyseme refers to a word which has multiple meanings, usually related by contiguity of meaning within a semantic field. Therefore, the same word may have completely different meaning, which will interfere with the understanding of the literal meaning of the original text. Here are some examples. (Luo Jinde, 1998)

E.g.1

SL text: It is quite another story now.

TL text：现在情况完全不同了。

E.g.2

SL text: The white-haired girl's story is one of the saddest.

TL text: 白毛女的遭遇可算是最悲惨的。

E.g.3

SL text: A young man came to police station with a story.

TL text: 一个年轻人来到警察局报案。

Although these three examples are very simple, they are very instructive. This three sentences all contain the word “story”, but its meaning is different like black and white when it is translated. In the first sentence, “story” means “situation” or “case”, and the sentence means that things are different now. In the second sentence, “story” means “experience”, and the sentence means that the experience of the white-haired girl is one of the saddest. In the third sentences, “story” means “law case”, and the sentence means that a young man came to police station with a case. (Zhang Peiji, 2009)

Another problem involved in the textual level is that the translated text must accord with the convention of the target language. There are great differences between English and Chinese in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, because English belongs to Indo-European language while Chinese belongs to Sino-Tibetan language, and they are deeply influenced by the culture of their respective countries. If we stick to the original text and translate it word for word according to the literal meaning of the original text, we may produce some sentences that are not in accordance with the convention of the target language or even wrong. (Zhang Peiji, 2009)

E.g.4

SL text:Tom was upsetting the other children, so I show him the door.

TL text 1: 汤姆一直在扰乱别的孩子，我就把他带到门那去。

TL text 2: 汤姆一直在扰乱别的孩子，我就把他撵出去了。

E.g.5

SL text: His irritation could not withstand the silent beauty of the night.

TL text 1: 他的烦恼不能承受夜晚宁静的美丽。

TL text 2: 面对着宁静的良宵美景，他的烦恼烟消云散了。

It is not difficult to see from the two translation versions that the second translation is better than the first one, because the former is more in line with the language convention of Chinese. Therefore, it can be seen that literal meaning in the textual level is not simple literal correspondence. Instead, it should be adjusted according to the convention of target language. (Zhang Peiji, 2009)

Referential Level

The referential level refers that translators should grasp the referential meaning of the original text. It is the minimum requirement for translation to figure out the referential meaning of the original. Newmark once claimed, “You should not read a sentence without seeing it on the referential level.” The obscure and implied implication of the original text requires the translator to see the true connotation through the text. This is the minimum requirement for translation. However, sometimes the literal meaning of the original text is not very clear. The translator must figure out the real meaning through the literal meaning and describe them accurately in the target language. At this time, due to the differences between the two languages, there may be a certain distance between the translation and the original. (Newmark, 2001)

In order to deliver the exact referential meaning, translators should give more attention to the translation of pronouns because pronouns are more frequently used in English than in Chinese. There are personal pronoun, impersonal pronoun, relative pronoun and so on, which can be used repeatedly in the same sentence and appear alternately. Therefore, in the process of translation, we may often encounter the problem of ambiguous reference of pronouns. In this time, we need to make a specific analysis of specific words or sentences, and sometimes even to analyze the definite meaning of a certain context. In the process of translation, we often see that one or several English sentences contain multiple personal pronouns. At this time, the direct application of personal pronouns in the original English text not only affects the readability of the translation, but also causes problems in the collocation of words and the cohesion of sentence patterns, so it is difficult to accurately reflect the meaning of the original text. Here are two examples.(Newmark, 2001)

E.g. 6

SL text: Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter for us in an advanced age; and if we don’t plant it while young, it will give us no shade when we grow old.

TL text 1：知识是我们老年时舒适而又必需的精神归宿。 如果我们年轻时不种它，它就不会在我们年老时给我们提供树荫。

TL text 2：知识是人生老年期舒适而又必需的精神归宿。如果年轻时不种下知识之树，老年时就得不到树荫的遮蔽。

From the two translations, it is not difficult to see that the second translation is better than the first translation. The reason is that there is no need to translate two general pronouns "us" and "we" in the original text, and the meaning of the original text will be clear and accurate only when they are removed. In addition, it is inappropriate to translate "it" into "它". In the original, the metaphor “it” refers to “knowledge”, and the first translation omits this metaphor, which makes readers don’t what it is talking about. (Qian Gechuan, 2011)

E.g. 7

SL text: Mr. and Mrs. Brown were talking about their neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and their new house.

“He must be making a good income to be able to live in a house like that,” said he, “to say nothing of the car they have. It’s a Rolls.”

“Oh,I don’t think he makes much money,” she replied, “but I fancy she has a private income.”

“I wonder whether they paid for it themselves or whether her parents gave it to her,” he said．

She answered, “Yes, they bought it after a lucky week with the football pools. But as for the car, I can’t speak definitely about that, though I think it is hers rather than his.”

“I know which of the two I would sooner have,” was his comment．

TL text：布朗先生和布朗夫人在谈论他们的新邻居———史密斯先生和史密斯夫人，以及他们的新房子。

“他能够住那么好的房子一定收入颇丰，”布朗先生说，“更不必说他们开的车了，是辆劳斯莱斯。”

“哦，我不认为他能赚很多钱，”布朗太太答道， “但我猜史密斯夫人有私人收入。”

“我怀疑这房子是他们自己买的还是史密斯夫人的父母给她的。”布朗先生说。

布朗夫人回答说: “是啊，他们在赢了一次足球六合彩之后买了这房子。但是至于那辆车，我就不太确定了，尽管我认为那是史密斯夫人的而不是史密斯先生的。”

“我知道我宁可拥有这二者中哪一个。”布朗先生评论说。

In the original text, Mr. and Mrs. Brown and Mr. and Mrs. Smith are all referred to by personal pronouns he, she, her and his. In order to avoid ambiguous reference of pronouns, many English pronouns, such as he, she, her and his are translated into “布朗先生” and “布朗夫人”, and “史密斯先生” and “史密斯夫人” in this translation version, rather than “他” or “她”. If the sentence “But as for the car, I can’t speak definitely about that, though I think it is hers rather than his.” is translated into “但是至于那辆车，我就不太确定了，尽管我认为那是她的而不是他的”，it will cause great misunderstanding for readers and they may feel difficult to understand. This kind of reference can make the characters in the original text correspond to the characters in the translation. At the same time, it also shows that the determination of the referential meaning will affect the accuracy of the whole translation. (Zhang Peiji, 2009)

Cohesive Level

Cohesive level refers to the connection between sentences in text. Each language has its own unique way of connection which reflects its unique thinking pattern. Therefore, translators can not completely copy the way of connection of the original text in translation, but should organize the translation with the authentic cohesive way of the target language on the basis of a full understanding of the original text. Just as Newmark claimed, “At this level, you reconsider the lengths of paragraphs and sentences, the formulation of the title; the tone of the conclusion”, the cohesive level mainly refers to the faithfulness to the original text at the paragraph and discourse level.(Newmark, 2001)

There are great differences between English and Chinese in grammar, especially in word order. If the word order of the original text is closely followed in translation, the whole text may be distorted. In addition, English sentences are sometimes very long and there are many clauses. When translated into Chinese, sentences should be broken at appropriate places and necessary adjustments should be made. (Qian Gechuan, 2011)

Some SL texts seem to be correct in every sentence, but they are actually unreadable when they are put together. It is like a portrait painting. The eyes, nose, mouth and ears are all well drawn, but when they are put together, they are not like a person's face. Here, in addition to factors such as improper proportion and inconsistent style, there is also an important reason, that is, the "connection" between the five senses is not coordinated. The same problem exists in translation. There are great differences in grammar, especially word order between English and Chinese. (Zhang Peiji, 2009)

In addition, the length and punctuation rules of English and Chinese sentences are quite different. Sometimes English sentences may be very long and there are many clauses. When translated into Chinese, it is necessary to break sentences in proper places and make necessary adjustments. Chinese sentences are usually short and sometimes need to be combined when translated into English. In short, in order to make the translation expressive, we must take full account of the differences between the two languages and carefully "connect" each sentence to make it a whole. It is like using an invisible silk thread to string pearls together into a beautiful necklace. (Zhang Peiji, 2009)

E.g. 8

ST text: At the opening banquet, Nixon seemed to have paraphrases his host’s position by saying, “there are of course some who believe that the mere act of saying a statement of principles or a diplomatic conference will bring lasted peace. This is naïve.”

TL text: 尼克松在欢迎宴会上说：“当然，有些人认为只要发表一项声明或举行一次外交会议就能带来持久和平。这是天真的想法。” 他这番话似乎是在阐述东道国的立场。

Here in this sentence, the structure of the source language text has been rearranged and the word order has been changed in order to ensure the fluency of target language, In Chinese, the subject usually comes first and summative words are usually put at the end. Therefore, in the TL text “Nixon” is put at the first and the position of “seemed to have paraphrases his host’s position” is put at the end. (Zhuang Yichuan, 2002)

E.g. 9

ST text: Well, you can imagine how it was with a young fellow who had never been taken notice of before, and now all of a sudden couldn’t say a thing that wasn’t taken up and repeated everywhere; couldn’t sit abroad without constantly overhearing the remark flying from lip to lip, “ There he goes; that’s him!” couldn’t take his breakfast without a crowd to look on; couldn’t appear in an opera-box without concentrating there the fire of a thousand lorgnettes. Why, I just swam in glory all day long -- that is the amount of it.

TL text: 你可以想象得到那是什么滋味：一个年轻小伙子，从来没有被人注意过，现在忽然之间，随便说句什么话，马上就会有人把它记住，到处传播出去；随便到哪走动一下，总不免听见人家一个个辗转相告：“那儿走着的就是他，就是他！”吃早餐的时候，也老是有一大堆人围着看；一到歌剧院的包厢。就会使得无数观众的望远镜的火力都集中到自己身上。哎，我简直就是一天到晚在荣耀中过日子——十足是那个味道。

The source language text is a long sentence, so it is necessary to take sentence segmentation into consideration. Otherwise, it will make the translation cumbersome and unintelligible. It’s widely believed that the most important difference between English and Chinese is hypotaxis and parataxis. English belongs to hypotaxis language. (Zhang Peiji, 2009)

English sentences take subject and predicate as the core, and then add various modifiers on this basis to form a complex structure with numerous branches. Chinese pays more attention to parataxis, and sentences are stated one by one in chronological order. Chinese uses more than one verb to form multiple short sentences. In this way, the TL text makes “you can imagine how it was” a sentence alone, and “now all of a sudden couldn’t say a thing that wasn’t taken up and repeated everywhere” is rearranged as four short sentences as “现在忽然之间，随便说句什么话，马上就会有人把它记住，到处传播出去”. (Zhang Peiji, 2009)

Level of Naturalness

The level of naturalness is a summary of the above three levels. It is mainly to grasp the natural fluency of the translation as a whole. To some extent, it can be said that the natural level is a process of checking, perfecting and making the translation more perfect. “In all ‘communicative translation’, whether you are translating an informative text, a notice or an advert, ‘naturalness’ is essential” (Newmark, 2001).

In order to fulfill the level of naturalness, the translator needs to ensure “(a) that your translation makes sense; (b) that it reads naturally, that it is written in ordinary language, the common grammar, idioms and words that meet that kind of situation.” (Newmark, 2001)

It may be helpful to check the naturalness of the target text by temporarily separating oneself from the source language text. In addition to some technical terms, there is almost no complete equivalence in the target language, and in literal translation, their meanings often overlap or are included in the vocabulary of the source language. Thus, “the enforced shift from generic to specific units or vice versa, sometimes due to overlapping or included meaning, sometimes to notorious lexical gaps in one of the language” is one of the main problems during the translation process.(Newmark, 2001)

There are many cases in which the translation is not natural and does not conform to the habits of the target language. In order to eliminate this phenomenon, we must try our best to eliminate the interference of the original text on the basis of understanding the original text, and express the meaning of the original text with idiomatic target language, so as to be faithful to the original text as well as fluent and natural. In translation practice, the translator may as well leave the first draft aside after completing it. After a period of time, from the perspective of the target readers to recheck the translation and to see whether there is any unnaturalness. In this way, many problems can be found. (Qian Gechuan, 2011)

E.g. 10

SL text: Then Lieutenant Grub launched into the old recruiting routine, “See, save and serve! Hannigan, free tour to all the ports in the world. A fine ship for a home. Three meals a day without charge... You mustn’t let such a golden opportunity slip by.”

TL text: 于是，格拉布上尉开始说起招兵的老一套了：“见见世面，攒点钱，为国家出点力！汉尼根，免费周游世界上所有的港口。一艘上好的船为家，一天三餐不要钱。......你千万不要错过这样大好的机会呀！”

English verbs are divided into transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. The object of intransitive verbs is actually hidden behind this verb, which is often needed to express when translated into Chinese. Here in the ST text, the sentence “See, save and serve!” only contains three verbs, while in TL text these three verbs are translated into “见见世面，攒点钱，为国家出点力!”. Chinese words and phrases tend to be specific and detailed in meaning, thus the verbs “see”, “save”, and “ serve” that refers to “see the world”, “save some money” and “do something for the country” are translated into “见见世面，攒点钱，为国家出点力!” (Zhang Peiji, 2009)

E.g. 11

SL text: The English arrived in North America with hopes of duplicating the exploits of the Spanish in South America, where explores had discovered immense fortunes in gold and silver. Although Spain and England shared a pronounced lust for wealth, differences between the two countries were profound.

TL text 1: 英国人抱着和西班牙人开拓南美洲一样的动机来到北美洲，西班牙的探险者在南美洲发现了大批金银财宝。虽然西班牙和英国都同样明显地贪图财富，但是两国的文化却存在着很大的差异。

TL text 2: 当年西班牙探险者在南美洲发现了大批金银财宝。英国人来到北美洲的动机也如出一辙。尽管两国对财富的贪欲同样强烈，但是两国在文化上却存在着巨大的差异。

Here in this sentence, the original text contains an attributive clause. The TL text 1 puts it after the main sentence, resulting in a very awkward cohesion between the two sentences, and the whole paragraph is fragmented. According to the convention of the target language, the TL text 2 organizes the original according to the time and space order, and puts the attributive clause in the original text before the main sentence, so that the whole sentence is more coherent. (Zhang Peiji, 2009)

E.g. 12

SL text: Her ascent of the crooked staircase was a slower process, and her face, as it rose into the light above the last stair, encountered the gaze of all the party assembled in the bedroom．

TL text: 她脚步缓慢地攀登着弯弯曲曲的楼梯，当她登上最后一级楼梯、脸膛从暗处进入亮处的时候，意外地发现聚集在室内的人们把目光全都转向了她。

In Chinese sentences, verbs are used more widely and frequently, and a sentence can contain several verbs. Here in this TL text, the sentence structure of the original text "A is B" has been changed and the verbs "上", "走", "攀登" and "放慢" have been added to describe Mrs. Debbie's upstairs movements more clearly and vividly, which does not violate the original meaning but also conforms to the convention of target language. Because English and Chinese belong to two different language families, there are great differences in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. Therefore, if we want to achieve real discourse fluency on the level of naturalness, the main way is to focus on the above three levels, so that the translation can be faithful to the connotation of the original text. (Zhang Peiji, 2009)

Conclusion

Peter Newmark's four levels of translation is used to divide the translation process into four parts. "Four level translation" breaks the limitation of language units and deals with translation from a macro perspective, thus maintaining the integrity of the text. (Xu Ling, 2005)

In therms of textual level, special attention should be paid to the literal meaning of the original text, expression and word selection in the process of translation. In other words, the words in SL text should not be replaced by synonyms, and the grammatical structure should remain unchanged, unless they are meaningless in the target language. (Xu Ling, 2005)

In the case of referential level, the translator needs to understand the referential meaning clearly. One of the basic principles of translation is to follow the meaning of the source text and the author's intention, especially for highly authoritative expressive texts. However, the meaning of the SL text is not always clear. Therefore, the translator'sresponsibility is to see through the surface vocabulary of the original text, grasp the implied meaning of the original text, and then translate it accurately. (Qian Gechuan, 2011)

As far as the cohesive level goes, the connection in the source text can not be transferred to the target language version optionally, because each language has its own way of connection, which reflects the unique way of thinking of native language users. The translator needs to reconstruct the translation on the basis of full understanding to make the translation as coherent as the original. At this level, the the length of paragraphs and sentences, as well as the structure should be taken into consideration again. (Zhang Peiji, 2009)

The level of naturalness is the basic standard for the target language text. The translation must be fluent and conform to the habits of the target language. Naturalness is essential for various texts such as informative text, notices and advertisements. The translator needs to make sure that his translation is meaningful and readable by using common language, grammar, idioms and appropriate words. (Newmark, 2001)

However, these four levels are not isolated and often overlap in the process of translation. As a result, some examples may be less representative because they are handled at multiple levels. From the perspective of the whole translation process, it is important for translators to understand translation theories. It not only provides translation skills to solve problems, but also helps translators to make self-criticism. Translation under the guidance of theory is much more mature than blind translation. (Xu Ling, 2005)

Therefore, in addition to cultivating translation skills, translators also need to have a deeper understanding of translation theory. Due to the limited understanding of translation theory and the lack of understanding of translation theory, there may be a lack of systematic and theoretical analysis and comments. However, translation is only a reflection of the translator's translation ability at this stage. In bilingual translation, it is the translator's lifelong pursuit to improve his translation theory and skills. (Zhang Peiji, 2009)

References

[1]. Newmark Peter. (2001). Approaches to Translation. Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

[2]. Newmark Peter. (2001). A Textbook of Translation. Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

[3]. Luo Jinde, Chen Anding 罗进德，陈定安. (1998). 英汉比较与翻译 [Comparison and Translation Between English and Chinese]. 中国对外翻译出版公司[China Translation & Publishing Corporation].

[4]. Qian Gechuan 钱歌川. (2011). 翻译的技巧[The Technique of Translation].世界图书出版社[World Book Press].

[5] Xu Ling, Lin Jian, Zhang Ying 许 玲, 林 健, 张 莹. (2005). 浅析翻译的层次[Simple Analysis on Translation Levels]. 天津：天津职业大学[Tianjin: Tianjin Professional College].

[6]. Zhang Peiji 张培基. (2009). 英汉翻译教程[A Course in English-Chinese Translation]. 上海：上海外国语教育出版社[Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press].

[7]. Zhuang Yichuan 庄绎传. (2002). 英汉翻译简明教程[M]. 北京：外语教学与研究出版社[Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press]. --Zhang Ling (talk) 13:59, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

A Study on Translatability and Untranslatability of English and Chinese Puns and Corresponding Strategies of Translation 曾心媛 Zeng Xinyuan 202070080579 英语笔译

Abstract

Pun is a widely used rhetorical device. It is greatly favored by people because of its humor and rich connotation. But pun translation is very difficult due to its particularity and complexity. This paper analyzes the translatability and untranslatability of pun respectively, and explores the relevant translation strategies.

摘要

双关语是一种使用广泛的修辞手法。因其幽默诙谐，内涵丰富的语言效果深受人们喜爱，但中英互译时，由于双关语的特殊性和复杂性，双关语翻译显得十分困难。本文分别对双关语翻译中的可译性与不可译性进行了探析，并对其相关翻译策略进行有关探索。

Key Words

Key words: puns, translatability, untranslatability, corresponding translation strategies

关键词

关键词：双关语 可译性 不可译性 相应翻译策略

Introduction

Rhetoric is an important part of language and a significant means to improve the effect of language expression, and it is a language form with rich connotation. As one of the rhetorical devices, pun can increase the sense of humor and irony, so it is widely used in poetry, novels, advertisements and riddles. However, due to the particularity of pun, pun translation is often a difficulty. Translation researchers have been arguing about whether puns are translatable for a long time.

This paper firstly introduces the definition of pun—pun is a rhetorical way to make certain words or sentences convey double meanings that is, one meaning on the surface, but another meaning in fact. Secondly, it introduces the three main categories of puns - phonetic, semantic and grammatical puns, and analyzes the three classifications and the three main translation strategies—literal translation, free translation and annotation through examples. Through the analysis of examples, it analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the three kinds of pun translation strategies, and points out that the translator should not only accurately convey semantic information, but also recreate rhetoric in the translation, providing the same feeling to readers that they have in reading the original text and translation.

Definition of pun

The word “pun” was originated from a Latin word “paranomasia”, which refers to “similar in look and semantic meaning”. According to Cihai, “pun” is a rhetorical device that intentionally uses homophone or phonogram and polysemy words which can generate equivocality in order to punningly express what the speaker is really trying to say. （Cong Laiting，Xu Luya，2007）So the pun word makes the sentence contain double meaning: the superficial meaning, and deep meaning, because of which pun also can make the language humorous, concise, powerful and meaningful, leaving a deep impression to the audience. It is used widely in our life, such as films and television, advertisements, news, literary works and daily dialogues.

American scholar Archibald A. Hill once said that there are three prerequisites in puns: double context, hinge( which refers to polysemy and homophone), and trigger (motive and background of using puns).（Fan Jiacai，1992:182）For example: “You are not eating your fish, anything wrong with it?” the waitress said to him. “Long time no sea,” the customer replied.(Tong Kaiwen, 2017, 21), In this dialogue, “sea” has the same pronunciation as “see”, providing the hinge. As for the double context, which on the one hand, means that the customer is greeting to the waitress, but on the other hand, what the customer actually want to express is that the fish is not fresh enough as it has left sea for a long time. And the trigger is that the customer want waitress know the fish is not fresh. And there is a famous pun—“ Seven days without water make one weak.” The hinge in the sentence is the word “weak”, a homophone of “ week”. So it can mean “Without water, seven days still equal to a week”, or “Without water for seven days make one weak.” And the trigger is the common sense that we know both of the sentences make sense.

Three Main Types of Puns

“Pun has many types, including homophonic pun同音双关, paranomasia 近音双关, antalaclasis同词异义双关语,sylleptic pun一词多义双关,asteismus歧解双关语, irony反语,innuendo暗讽,satire讥讽, rhetorical question 修辞问句and allegory讽喻.”（Cong Laiting, Xu Luya, 2007）But we can mainly divided them into three types: phonetic puns, semantic puns, and grammatical puns.

The first type is phonetic puns, which include homophonic pun, paranomasia, and antalaclasis. This kind of pun is created by using words with similar spelling, pronunciation, and even with same pronunciation. It is widely used in humorous stories, and riddles, by using which can make the language more interesting, amusing, and attractive. (Zhao Yuqing, 2019:196)

Take the following dialogues as examples:

Homophonic pun

Eg. 1. -What is the most contradictory sign in a library? -To speak aloud is not allowed. (Tong Kaiwen, 2017: 51) In this dialogue, “aloud” has the same pronunciation with “allowed”, which may sounds like“ To speak aloud is not aloud”, making the dialogue more contradictory, so as to answer the question.

Eg. 2. -King: My cousin Hamlet, and my son—how is it that the clouds still hang on you? -Hamlet: Not so, my lord. I am too much in the sun.(Zhao Yuqing, 2019: 196) In the dialogue, “son” pronounces the same as “sun”, and Hamlet’s reply seemingly is to directly answer the King, but the true meaning of his words is that “I don’t want to be your son anymore”, expressing his aversion to the king.

Paranomasia

Eg. 3. Drunk drivers put a quart before the hearse.(Yao Jinhong,2001: 161) At first sight, people may misunderstand it as “Drunk drivers put the cart before the horse” which means that the drunk driver did something before another thing that he should have done first. But the original meaning is to ask drivers not to drink alcohol before driving. The misunderstanding results from similar pronunciation of “quart” and “cart”, as well as “hearse” and “horse”.

Antalaclasis

Eg.4. -Teacher: George, can you give Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address? -George: No, but I can give you his original address—the White House in Washington D.C. What makes the conversation so funny is that the student misunderstood “address”, which teacher meant to give a speech, but the student thought it stands for the home address. Another possibility is that the student interpreted deliberately the “address” to the wrong meaning, so that he could avoid reciting the speech.

Eg.5. We must all hang together, or we shall all hang separately.(Zhao Yuqing, 2019: 196) This is a famous remark of Benjamin Franklin, and the word “hang” has different meanings, the previous one means to stay with and support each other, while the latter one means a punishment. Antalaclasis used here not only emphasizes the author’s language, but also leaves strong impact on the audiences, making it easier to remember and spread.

The second type is semantic puns, which refer to sylleptic pun. When using this pun, what the author really want to express is the deeper meaning behind the superficial meaning. Semantic puns can make language entertaining, and are also often used to point at someone but actually abuse another, making the language more sarcastic. We can get a better understanding of this kind of puns in following examples. (Xu Min, 2007:194)

Eg.6. Money doesn’t grow at trees. But it blossoms at our branches.(Xu Min, 2007: 193) This is an outdoor road sign advertisement of Lloyd's bank, it uses sylleptic pun that the word branch not only means branch of trees, but also represents the bank itself. The true meaning of the advisement is that if people want their money grown, it would be better to save money in Lloyd's bank. The use of pun in the advertisement makes it more interesting, creative, and attractive.

Eg.7. -What’s the longest sentence in the world? -Prison for life. The word “sentence” in the question is a linguistic concept, and it can also mean a punishment given by a court, which add interest.

Eg.8. Women have a wonderful sense of right and wrong, but have little sense of right and left. The “rights” have two meanings in the sentence, the first of which refers to “correct”, being the opposite of wrong, and the second one means a direction. Adding puns here makes language be heavy with sarcasm.

The third type is grammatical puns, in which the structure of the sentence is changed so that the meaning of the sentence is also changed. Here’s an example.( Zhao Yuqing, 2019: 196)

Eg. 9. Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like an apple. (Zhao Yuqing, 2019: 196） The word “flies” functions as a predicate, which means circle in the air, while the second “flies” is the subject of the latter sentence, which means a kind of insect. With the change of grammatical puns, the meaning has also been changed.

Translatability of Puns

Translation of puns has been a challenge throughout the history. Puns are widely accepted and used in many fields because that it convey different meanings in short words, making the language more interesting, thought-provoking, giving people a stronger impression. Considering complexity and specialty of puns, some scholars even think that it is impossible to translate puns because that translator may fail to translate both meanings while keeping the formal equivalence. The British translation theorist Catford argued that some specific cultural things can be recognized and expressed. So in essence they can be translated, but the corresponding ways of expression are missing temporarily, untranslatability resulted from which are temporary, but untranslatability caused by cultural differences was real, which was called relative untranslatability.(Catford, 1965: 93 )

The first reason that puns are translatable is that even though every country has its unique history, culture, and language, but human beings share the same emotions, and have similar daily life. Language is a reflection on the reality, so even though the literal symbols that represent one thing vary a lot, the essence, which is the thing itself, does not change. (Li Hanji, 2013: 135)

Besides, with the development and advance of Internet and technology, connections between different countries have become closer and closer, enhancing cultural communication and transmission. And the emergence of new things have accompanied with many new words, which enriches languages of different countries, and makes it easier to understand other languages. (An Wenjing, 2010: 71)

Last but not least, with unremitting efforts of generations of translators, some words, and sentences have been changed from untranslatable to translatable. All the reasons above indicate that the untranslatability between different languages is temporary, and relative, while translatability is absolute, which is the same when it comes to pun translation. Please look at some examples that show translatability of puns.(Li Hanji, 2013: 135)

Eg.10. Seven days without water make one week.

Some translators translated it into “七天没水使人虚弱”，while others translated into “七天没水就是一周没水”。(Cao Shunfa, Huang Jianping, 2001: 32) Although both versions are correct, they changed the structure of one sentence into two sentences, and fail to express the humor.

Here’s another translation. “七天不盈（饮）弱一周”(Cao Shunfa, Huang Jianping, 2001: 32）In this translation, the translator successfully expressed two meanings in concise, and semi-classical Chinese style. The “不盈” pronounces similar to“不饮”, and the previous one refers to “cannot reach”, while the latter one refers to “do not drink”. The “弱” also conveys two meanings, one of which is “ less than…”, and other is “make…weak”. As we can see, although there are some subtle deficiencies in the last translation, for example, pronunciation of “不盈” is not completely equivalent to that of “不饮”, as the first one has a rising tone, and the second one uses a falling tone, we can not deny it’s a successful translation of puns.

Eg.11. 人曾为僧，人弗可以成佛 女卑是婢，女又何妨称奴

A famous Chinese translator Qian Gechuan thought the two sentences couldn’t be translated, but another excellent translator Xu Yuanchong gave his translation as follows: A Buddhist cannot bud into a Buddha, A maiden may be made a house maid.(Cao Shunfa, Huang Jiangping, 2001: 32）

The original text is a pair of couplets, which originated from such a story. One day , the great poet Su Shi’s sister Su Zhen heard that Su Shi was talking with a Zen master Foyin about Buddhist ceremony. As Foyin was bragging about the greatness and boundlessness of Buddhist’s power, and advantages of submerging in Buddhism, giving an extravagantly description of studying Buddhist classics, of which Su Zhen disapprove. She wrote the former part of couplet and asked a maid to give it to Foyin. Foyin realized that it’s a refutation of his views that human could never be a Buddha no matter how hard he tried, but he didn’t willing to admit his mistakes, so he replied with the latter line of the couplet.

Although the couplets are full of irony, they are of great literary value and worth pondering carefully. In each couplet, the two words at the beginning of the phrase can be combined to form the word at the end of the phrase. It is a cleverly conceived pun that it looks like a logograph, but it actually aims to refute Zen master. In Mr. Xu Yuanchong's translation, he not only retained the connotation of the original text, but also successfully reproduced the original text in the form, sound and meaning with “ Buddhist, bud, and Buddha; maiden, made, and maid”, and retained the basic structure and rhyme.(Cao Shunfa, Huang Jianping, 2001: 31)

The examples above show that some puns can be translated by changing the pronunciation and form of the words. We can also find that puns that are currently considered translatable have similar cultural backgrounds in target language and original language, so that translators can find the most appropriate words to translate.

Untranslatability of Puns

Although translators have made unremitting efforts to turn “untranslatable” puns into “translatable”, there are still many people who think that puns are untranslatable. This chapter will discuss the untranslatability of puns.

A Chinese Scholar Liu Miqing put forward the concept of "translatability limit" in Contemporary Translation Theories, in which he proposed that humor and puns in a language are almost untranslatable. Humor often results from the cleverness and skills of using words. Such words and intentions often disappear in translation of puns .(Liu Miqing, 1998:92) Those who support the view that puns are untranslatable hold that the historical and cultural backgrounds, psychological thinking habits, regional cultures and religious beliefs of different ethnic groups are reflected in their own languages, so that the languages of various nationalities and countries have their own unique personalities. (Xumin, 2007: 196)Therefore, it is impossible to find a word in target language which can completely keep the rhetorical devices, styles, and characteristics of original language. Here are some examples.

Eg. 12. What does the lawyer do after he dies? He lies still.

(1). 那个律师死后干什么？ 静静地躺着。(Zhang Huan, Gong Xiaobin, 2008: 99) The word “lies” has two meanings, the first of which is to lie down, the second one is to make up a story, and “still” also conveys double meanings, one of which is motionless, another is as usual. However, the translation can only deliver the first meaning of the two words, so that readers can’t feel it interesting.

Eg.13.A professor tapped on his desk and shouted “ Gentlemen—order!” The entire class yelled: “Beer!”

一位教授敲着桌子喊道：“先生们，安静！”全班一致回答：“啤酒！”(Zhang Huan, Gong Xiaobin, 2008: 99) In the original conversation, the students misinterpreted deliberately teacher’s word—order, means quiet here, into “order something to eat”, but in the translation, the answer of students only expressed the meaning of beer, and the punchline was lost, making the whole sentence unintelligible. It seems impossible to express both meanings in one Chinese word here, and perhaps the best way is to add annotations, however, in this way, the translation can’t keep the form of original text.

All the examples above show that there are limitations of translation. (Zhang Huan, Gong Xiaobin, 2008: 99) As a translator, we should not only blindly conform to the principles of what is translatable, and untranslatable, instead, we need to improve our literacy and translation skills. We should realize that it is true some words may be untranslatable, but try to find the best way to express them. One small step for puns’s translation is one big step for literature translation.

Corresponding Translation Strategies

No matter what kind of translation, it is closely related to the context, the translation of pun is no exception. Translators should not only understand the literal meaning of the original text, but also understand its social and cultural background, otherwise, the originality of the author can’t be understood. The translator obtains the basic meaning, or the superficial meaning of the pun through the source text, and understands the deep meaning of the pun through the illocutionary force.

In the translation of puns, the translator mainly adopts three strategies: literal translation, free translation and annotation. We will analyze which method is more appropriate through the translation of examples in the previous text.(Zhao Yuqing, 2019: 196)

1. Literal translation, the simplest and the most direct translation method, which is to translate source languages directly into the target language according to the literal meaning, while maintaining the same semantics as the original pun. (Zhao Yuqing, 2019,196) However, it is difficult to express the sense of humor in the original text for some puns translation, and the rhetorical devices of polysemy of the original pun may also be lost. Take translation of examples 2 and 5 as examples,

Eg.(2)国王：我的侄儿，哈姆雷特，我的儿。为什么你满目愁云呢？ 哈姆雷特：不，陛下。我在太阳下待得太久了。(Zhao Yuqing, 2019: 196) Although the literal translation does not directly show the relationship between "sun" and "son", the word “太” implies the meaning of complaint in Chinese. Combining with the context, the word "sun" also represents the king in ancient China, so readers can also feel the deep meaning in the literal translation.

Eg. (5) “我们必须抱成一团，否则我们将会被单独绞死。” (Zhao Yuqing, 2019: 196) Through literal translation, this sentence is indeed easy to understand. Readers can figure out the content of the sentence at a glance, but it does not form a pun, and lacks a sense of humor.

2. Free translation is more frequently used in pun translation, which mainly emphasizes on the target language, keeping fluency of the target language and retaining a sense of humor to a great extent. Here are the free translation of the 6th, 12nd and 14th examples.

Eg.(6) 树上不能生钱，但我们“枝”行能啊。(This translation is translated by myself.)

Although it is not the best version, it is also an attempt to translate a pun. We may as well analyze its advantages and disadvantages. In this translation, "枝" is used to represent the word branches, corresponding to the “tree” in first half of the sentence. “枝”and “支” are homonymous, and “支行” refers to branch bank. Marking “枝” with quotation marks, which can easily remind readers of the word "branch" and form a homonymous pun with a light tone. The disadvantage is that the word “枝行” does not exist in Chinese, which may lead to incomprehension to some people and the expression is quite colloquial, being informal if the translation is used in formal occasion.

Eg.(12)那个律师死后还能干什么？ 躺着说鬼话。（Ma Hongjun, 2000:34）

The beauty of this translation is that the word “鬼话” in Chinese has both meaning of "ghost’s (dead) words" and "untrue words", which not only retains the form of pun in the target language, but also achieves the effect of humor.

Eg.(14)What’s the flower that everyone have? Tulips. 人人都有什么花？泪花(Ma Hongjun, 2009: 16)

The translation may be a controversial one as it actually has changed the original meaning, but keeps the form of pun in original text. In the original text, the answer “tulips” consists of two parts— “ tu” which sounds like “two” and “lips”, but “two lips” has nothing to do with “flower” in Chinese. In this translation, the translator kept the “flower” and gave the answer with another special “flower” that everyone had. Readers can actually feel the pun in the translation, so in my personal opinion, it is a good translation.

3. Annotation is often used when literal translation or free translation can not fully express the meaning of the source text. Its advantage is that it can make the reader fully understand the double meaning of the pun in source text, but the disadvantage is that it will greatly lose the sense of humor of the pun. Therefore, adding annotation is often the last choice in pun translation. Take examples 4 and 13 for example.

Eg.(4) 老师：乔治，你能给我们做林肯的葛底斯堡演讲吗？ 乔治：不能，但我能给你林肯住址—他以前住在华盛顿白宫。（address在英文中既有演讲也有住址的意思，乔治还以为老师问他要林肯住址呢）

There is no word in Chinese that has both the meaning of speech and address. Therefore, this translation adopts the method of adding notes and explaining the joke, which can make the language humorous and clear to some extent.

Eg.(13) 一位教授敲着桌子喊道：“先生们，安静！”全班一致回答：“啤酒！” (Zhang Huan, Gong Xiaobin, 2008: 99)（order既表安静也有点单之义，学生故意曲解教授意思，让教授哭笑不得）

Readers can easily understand the meaning of this translation, but some underlying punchlines are totally imperceptible.

As an important medium of interlingual and cross-cultural communication, translation itself is an extremely difficult and complex task. In addition, as one of the figures of speech, pun translation is more difficult. (Zhang Huan, Gong Xiaobin, 2008: 99) Among the three translation strategies in this chapter, I think free translation is the best strategy in pun translation. For example, in the translation of the eg.14, if the literal translation method is used to translate tulip, readers may not know its meaning. But Mr. Ma Hongjun retained the word "flower" in the original text and also gave a hilarious answer. Although it is different from the original meaning, it not only keeps the form of pun, but also conveys double meanings, which in my personal opinion is a good translation.

In short, translators need to take many aspects into consideration when translating puns, and take strategies like literal translation, free translation and annotation or combine various translation strategies to overcome language and cultural barriers. The translation should convey the information in the original text to the target readers as much as possible, and reproduce the rhetorical effect of the original language, so as to promote cultural exchange.

Conclusion

This paper mainly discusses whether pun is translatable or not. By giving examples of some classic puns, this paper elaborates the classification of puns, and analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of three main strategies in pun translation: literal translation, free translation and annotation.

From my perspective, context is very important in pun translation, and translators need to accurately grasp the author’s ingenious conception in the context, and adopt various methods such as changing pronunciation and form of characters in the target language to find the most appropriate words. Secondly, the author thinks that free translation is the most appropriate strategy in the three strategies of pun translation, because it is more important for readers to have the same feeling when reading the pun in the translation and in the original text, and to realize the humor and deep meaning. Then is literal translation. However, it seems that the best translated puns in literal translation are those with similar cultural backgrounds in both languages. For example, the word "sun" in example 2 has the meaning of emperor or supreme authority in both the original context and the target language. Therefore, readers can also realize that the translation means something other than what it’s saying. The final choice is annotation, which can express the content of the original text directly, but the sense of humor and the form of pun are lost to a great extent.

Of course, there are still many deficiencies in this paper, for example, the examples is not representative enough; the language is not refined; the classification of puns is not explained in detail, and the translatability and untranslatability of puns are not analyzed according to the text type. The paper can be improved through several aspects below: firstly, by analyzing a large number of classic texts, puns in what kind of text type are translatable, and untranslatable can be summarized. Secondly, deepening the depth of this paper by guiding under a specific theory.

References

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The Untranslatability of Chinese Classic Poems and its Translation Strategies姚诚 Yao Cheng

姚诚 Yao Cheng 202020080661

Abstract

It is commonly believed poetry translation, of all kinds of translation, is the most difficult and demanding, yet possibly most worthy of our studying. Though poetry translation has been practiced through time and theories regarding to poetry translation heavily outnumbered these of prose or drama translation. Yet people remain divided over the translatability and untranslatability of poems and even the definition of untranslatability. This paper will discuss the translatability and untranslatability of poems from the perspectives of imagery, “yijing”, the use of allusion, sound and form. Then some corresponding strategies will be given so as to guide our poetry translation practice.

Key words

Poetry Translation, Untranslatability, Translatability, Translation strategies

摘要

通常认为，诗歌翻译是所有文本类型翻译中难度最大，要求最高，甚至可能是最有研究价值的类型。虽然人们一直在进行翻译实践，关于诗歌翻译的理论数量也远远多于散文或者诗歌翻译的理论，但是对于诗歌可译与否甚至是可译性的定义都有很大的争议。此文将首先讨论不可译性的本质，然后分别从诗歌的意象，意境，典故使用，声音和形式这几个方面讨论诗歌的可译性，然后提出一些相应的翻译策略以指导我们的翻译实践。

关键词

诗歌翻译，不可译性，可译性，翻译策略

Introduction

Poetry is some sort of art that raises our sensuality of beauty through language. Through poetry, poets are able to express their pleasure, anger, sorrow and joy in a specific way which concentrates on sense, sound, rhyme, and now in a direct now in an oblique manner. In poems powerful emotions, remarkable imagination, bountiful rhetoric, and musical rhymes can be easily found. These elements altogether create the uniqueness of poetry. However, facing with the same Muse, an Englishmen, a Germany or a Greek may adapt a different way to present it since poetry owing to its artistic features, is deeply rooted in its native culture. Consequently, poems though may be appreciated by readers, they can be hardly reproduced by translators.(Li Haiyan,2000(04):155-158)

Though poetry translation has been practiced through time and theories regarding to poetry translation heavily outnumbered these of prose or drama translation. Yet people’ opinions about the translatability and untranslatability of poems remain divided. Some translation theorists and translators seem to agree with translatability for the fact that there exist common grounds of culture in different nations. Such common grounds make it possible for people of different nation and culture to communicate with each other and such possibility constitutes the basis of the translatability of poems: these common grounds enables people of different culture and nation to appreciate the meaning and emotion of poems and echo with each other though they are written in different languages(Rao Weimin 2012,14).

However, different nations also greatly differ from each other in historical reality which bring us to the very discussion of untranslatability. As poems are mainly appreciated in imagery, "yijing", allusion and form, the untranslatability will be further argued in these aspects. Then some corresponding strategies will be discussed to guide our actual translation practice.(Rao Weimin 2012,14(06):27-29)

The untranslatability of poetry

The nature of untranslatability

Though there are numerous scholars in home and abroad believe that poetry is untranslatable for example Xu Guangqian, Wang Yizhu, Yu Guangzhong, Shelley, Robert Frost etc, people appear to hold different definition of untranslatability. Catford thinks that both language and culture are untranslatable to some degree. Linguistic untranslatability exists in the inaccurate correspondence of different linguistic structure while cultural untranslatability is shown by the bare correspondence of meaning connoted in different culture.(Li Xinhong 2010,26(06):294-296)

But Bassnett holds that the untranslatability nature should be discussed in the role that the context plays during the translation process. Few translations are totally untranslatable while many untranslatable sentences manifested by the lack of cultural correspondence can be compensated or replaced with translation methods. Some scholar simply maintained that the translatability of poetry means that possibility of poetry translation while equating untranslatability to the difficulties in translation(Rao Weimin 2012,14).

For example “人曾是僧，人弗能成佛。女卑为婢，女又可称奴。” The first part of the couplet was made by Su Xiaomei, sister of Su Dongpo with intention to ridicule Fo Yin and the second part was completed by Fo Yin as a response to Su Xiaomei. This antithetical and net couplet is famous for the meaning connoted in the form and anagram game. It was thought to be totally untranslatable until Xu Yuanchong gave his translation: “A Buddhist cannot bud into a Buddha A maiden maybe made a house maid”(Rao Weimin 2012,14)

Xu Yuanchong’s translation is undoubtedly an excellent one no matter in its meaning or antithesis. Thus, they concluded that form the point of historical development, the translatability nature runs though poetry translation while the untranslatability nature is temporary and can be eliminated as long as the difficulties are solved.(Rao Weimin 2012,14)

However, Xu Yuanchong himself appears to stand against this idea. In his opinion, a translated poem is the crystallization of the enormous efforts made both by the original poet and translator. when the original poet is compared to a father, the translator can be considered to be the mother and the translated poem a child. The child will never be utterly same to neither his father nor his mother. The same is also true of poem translation. The translated poem won’t be exactly the same as the original poem not will it be reproduced without the influence of the translator. (Xu Yuanchong, 1998, 40-30)

Thus, Xu Yuanchong concluded there is no such question of translatability or untranslatability but the matter of the degree a poem can be translated to. Xu Yuanchong gives the following example: “流水落花春去也, 天上人间” Any translation of a poem should take various functions at different levels into consideration. Take meaning for example, what is concerned with the reality or thoughts about the world the poet wants to deliver is commonly regarded as the core of the reproduction. However. The author’s thought is usually connoted in the poem which leads to different interpretation or understanding of the poem. As understanding is the first step in any translation, there would be different kinds of translation of one poem according to the translator’s understanding. And there are at least four versions of translation of this verse:(Xu Yuanchong, 1998, 40-30)

(1)“Flowing waters and faded flowers are gone forever As far apart as heaven is form earth” (Tr. Chu Dagao)

(2)“The river flows – The blossoms fall – Spring going – gone in Heaven as on earth ”(Tr. Lin Tongji)

(3)“One’s spring and youth has passed never to return One’s destiny is not of heaven’s Concern.” (Tr. Xu Zhongjie)

(4)“Without flowers fallen on the waves Spring’s gone away So is the paradise of yesterday.” (Tr. X.Y.Z) (Xu Yuanchong, 1998, 40-30)

Xu Yuanchong argues since there are at least 4 versions of translation, poetry is of course translatable. Also, similarities and differences can be easily found in the four translated work. Then similarities represent what the original poet wants to convey and the differences exhibit different expression methods adopted by the translator. Different expression methods also reveal the “translated degree” which means to which degree a poem is subjectively translated by the translator within his ability. Then “translatable degree” should be discriminated form “translatable degree” which refers to the degree to which a poem can be objectively translated.(Xu Yuanchong, 1998, 40-30)

When Xu Yuanchong’s translation of “人曾是僧，人弗能成佛。 女卑为婢，女又可称奴。” is reassessed with his definition of “translated degree” and “translatable degree”, it is clear that the difficulties that others equate untranslatability to fall into the category of “translated degree”.(Rao Weimin 2012,14)

Since Xu Yuanchong solved the problem of meaning and anagram game but the form is not fully translated at least in this point: in the original verse, two short clauses “人曾是僧” and ”人弗能成佛” altogether constitute the whole meaning, but in the translation “A Buddhist cannot bud into a Buddha“ there is only one complete sentence. In this sense, this couple is only translatable to a certain degree. So our discussion of translatability will be confined to the field of “translatable degree”(Xu Yuanchong, 1998, 40-30)

The untranslatability of imagery

Image is defined by J.A. Cuddon to be a general term that covers the use of language to represent objects, actions, feelings, thoughts, ideas, states of mind and any sensory or ex-sensory experience (1998:413). Qin Xiubai believes, “imagery is the soul of poetry”. It illustrates the critical status of imagery in literary translation, especially in poetry translation. Though Chinese and foreign poets attach great importance to the use of imagery, they, due to disparities in social and cultural background, differ from each other in tradition, ideology and mode of thinking. (Sui Yirong 2011(10):35-38)

When comparison is made between Chinese and Western imagery theory, we can conclude the following features of Chinese imagery: At first, imageries in ancient Chinese place overwhelming importance on the meaning an imagery delivers rather than the imagery itself. Chinese tend to express their feelings in a very implicit way. The use of imageries consequently became prevalent among Chinese poet. As a result, imageries turn out to be the organic combination of the subjective feeling and an object. For example，“浮云游子意，落日故人情”（李白《送友人》） and “杨柳岸，晓风残月”（柳永《雨铃》）.(Sui Yirong 2011(10):35-38)

Chinse imagerys boast unique connoted meaning. “浮云”(floating clouds)”落日” (setting sun)、”杨柳”(willow) 、”晓风”(breeze) 、”残月” (wane moon)are typical imageries that Chinese poets used to express the feeing of farewell. When these imageries are literally translated, it can barely intrigue the same feeling in target readers. Another example can also clearly explain this untranslatability of imageries of Chinese poetry. “鸿雁” or “飞鸿” is commonly employed by poets to express the lovesickness while “wild swan” or “wild geese” is but some sort of bird. When “鸿雁” or “飞鸿” is simply translated into “wild swan” or “wild geese”, English readers can’t appreciate the translated work as much Chinese reader appreciate the original poem due to the untranslatability of imagery（Yang Qun & Liuyi, 2005(06):93-95+106）.

On the basis of its appeal to human sense, five types of imagery can be outlined as follows: visual imagery, aural or auditory imagery, tactile imagery, olfactory imagery and other sensory imagery. In addition, since any subject in the globe is either static or dynamic, imageries can also be divided into static and dynamic imagery. Then there come to the other prominent feature of imagery of Chinese poetry: Chinese much prefer static imageries to dynamic ones. Static imagery is comprised of adjectives and adjective phrase, nouns and nouns phrase as well. （Yang Qun & Liuyi, 2005(06):93-95+106）.

For instance, in the Chinese poem 《早发白帝城》 by Li Bai “朝辞白帝彩云间，千里江陵一日还。两岸猿声啼不住，轻舟已过万重山。” At dawn I left the walled city of White King, Towering among the many-colored clouds; And came down stream in a day One thousand li to Jiangling. The screams of monkeys on either bank Had scarcely ceased echoing in my ear When my skiff had left behind it Ten thousand ranges of hills(Tr. Wang Jianjun)(Wang Jiangu 2012,39(05):149-150)

“彩云”(colored clouds)、“轻舟”（skiff）、“万重山”（Ten thousand ranges of hills） can be categorized into static imagery. These three images are not only the objects the poet describes, but the very psychology equivalence reflecting the poet’s feeling. The poet express his great delight upon his absolved from exile through the image “彩云”while “轻舟”passing“万重山”shows the poet’ eager to return home. Reading the translated work, readers can hardly grasp the mood of the original poet. Despite the large quantity of static imagery, the use of dynamic is vivid and picture-evoking.(Wang Jiangu 2012,39(05):149-150)

Dynamic imagery refers to the dynamic description in chinse ancient poems such as imageries presented by the verbs of “还” and “过” use in Li Bai’s《早发白帝城》.There are other abundant examples of dynamic imagery: “绿” in “春风又绿江南岸”(王安石《泊船瓜洲》), “闹” in “红杏枝头春意闹”（宋祁《木兰花》）and “弄” in “云破月来花弄影”（张先《天仙子》）bring enormous vivacities to these verses. But such dynamic imageries can’t be hardly translated since exactly corresponded words can’t be found. Even so, the mood can barely be reproduced as “还” and “过” in examples above are translated into ”came down” and “left behind”.(Wang Jiangu 2012,39(05):149-150)

The untranslatability of “yijing”

The artistic kingdom has been sung high of throughout the history of Chinese poetry development, and assigned the name as “意境”(“yijing”). The phrase “意境” was translated into “artistic conception” or “ideorealm” by some. However, both of these two terms fail to fully express the core of “意境”（”yijing” ). ”yijing”, too mysterious and intangible as it is, is deemed to be the spirit of poetry. Though “yijing” originated from imagery, it is never a simple aggregate of images but an organic integration of imagery. Poets use concrete images to express their feeling and these two elements then become fully blended in “yijing” which altogether brings and far-retching philosophical effects.(Zhao Dan & Chen Yangto, 2015(12):5-6+34)

For example, in 《江雪》(柳宗元) 千山鸟飞绝，万径人踪灭。 孤舟蓑笠翁，独钓寒江雪。” River Snow A hundred mountains and no bird, A thousand paths without a footprint; A little boat, a bamboo cloak, An old man fishing in the cold river-snow. （Tr. Witter Bynner）(Ma QinJun,2015,17(01):83-87)

At first glance, the poem seems to present a snow picture. However, through images including “大雪”、 “孤舟”、 “老渔翁”、 “寒江”、 “鸟飞绝” and “人踪灭”, a vivid picture of an old man fishing alone in the wild cold snow unfolds before our eyes and delivers us the image of the old fishman who exhibits loneliness and pride and forbears no sacrilege. In actuality, this old man by which the poet expresses his thought of getting rid of the secular and holding himself aloof from the world, is an incarnation of the poets’ sprit. Though any single image has no specific meaning, the organic integration of thess simple images attributes to the profound “yijing” which is exactly the charm of Chinese poems. However, in Bynner’s translation, nothing but a snow picture can be seen.(Ma QinJun,2015,17(01):83-87)

The other typical example is 《天净沙》（马致远） “枯藤老树昏鸦， 小桥流水人家， 古道西风瘦马。 夕阳西下， 断肠人在天涯。” It seems that the poet randomly puts “枯藤”、“老树”、“昏鸦” and other 7 images together, but the last sentence“断肠人在天涯” fully revels the core concept of the poem and leaves us roomy space for imagination. When Chinese sentence characterized by parataxis is translated into English features hypotaxis, the beauty of “yijing” of Chinese classical poetry vanishes to a large degree, if not completely.(Ma QinJun,2015,17(01):83-87)

The untranslatability of allusion

As a gem of Chinese national culture, allusion is characterized by rich cultural connation, highly-concentrated structure and compact expression. In the course of more than five thousand years, numerous Chinese allusions are widely spread. Poets, to avoid direct expression of feeling, would naturally resort to such allusions like myth, legends, or historic event. Due to cultural difference, western reader can hardly understand what is connoted in the poem as much as Chinese reader can appreciate.(Sui Yirong ,2011(10):35-38).

If these allusions are translated completely by explanation, the whole translated poem will be lengthy and no longer be poem in form. On the contrary, if the allusion is simplified, connotations and space for imagination would no longer exist(Sui Yirong ,2011(10):35-38).

For example: 古别离 孟郊 欲去牵郎衣，郎今何处去？ 不恨归来迟，莫向临邛去！ You wish to go, and let your robe I hold. Where are you going- tell me, dear – today. Your late returning does not anger me, But the another steal your heart away. (Tr. Fletcher)(Sui Yirong ,2011(10):35-38).

Undoubtedly, the basic meaning is reproduced when “莫向临邛去” was translated into “But the another steal your heart away.” However, the loss of image leads to the deviation of original information. Actually, “临邛” in the original poem is an allusion which tells the love story between Sima Xiangru, an prominent litterateur of West Han dynasty and an widow Zhuo Wenjun. The widow dared to break tradition hierarchy and ran way with the litterateur and married him at last. (Sui Yirong ,2011(10):35-38).

Obviously, here “临邛” is no longer a name for a place but a media the poet used to express the widow’s anxiety that her husband would fall in love with someone else in his journey. This anxiety is implicitly express in the original poem. However, the translated poem delivers this feeling in a blunt and frank manner, which doesn’t coincide with the characteristic of ancient Chinese women(Sui Yirong ,2011(10):35-38). Thus, the translation is by no means the perfect reproduction of the original poem. (Sui Yirong ,2011(10):35-38).

The translation of《琴瑟》（李商隐） can also illustrate this point: 锦瑟无端五十弦, 一弦一柱思年华。 庄生晓梦迷蝴蝶, 望帝春心托杜鹃。 沧海月明珠有泪, 蓝田日暖玉生烟。 此情可待成追忆, 只是当时已惘然。 “Why should the sad zither have fifty strings? Each string, each strain evokes but vanished springs: Dim morning dream to be a butterfly; Amorous heart poured out in cuckoo’s cry. In moonlit pearls see tears in mermaid’s eyes; From sunburnt emerald let vaporize! Such feeling cannot be recalled again: It seemed lost even when it was felt then.” (Tr. Xu Yuanchong)(Li Xinhong 2010,26(06):294-296）

Five allusion including “琴瑟”、 “庄周梦蝶”、“望帝春心”、“沧海月明”、“蓝天” in used in a poem of only 64 words to express the beaty of obscurity. Though Xu used interrogative and exclamatory sentence as well as such words like “amorous”、”cry” to reproduce this beauty. Butt westers, with little knowledge of Chinese culture will be confused by the relationship between of “string” and ”vanished things” or the connotation of “butterfly”、“cuckoo” and “pearls”.(Li Xinhong 2010,26(06):294-296）

The untranslatability of sound

Poetic language has a natural connection with sound. The monosyllable nature and the four tones of Chinese character make it possible for Chinese poets to have a sometime deep, sometime high rhyme and rhythm which however are hardly limited in Chinese poem for the following three aspect: the harmonious balance between level and oblique tones, requirement for antithesis and rhyme which means the regular repetition of the same vowel. However, it is still much more difficult for English poets to enhance the musicality due to the uncertain syllable of words, stress shift between words, and limitation of rhyme. Consequently, the beauty of sound itself of Chinese classical poems can barely reproduced in English(Li Haiyan, 2000(04):155-158).

For example, 海水朝朝朝朝朝朝朝落, 浮云长长长长长长长消。 Sea waters tide, day to day tide, everyday tide and everyday ebb. Floating clouds appear, often appear, often appear and often go (Tr. Nida)(Li Haiyan, 2000(04):155-158) Though the meaning of the original poem was fully translated, the reiterative locution, reduplication words and antithesis which can impress the original reader at their first glance disappear.(Li Haiyan, 2000(04):155-158)

Here is anther example； “寻寻觅觅，冷冷清清，凄凄惨惨戚戚。《声声慢》（李清照） “Seek, seek, search, search,” Cold, cold, bare, bare, Grief, grief, cruel, cruel grief, Now warm, then like an autumn Cold again How hard to calm the heart. (Tr. Clara Candlin)(Li Haiyan, 2000(04):155-158)

There are seven couples of reduplication words bring the musicality that remind us the poet’s deep sorrow and grief though no single word regarding to sadness is used. The translated works is pale when compared to the original poem in terms of neither meter nor”yijing”. The word-for-word translation in attempt to maintain the repetition of sound reduces the sense of beauty to the most and can scarcely trigger the deep sorrow and grief in the target reader.(Li Haiyan, 2000(04):155-158)

The untranslatability of from

Since Aristotle, heated debates on the difference of poetry and prose have been hold. Yet, poetry should be discriminated from prose in the first place for its form. A translated poetry must be poetry in form for the following reason: first, the charm of a poem somewhat lies in the beauty of form. Second, target readers should have accesses to the feature and charm of the original poetry, and it is the supreme duty of the translator to ensure that to happen. Third, the translator should be royal to the original poem. However, because of the opaqueness and connotation pervading in Chiense poems, translator in one way or other are prone to translate them into poetry and thus the beauty of form is lost.(Wang Jianguo ,2012,39(05):149-150)

Even though the translator is determined to keep the original form, he can hardly do so. As mentioned earlier, because of implicit character of Chinese, they tend to express their intention or feeling in a direct way so much so that some specials are adopted in classic poetry such as the anagram mentioned earlier.(Wang Jianguo ,2012,39(05):149-150)

凡鸟偏从末世来，都知爱慕此生才。 一从二令三人木，哭向金陵事更哀。

This bird appears when the world falls on evil times; None but admires her talents and her skill, First she complies, then commands, then is dismissed, Departing in tears to Jinling more wretched still. (Tr. Yang xianyi & Gladys)

This phoenix in a bad time came, All praised her great ability. “Two” makes my riddle with a man and a tree, Returning south in tears she met calamity. (Tr. David Hawkes)(Wang Jianguo ,2012,39(05):149-150)

The original poem was used by Cao Xueqin to make hints of Wang Xifeng’s destiny. Here, “凡” and “鸟” altogether constitute the traditional Chinese character “鳳” which refers to the word “feng” of Lady Wang Xingfeng. Thus, the first couplet tells us though Wang is lady of high caliber but she came at a bad time. Neither “bird” nor “phoenix” can deliver us this hint. Also in the first part of the second couplet, “木” and “人” make the character “休” (“repudiation”) which implies Wang Xifeng would be dismissed by her husband at last. Though the first translation literally tells us her destiny, the anagram is gone. (Wang Jianguo ,2012,39(05):149-150)

It is still worser of the second translation that target reader will be utterly confused when he come to “‘Two’ makes my riddle with a man and a tree,”(Wang Jianguo ,2012,39(05):149-150)

Translation strategies of Chinese classical poetry

Addition of word

Chinese classical poetry features terse wording so much so that some words are omitted. Thus, considerable words should be added to make the translation more exact in sense. For example,(He Jun ,2008(04):124-127)

“十年生死两茫茫” “Ten years now, I’m here, you’re gone. Though not thought, not forgot.” “For ten long years, the living of the dead knows nought.” (Tr. Xu Yuanchong)(He Jun ,2008(04):124-127)

In the second translation, the preposition “for” is added to meet English expression and more importantly, it can strengthen readers’ feeling of the span of time and echo the grief. Besides, connotation should added to prevent target reader from confusion resulted from culture difference.(He Jun ,2008(04):124-127)

For example, “纤云弄巧，飞星传恨，银汉迢迢暗渡” “Clouds float like works of art，Stars shoot with grief at heart． Across the Milky Way the Cowherd meets the Maid ( In a fairy tale in ancient China，the Cowherd and the Maid were married，but theywere restricted by the Queen Mother to meet each other once a year) ”，An allusion is used for the implicit expression of lovesickness, it would be extremely difficult for target readers to appreciate the full sense of this poem.(He Jun ,2008(04):124-127)

Deletion of word

Reduplicated and repetitive words are used to trigger strong emotion. Such word can be sometime deleted to avoid redundance in English. For example, in “飞流直下三千尺” and “千锤万凿出深山”， “三千尺” and “千锤万凿” are actually hyperbolized. If they are literally translated into “It flows down three thousand feet” and “Only through tens of thousands of blows，can it be extracted from the mountains”，not only the beauty of sense but space for imagination are totally lost. After fully understanding of the poem, the numbers can be omitted and thus hyperbole is transformed into typical English adjective used for description.: “an incredible height” and “a hard hammer blows”.(Sun Huali ,2020,42(04):113-116)

Conversion of word class

English and Chinese differ from each other a lot in terms of linguistic form and structure. In order to make the translation faithful, Conversion of word class is frequently used. (Sun Huali ,2020,42(04):113-116)For example， “明月几时有，把酒问青天” 《水调歌头·明月几时有》（苏轼） “How long will the full moon appear? Wine cup in hand, I ask the sky.” (Tr. Xu Yuanchong) “How rare the moon，so round and clear! With cup in hand, I ask of the blue sky,” (Tr. Lin Yuntang)(He Jun ,2008(04):124-127)

If “把酒” and “问青天” are separably translated into “hold the wine glass” and “ask the sky”, there will be two predicate which is inconsistent with English expression. When we take a close look to Xu’s and Lin’s translation, it is clear that the verb phrase ”把酒” are translated into prepositional phrase. By doing this, the focus ‘问青天” is empathized so that the sense is closer to the original poem(He Jun ,2008(04):124-127)

There are of course many other ways for poetry translation such as reconstruction of sentence and annotation. No matter what strategies we adopted, it borders on impossibly for us to 100% translate a poem. But we should also bear it in mind that we can always find a way to make the translated work closer to the original poem with brainstorm and ingenuity.(He Jun ,2008(04):124-127)

Conclusion

In spite of the very fact that poetry translation has been practiced since very long ago and theories of poetry translation have been much produced. Different opinion was still hold of translatability and untranslatability. This paper confined the definition of untranslatability first and then explained the untranslatability from image, “yijing” the use of allusion, sound and form. Some strategies are given not in the fancy of the full reproduction of the original poem but with wish to reproduce it to as much greater degree as possible.

References

He Jun何峻.从译者的再创造看诗歌由不可译性向可译性转化[On the Transformation from Untranslatability to Translatability of Poetry by Recreation]. Journal of Chengdu University成都大学学报(社会科学版),2008(04):124-127.

Li Haiyan李海燕.Beauty in Sense, Sound and Form in Poetry Translation —— Translation of Tang Poems From Chinese to English. Journal of Inner Mongolia Educational Institute 内蒙古教育学院学报,2000(04):155-158.

Li Xinhong李新红.试论中国诗歌之“不可译”[On the untranslatability of Chinese Poetry]. Journal of Lanzhou Education Institute 兰州教育学院学报,2010,26(06):294-296.

Ma QinJun马庆军.中国古典诗歌的不可译因素[On Untranslatable factors of Chinse Classic Poetry ]. Journal of Tianjia Occupational Institute 天津职业院校联合学报,2015,17(01):83-87.

Rao Weimin饶卫民.论诗歌翻译的可译性与不可译性[ On the Translatability and Untranslatability of Poetry]. Journal of Anshun Institute安顺学院学报,2012,14(06):27-29.

Sui Yirong隋荣谊.诗歌翻译[Poetry Translation]. Knowledge of English英语知识,2011(10):35-38. Sun Huali孙华丽.中国古诗词翻译技巧研究[Translation Methods of Chinese Classical Poetry].Journal of Sanxi University三峡大学学报(人文社会科学版),2020,42(04):113-116.

Wang Jianguo王剑果.论诗歌翻译中形似的重要性[On the Importance of the Similarity of Form in Poetry Translation ]. Journal of Henan Normal University河南师范大学学报(哲学社会科学版),2012,39(05):149-150.

Xu Yuanchong许渊冲.诗词英译漫谈 [On the English Translation of Chinese Classic Poetry]Chinese Translation中国翻译,1988(03):40-43.

Yang Qun & Liuyi杨群,刘益.中国古典诗歌翻译中的不可译性[On the Untranslatability of Classic Chinese Poetry]. Journal of Nan Hua University南华大学学报(社会科学版),2005(06):93-95+106.

Zhao Dan & Chen Yangto赵旦,陈养桃.戴着镣铐起舞——诗歌翻译为何难的几点分析[On Difficulties of Poetry Translation]. Literature in Anhui Province安徽文学(下半月),2015(12):5-6+34.

The Untranslatability of Xiehouyu 彭育志 Peng Yuzhi

彭育志 Peng Yuzhi 202020080635

Abstract

Xiehouyu is a typical idiomatic Chinese folk expression, with its first part descriptive, while the second part, sometimes unstated, carrying the massage. However, this kind of expressions is often culturally loaded, and a great number of them are with puns, which accounts for its untranslatability. This paper will concentrate on distinguishing 4 key elements of the Chinese fork wisecrack and examine which elements of the 4 are bound to lose and therefore prove to some extent the Xiehouyu is untranslatable. Finally, I will try to find some methods to overcome this untranslatability at best.

摘要

歇后语是典型的中国民间俗语，它由两部分构成，前半部分是描述性的，后半部分则是对前一部分的解释，传达出说话者真正的意图。歇后语形象生动，又富含中国历史文化之意蕴，而且时常语带双关，这使其具备了不可译性。本文旨在区分歇后语翻译中关键的四要素，来考察何种或哪几种要素在翻译时注定会失去，从而证明歇后语在某种程度上是不可译的。但不可译并不代表就放弃翻译它了，本文探究其不可译性的最终目的还是想要找到合适的翻译策略来尽量弥补这一不可译性。

Key words

Xiehouyu; Untranslatability; Translation Method

关键词

歇后语；不可译性；翻译策略

1.Introduction

1.1 Xiehouyu

The Xiehouyu is a special Chinese expression created by Chinese people according to their everyday experience. It consists of only a few words and often achieves a humorous or ironic effect. Rooted deeply in Chinese conventions and the long history of China, the Xiehouyu is the typical product of unique Chinese Culture. A Xiehouyu consists of 2 parts, the first part illustrating an image or event, the second parts explaining the meaning the addresser wants to express, and often the second part will not be expressed out, leaving a blank for the addressee to fill in. (Li Gongxue, 2014:12)

1.2 untranslatability

According to Catford, there are 2 types of untranslatability: linguistic untranslatability and cultural untranslatability. The former occurs when there are no lexical or syntactical substitutes in the TL for the SL; while the latter is due to the absence in the TL culture of a relevant situational feature for the SL. Even if there is a relevant situational feature in the TL for the SL, like the English words “home” and “democracy”, whose counterparts can be easily found in different languages, these word pairs still have differences in meaning, depending on the contexts and cultural background. So the cultural untranslatability happens because language is the primary modelling system within a culture, it must be de facto implied in any process of translation.(Susan Bassnett, 2002:40)

Considering this thesis mainly deals with the translation of Xiehouyu into English, the untranslatability of Xiehouyu will be further discussed by using English and Chinese as examples. The first to be discussed is the linguistic untranslatability. The Chinese characters have only one syllable, and with the change of the 4 different tones, different characters are created and even the same sound can represent different characters, which is a far more common case than that in English. While English is a very different story, an English word can have one, two three or even more syllables and it relies on the position of stresses instead of change of tones to alter the meaning of a word or sentence. This makes the translation of puns and poems in both languages very difficult. For example, one line from a Chinese, “东边日出西边雨，道是无晴却有晴。” is untranslatable in that the “晴” (“sunny”)here is a pun, it implies “情” (“love”), but in English, no pair of words can be found with the same pronunciation while the 2 totally different meanings.(Feng Cuihua,1995:62)

The second to be discussed is the cultural untranslatability. Obviously, due to different cultural and historical background, even a same object in Chinese and English can be quite different. Take the words “dog” and “狗” for example. The word “dog” has a positive or neutral connotation in English, with which, the English speakers show their friendly and intimate relationship with others by saying “he is my dog.” Another English idiom put it that “every dog has its day.”, in which “dog” means ordinary people. While in Chinese, things are quite the opposite. “狗” in Chinese has a negative connotation. Many Chinese idioms can serve as the proof, such as “狗仗人势”, “狗嘴里吐不出象牙”, “落水狗”, “丧家之犬” and so on. If these “狗” or “犬” are all translated into “dog”, the English speakers will find it unacceptable.(Feng Cuihua,1995:62)

It is obvious that Xiehouyu features all these untranslatable elements, which means the Xiehouyu is untranslatable.However, this does not mean the Xiehouyu cannot be translated at all. What we can achieve is an optimal translation. What Xu Yuancong says about the translation of poetry is suitable for the translation of the Xiehouyu, actually to all kinds of translation. According to him, the translation of a poem is the crystallization of the enormous effort of both the original author and the translator, the former is compared to a father, the latter, mother, then the translation is like their child. The child will never be the same as neither his father, nor his mother. The translation can never be the same as the original work without being affected by the translator. (Xu Yuancong,1988:42)

So there is no absolute translation, the problem of translation is a matter of degree. And therefore, the focus point of this thesis will be to what extent Xiehouyu is untranslatable, or what elements would be lost in translation and what can be done to achieve the optimal translation. In the following sections, the structure of the Xiehouyu will be analyzed and the function of Xiehouyu will be examined to see what elements in them are untranslatable and what translation methods can be adapted to make up for this untranslatability to the best.(Xu Yuancong,1988:42)

2.1 The structure of Xiehouyu

The Xiehouyu, as mentioned above, consists of mainly 2 parts, the first part descriptive, the second part explanatory. Between the 2 parts, there is always a comma or hyphen which serves as a link to indicate certain connection between them. In actual use, the second part is sometimes not stated by the speaker. In some cases, this is because the descriptive part is vivid enough, both the speaker and the hearer are very familiar with it, they both know perfectly what the unstated part is and what that actually means. (Li Gongxue,2014:20)

Chinese people always say, referring to someone, “狗咬吕洞宾”, leaving the latter part “不识好人心” unstated, for the story of Lv Dongbin and dog is well-known in China, no further explanation is needed. While in other cases, the descriptive part is not that clear and the speaker intentionally leaves a blank to the hearer to fill in. He waits the hearer to ask why such a description is used. Until then the speaker will reveal the latter part to achieve a humorous or ironic effect. (Li Gongxue,2014:20)

When we take a closer look at these 2 parts, more details can be found. The descriptive part is either an object or an event. “十月的萝卜” and “外甥打灯笼” can serve as examples respectively. As for the second part, it may serve as an adjective or an adverb to modify the former，or even the action the former part performs if it is an object or some particular person, as the cases in “老九的弟弟—老十（实）” “韩信点兵—多多益善” and “十月的萝卜—冻（动）了心” respectively. (Li Gongxue,2014:20)

In actual use, we can find the former part, the object or the event appearing in the Xiehouyu, is often replaced by the real object or event we want to modify with the Xiehouyu. It is the object or event which the speaker is referring to that is directly modified by the later part of the Xiehouyu. So the function of the Xiehouyu as a whole, in fact depends on the latter part of it. It can serve as an adjective, an adverb or a verb. And therefore, if the aim of translation is only to serve the same function of modifying, the former descriptive part can be simply omitted, only translating the latter descriptive part. (Li Gongxue,2014:21)

However, the Xiehouyu is a culture-loaded expression. It is deeply rooted in the soil of unique and colorful Chinese history and culture, which is best embodied in the first half of the Xiehouyu. It often illustrates a famous figure in Chinese history or an image which vividly reflects Chinese outlook of viewing the world. In a word, the first part is more valuable in the aspect of culture than the second part, which when translated, must be kept at best. As for the latter part, though its main function is to explain the true meaning, there is also a noticeable element in it, the pun in Chinese language, which is the difficult point of translation. (Li Gongxue,2014:21)

2.2 The classification of Xiehouyu

As can be seen in the structure of Xiehouyu above, the first part of Xiehouyu is descriptive which is the basis for the reader in understanding the meaning of it, while the second part is explanative, in which the meaning of the Xiehouyu will be shown to the reader. Some Xiehouyu have only one meaning in the second part, which is the literal meaning; while in other Xiehouyu, there are 2 different meanings in the second part, which are its literal meaning and the extended meaning. In other words, the former do not employ pun, and the latter is punny. The punny ones can be further divided into 2 categories: the polysemous punny Xiehouyu and the homophonic punny Xiehouyu.(Li Gongxue,2014:19)

Based on the discussion above, the Xiehouyu can be classified in to 3 categories: the literally-stated Xiehouyu, the polysemous punny Xiehouyu and the homophonic Xiehouyu. To better illustrate these 3 kinds of Xiehouyu, 3 examples are given below respectively: Literally-stated Xiehouyu:

张飞穿针—粗中有细

Zhang Fei threading a needle – subtle in one’s rough ways

This literally-stated Xiehouyu above literally means that even a rude man like Zhang Fei, a general of Shu regime, is able to thread a needle, it naturally indicates that someone can be subtle in his rough ways. The first is descriptive which gives the reader a hint and imagination and the second part tells the meaning of it directly. The literal meaning is the practical meaning without an extended one.(Zhao Xiaoyan,2014:104)

Polysemous punny Xiehouyu:

王妈妈卖了磨，推不了的

Like Dame Wang who sold her grindstone: You’ve no way to grind your axe any more.

In the Xiehouyu above, “推”(“tui”) is polysemous in Chinese, one meaning to grind, the other meaning to absolve oneself from responsibility. This Xiehouyu thus has 2 meanings. The literal meaning is that Dame Wang sold her grindstone and the other is that one cannot absolve himself from responsibility now，which is difficult for the target reader to understand, requiring more explanation. (Li Gongxue,2014:21)

Homophonic punny Xiehouyu:

连着三个观音堂—庙（妙）！（妙）！（妙）！

Three shrines to the goddess Kuan-Yin lined up in a row: Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!

In the example above, the Chinese characters “庙”and “妙”are homophonic, both pronounced as “miao”. But the former means “temple” the latter means “wonderful.” The meaning “wonderful” is the true meaning that the Xiehouyu wants to convey. (Li Gongxue,2014:22)

After analyzing the structure and classification of the Xiehouyu, 4 key elements of the translation of Xiehouyu are found: cultural connotation, image, sound and meaning. The first 2 elements can mostly be found in the descriptive part of Xiehouyu, and the element of meaning can be found in the explanatory part of Xiehouyu, and if it is a homophonic punny Xiehouyu, the sound element can also be found. Considering the aim of translating Xiehouyu, which is to spread Chinese culture to other countries, the 4 elements need to be saved in the translation. A question is that when translated, can all 4 of the elements be kept without losing a little bit of them? And if any or all of them is doomed to be lost, what method can be adapted to best regain it or them? The following part will concentrate on the first questions, taking the 4 elements into consideration, examining whether or not will lose and thus prove the untranslatability of the Xiehouyu.(Li Gongxue,2014:22)

3.1 The loss of cultural connotation

The cultural connotation in the Xiehouyu results mainly from 3 aspects. The first is the unique Chinese tradition. An example of this category is shown below:

正月十五贴门神—晚了半月

Be too late (Zhao Xiaoyan,2014:104)

The Xiehouyu above demonstrates a unique Chinese tradition, rich in cultural connotation, which is better to be kept in the translation, however the translator failed. Traditionally, the Chinese people put up the pictures of door-god(门神) on the door on the first day of the lunar new year to get rid of evil things. Usually 2 pictures will be glued on the door, which is often opened from the middle. So the 2 pictures will be stuck on the 2 sides of the door. As the door-gods, no ordinary people can be called as god by the Chinese. (Zhao Xiaoyan,2014:104)

They were Qin Shubao and Yuchi Gong, both of whom were generals in the Tang dynasty. They were warriors on the battlefield, who once guarded the door for the greatest emperor of Tang dynasty, Li Shimin, to protect him for nightmare. The picture of door-god should be glued on the first day, which indeed will be too late if glued on the 15th day. The meaning of this Xiehouyu is, as the translation shows, to be too late. But all the translation achieves is conveying solely the meaning of it, which is absolutely inadequate. The translation abandons the former descriptive part, which means the cultural connotation is completely lost.(Zhao Xiaoyan,2014:104)

The second involves with famous names in Chinese history. As the example shows:

韩信点兵—多多益善

The more the better(Zhao Xiaoyan,2014:104)

In the Xiehouyu above, a famous Chinese name in Chinese, Han Xin(韩信), was mentioned. However, in the translation it disappears. The translator denies the target reader’s access to an interesting anecdote of Han Xin, which is worth-telling. Han Xin was a general in the Han dynasty, the first emperor of which, Liu Bang, once asked him: “how many soldiers do you think can I command?” Han Xin answered, “100000 at most.” “so, what about you?” the emperor asked. Han Xin’s answer was: “the more the better.”, which is what the Xiehouyu actually means.(Zhao Xiaoyan,2014:104)

The story is so famous in China that once the first 4 Chinese characters are mentioned the next 4 will automatically appear in the hearer’s mind. But the translation deletes it all, like buying caskets without the jewels. The cultural connotation is missing due to a translation like that. The third is about Chinese legends, as is shown in the example below:

八仙过海—各显神通

Like the way the eight fairies cross the sea, each displaying his own talent.(Zhao Xiaoyan,2014:104)

The story is so famous in China that once the first 4 Chinese characters are mentioned the next 4 will automatically appear in the hearer’s mind. But the translator deletes them all like buying caskets without the jewels. The cultural connotation is missing due to a translation like that.

3.2 The loss of image

The image is lost often when the translation abandons the descriptive and imagery part, as the examples show:

千里搭长棚—天下没有不散的筵席

Even the longest feast must break up at last.

“千里”(“ one thousand Li”) and “长棚”(“ long awning”) are 2 visual images in the Xiehouyu. In the translation, the word “longest” emphasizes more on time rather than space which is stressed by “千里” in the original text. The image of “长棚” is also missing. When Chinese people read the first part, a picture of people seeing off their friends on the 1000-Li awning with wines and dishes appears, which cannot be reproduced by the translation using the phrase “longest feast” which means a feast that last a long time. The special image is undoubtedly missing.(Zhao Xiaoyan,2014:104)

擀面杖吹火—一窍不通

To know nothing about something

The translation gives up an important image “擀面杖”, which means rolling pin in English. It’s a solid stick, through which the air cannot be blown to promote the flame. Blowing air through a rolling pin is actually a very amusing and ridiculous situation. It is imagery and the image connects naturally with the meaning in that the Chinese “一窍不通” literally means “one hole is stuck” in English and it also connotes the real meaning of the phrase that one know nothing about something. It is a pity that the translation fails to reproduce this meaning image in the target reader’s mind.(Zhao Xiaoyan,2014:106)

But it should be admitted that not all image will lose, when the image itself is not unique to Chinese culture but common to human cognition. It can be explained by the example below:

因风吹火，用力不多。

Let the wind fan the flames And take the easiest course.

As can be seen in the example above, the literal meaning of the Xiehouyu is its real meaning and the 2 parts of it convey universal knowledge in both source language and target language.(Li Gongxue, 2014:63)

3.3 The loss of sound

The loss of sound in the translation of Xiehouyu occurs when the Xiehouyu has a pun. There are 2 kinds of punny Xiehouyu, one is polysemous Xiehouyu, the other is homophonic Xiehouyu. The former contains a word or phrase in its second part that has more than one meaning. It has the literal meaning and the extended meaning at the same time. The polysemous word helps conveying the extended meaning to the hearer.(Li Gongxue,2014:60)

As for the homophonic Chinese wisecrack, it uses the homophonic or similar homophonic words to achieve a punny effect. Those punny Chinese wisecracks are regarded as absolutely untranslatable, because it involves the play of sound. Which is clearly demonstrated by the following examples:

外甥打灯笼—照舅（旧）

Things will be back as they were before.

It is a homophonic Xiehouyu. The phrase “照舅” is homophonic to “照旧”, the former meaning “to find uncle with a lantern” while the latter meaning “ the same as before”. The sounds are same, but the meanings are totally different. No 2 English words with the same sound can be found to convey the 2 different meanings as their Chinese counterparts do. The translation has to abandon the sound elements, because it is bound to lose and convey only the meaning of it.(Zhao Xiaoyan,2014:105)

隔着门缝看人—把人看扁了

If you peer at a person through a crack - he looks flat. (pun: Don’t be so prejudiced)

The example above is a polysemous Xiehouyu. The translation conveys the literal meaning of it then adds a note to indicate it is a pun and explain the extended meaning so that the target reader can understand it. However, simply telling the reader it is a pun is not enough, it still cannot the multiple meanings that is easily perceived by Chinese people with a single phrase in English.It is safe to say that the loss of sound element is inevitable when dealing with the punny Xiehouyu.(Zhao Xiaoyan,2014:106)

3.4 The matter of meaning

Meaning is the only element which can be saved in the translation of all kinds of Xiehouyu. As Nida believes, “anything that can be said in one language can be said in another language unless the form is an essential element of meaning.” While in the case of the Xiehouyu, the only important formal element is pun. It is a linguistic barrier between Chinese and English. Except the punny Xiehouyu, the loss of cultural connotation and image can be compensated if proper translation methods are adapted. In fact, even the sound image can also be compensated though in very few cases.The next part is to figure out certain methods to reduce the loss of the cultural connotation, the image and sound, though in very few cases, respectively.(Li Qinhua,2018:43)

4.1 Method for the loss of cultural connotation

If the cultural connotation is lost in the translation, only a note is needed for compensation. Therefore, the method of literal translation plus annotation can be adapted in this case, as the example shows:

张飞穿针—粗中有细

Zhang Fei threading a needle - subtle in one’s rough ways

Note: Zhang Fei was a general of Shu (221-263) during the Three Kingdoms era of China. In most matters he was crude and careless but quite subtle at times.

The translation itself is a literal translation without any information of Zhang Fei. But with the note, which depicts who Zhang Fei was and his personalities, the cultural connotation is complemented.

4.2.1 Borrowing

Borrowing in the translation of the Xiehouyu means using the image familiar to the target reader to replace the image in the source language. So that the original meaning of the source language is saved and the target reader’s understanding to it is deepened, as can be seen in the example below:

猫哭耗子—假慈悲

To shed crocodile tears

Cats are raised in China to catch mouse so “猫哭耗子”(“ cats shed tears for mouse”) means pretending to show mercy. Fortunately, the phrase “to shed crocodile tears in western culture also means the evil person pretends to show his mercy towards the victim, because in western legends the crocodiles shed tears when the eat their prey. The replacement of images helps the Xiehouyu better understood by the target readers and make the translation vivid.(Zhao Xiaoyan,2014:103)

4.2.2 Literal-liberal translation

In some translations of Xiehouyu only the liberal translation is adopted, which leads to the loss of the images. So literal translation is necessary in this situation to help keep the image. An example is shown below:

瞎子点灯—白费蜡

Like the blind man lighting the candle – to do something in vain

The translation not only explains the meaning of the Xiehouyu but also keeps the image – blind man lighting the candle by literal translation. This move helps the target reader understand the meaning as well as seeing the picture behind it.(Zhao Xiaoyan,2014:105)

4.3.1 imitation plus annotation

Due to linguistic differences, the loss of sound elements is difficult to reproduce in the target language. To achieve this goal, it depends on the translator’s own creativity to imitate the pun in the source language to strive to find a same or similar sound in English which conveys 2 different meanings. Then an annotation is needed to explain to the target reader how the 2 words in the source language are punned. Below are 2 adequate translations of Xiehouyu which most reproduce the homophonic elements for the target reader:

云端里老鼠—天生的耗（好）

The ‘furry pest’ Heaven has to offer Annotation: This humorous expression depends for its force on a pun between the word hao, meaning “vermin” and the word hao, meaning “good.” In an attempt to render something of this play on words, I have punned “furry pest” with “very best.”(Li Gongxue, 2014:40)

卖盐的做雕銮匠，我是那咸（闲）人

If you endeavor to turn a salt peddler into a sculptor, He’ll end up making an ‘idle’ use of his time. Annotation: The point of the second of these two hsieh-hou yv turns on a pun between the expressions hsien-jen meaning “idol of salt” and hsien-jen meaning “idle person”. I have tried to convey this by punning “idol” and “idle”.

The 2 translations above set the example for the translation of homophonic punny Xiehouyu. The translator strives to reproduce the sound in the source language by creative imitation and a detailed note, explaining how the 2 words in Chinese are punned and how the pun is recreated in English.(Li Gongxue, 2014:40)

Conclusion

The untranslatability of Xiehouyu results from the difficulty to keep 4 key elements in it. And why the 4 elements need to be saved in translation is justified by the aim to spread Chinese culture overseas. It need to be admitted that not all 4 elements are going to be lost in translation. The cultural connotation element, the image element and the sound element are often to be lost more or less, of which the sound element is almost doomed to be lost. While the element of meaning is to be kept in the translation.

In order to compensate those losses at best, several methods can be adapted in translation. To keep the element of cultural connotation, we can use literal translation plus annotation, telling the cultural background or anecdote behind the Xiehouyu, so that the cultural connotation can be better understood.

To keep the image element, we can also use literal translation plus annotation or borrowing, of which the former depicts the image literally and explains what the image means and the latter replace the image in the source language with another image familiar to the target reader, so as to make the Xiehouyu vivid.

The sound element, with linguistic differences between Chinese and English, is the hardest to compensate. But the method of imitation plus annotation can be adapted which imitates the sound elements in Xiehouyu, typically the homophonic punny ones, by creating a new pun in English to achieve the punny effect in Chinese. And an annotation is needed to explain to the target reader how the words in the source language are punned and how the pun is recreated in the target language. The method reproduces the sound elements in a pun to its best. However, not all Xiehouyu with sound element can be so fortunate that a pair of English words can be found to reproduce the effect.

What is obvious is that annotation is of great importance in the translation of Xiehouyu if the 4 elements are to be kept. But too much annotation will inevitably reduce the lucidness of Xiehouyu: to keep one thing means to lose another. That said, there are still many obstacles standing in the way of Xiehouyu translation. In a word, Xiehouyu is a combination of image, sound, cultural connotation and meaning, when translated into English, it should be translated not only to simply convey the meaning of it, but also to help the image, sound and most importantly, the culture behind it better perceived, understood and accepted by different countries. Only in this way can we say it is satisfactorily translated if we aim to make Chinese culture spread overseas, which is an extremely important task in today’s era of opening and communication. This thesis proves Xiehouyu is to some extent untranslatable, and provides some methods trying to overcome this untranslatability.

References

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Study on Xu Yuanchong’s Translation of Shengshengman from the Perspective of Translation Aesthetics 朱旭 Zhu Xu 202070080631 MTI 英语笔译

Zhu Xu 朱 旭, 202070080631.

Abstract

As her later representative work, shengshengman written by Li Qingzhao, praised by later generations as“the Eternal Farewell”, describes autumn scenery, expresses her feeling which has great aesthetic value. It is necessarily of high significance to analyze English versions of shengshengman, which is full of aesthetic features. From the perspective of translation aesthetics, this paper analyzes Xu Yuanchong’s English version of shengshengman from four aspects: beauty in image, beauty in sound, beauty in lexis, beauty in form in order to study the application of Translation Aesthetics in literary translation.

Key words

Translation Aesthetics; Sheng sheng man; Xu Yuanchong; Literary Translation

题目

翻译美学视角下《声声慢》许渊冲英译本的研究

摘要

声声慢是李清照后期代表作，被后人誉为“千古绝唱”。在这首词中，作者描写秋景抒发哀情，全词感情浓烈，文学造诣极高。本文从翻译美学角度入手，从意象美、音韵美、用词美、形式美、四个方面对宋词《声声慢》许渊冲的英译本进行分析，分析研究翻译美学理论在文学翻译中的运用。

关键词

翻译美学；许渊冲；声声慢；文学翻译

1 Introduction

Literary translation refers to the process of translating a literary work of source language into target language. There is an interactive relationship between literary translation and literary recipients, the influence of literary receiver on literary translation is more obvious. Due to the great differences between Chinese and Western poetry in terms of language and culture, it is impractical that translator wants to make a perfect translation, that is to say, in literary translation, it is difficult for the translator to completely transform the source language into the target language. This paper, from the perspective of Translation Aesthetics, studies on Xu Yuanchong’s translation version of shengshengman from the aspects of image, sound, lexis and form, and probes into the application of Translation Aesthetics in the translation of Chinese poetry(ci), it further demonstrates the importance of Translation Aesthetics to literary translation.

2 An overview of Translation Aesthetics

Translation is the activity of expressing the information carried by one language in another language, each language has its own characteristics, and its connotation and extension are influenced by different living environment and cultural background.Translation Aesthetics play an important role in translation studies. Translation Aesthetics have long been in connected for a long time, which the basis of Chinese Traditional translation theory includes aesthetics. Translation Aesthetics is an aesthetics origin revealing translation, to study translation from the perspective of aesthetics, which brings a new theoretical basis for the study of contemporary translation theory. (Li Lei, 2011, 83)

2.1 The Aesthetic Translation Theory in China

The subset of Chinese history, poetry and painting are in fact the eternal beauty of direct or indirect narrative, Linyi, interpretation, exploration and development of natural beauty, life beauty, human beauty, personality beauty and spiritual temperament. (Liu Miqing, 1994, 56) Based on the linguistic and expression characteristics of Chinese, Chinese translation and aesthetics have a natural connection. Translation and aesthetics have been officially used as an area of translation research since the 1990s. In the Field of Translation in China, the earliest person who systematically combined translation and aesthetics was Xi Yongji, and The Comparative Study of Translation Aesthetics is the first study of translation aesthetics in China. (Li Jie, 140)

Since the 1980s, Western translation theory has occupied a very important position in The Chinese translation circle, new theoretical terms and research methods have dazzled researchers, Western-style logical thought research has entered various fields of scientific research, and the traditional Chinese method of experience is considered unscientific and fragmented. Quite a few researchers have abandoned the traditional Chinese way of study, but Mr. Yu Yongji still thinks calmly, not in the Western way of logical thinking, but by means of Chinese culture's own sense of experience, trying to open up a new way for translation research from the perspective of Chinese traditional aesthetics, so that China's self-made traditional translation theory can be connected by a link, this link is translation aesthetics. In his works, Mr. Yan discusses the aesthetic factors in literary translation from the three aspects of language beauty, imaginary beauty and style beauty. In the translation research methods to the later researchers have brought inspiration.(Yang Xiaoru, 2013, 25);(Yu Jiying, Guo Jianzhong, 2006, 54)

Second, Mr. Liu Miqing's book Introduction to Translation Aesthetics published in Taiwan. This work through argumentative analysis, revealed the aesthetic origin of translation, analyzed the translation aesthetics and the natural connection between Chinese words and text, put forward the basic theoretical framework for the construction of translation aesthetics. Professor Mao Ronggui's book Translation Aesthetics came out in 2005, which is divided into four parts: the main article, ask the beauty, the hazy article, the practice article.(Yang, 2013, 25)

As the book has a novel layout, the content of the article swept the study of the text of the obscure wind, the language is sometimes eternal, sometimes witty, sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes people can't help but let people understand the study of translation theory at the same time really feel the language beauty. This work suggests that language ambiguity and translation aesthetics can be combined to study, which was rarely mentioned among domestic scholars at that time, opening up new ideas for translation research. In his opinion, the study of language ambiguity and how to compensate in its translation is a topic that translation research can not get around, as far as language ambiguity is concerned, Chinese is more than English. Therefore, Chinese translation theory can not lack the study of language ambiguity and its compensation mechanism in translation. The above three works are the more systematic works in the field of translation aesthetics in China.(Mao Guirong, 2005, 98);(Sui Rongjing, Li Fengping, 2007, 56)

These three works reveal the research significance, research tasks, research methods and research categories of translation aesthetics from different aspects. Throughout these three works, in the course of their discussion, most of the translations listed are concentrated in the field of literary translation. With the guidance of translation aesthetic theory, a large number of academic works and papers on translation have come into being from the perspective of translation aesthetics. Translation aesthetics is a very "young" research field, which needs to be further developed and perfected, and needs to be reconsidered and studied.(Sui Rongjing, Li Fengping, 2007, 57)

At present, the remarkable feature is that the study of translation aesthetics is mainly concentrated in the field of literary research. Most of the articles studied from the aesthetic point of view are still focused on the analysis and criticism of translation, comment on the merits, explore the best translation methods and so on. The perspective is relatively narrow, which has not been separated from the simple evaluation of the quality of translation under the model, less all kinds of translations as aesthetic objects, can not be from the aesthetic point of view of appreciation, taste, comparison, analysis, resulting in literary works and their translations contain aesthetic factors and their value can not be revealed in full, so that readers can not be fully revealed, so that readers in the study of translation works, The aesthetic value of the original and the translation cannot be fully appreciated. (Sui Rongjing, Li Fengping, 2007, 57)

2.1 The Aesthetic Translation Theory in the West

As we know, western translation theories have been greatly attached to aesthetics for a long time before the entrance of the modern linguistics. The theories are based on the study of philosophy and aesthetics, which has lasted for more than 1800 years.

The first western exploration of translation began with Marcus Tullius Cicero(106-43 B.C.) and Quintus Flaccus Horace(65-8 A.D.). Their stress was laid on sense for sense translation and the aesthetic criteria of the TL produced. St Jerome(347-420) and St. Augustine(354-430) were the followers in the flow of western translation theories. The former proposed that translation mostly lied on the nature, so the translated text should be as simple as the daily language. The latter proposed that in the process of translation, the translator must notice three styles: simplicity, elegance and sublimity and they were requirements of the readers.(Li Xiangmin, 2020, 79)

From the fourth century A.D. to the 17th A.D., with the spread of Christianity, Bible translation became the major concerns of western translators. Martin Luther(1483-1542), as the most influential Bible translator, also laid emphasis on the significance of producing an accessible and aesthetically satisfying vernacular style. Later a noted English translator of Homer George Chapman(1559-1643) realized that the good translation must grasp “spirit” and “tone” of the source text, so the translated text can be regarded as a transmigration of the source text(Susan B.M.,2002, 61)

Alexander Fraster Tytler (1747-1813), a renowned English translation theorist in the eighteenth century, set up three principles of translation which focus upon the reproduction of idea, style and ease of the original. Benedetto Crose(1866-1952) was a distinguished aesthetician and literary essayist in Italy. In his masterpiece Estetica(1948), he expressed his thought like this: literary translation was a process of art recreation. Ezra Pound (1885-1972) is not only a great poet, but also a famous translator. He said: “Rime looks very important. Take the rimes of a good sonnet, and there is a vacuum.” (Pound, 1929, 30).

One of the most noteworthy may be the renowned American scholar Eugene A. Nida, who writes in his book The Theory and Practice of Translation (2003, 128) that “translating consists in reproducing in the reader language the closet natural equivalent of the source language, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style.” Here, “meaning” is not only related to lexical elements, but also to other linguistic or non-linguistic factors which contribute to the understanding and appreciation of a literary work. As seen from the history of western translation theory, translators never ceased to take in nutrition from aesthetics. As Liu Miqing (1995, 58) put it: “In the west, the bud of translation theory was first bound to the tree of philosophic-aesthetics and has stood for as long as one thousand and eight hundred years.”(Li Xiangmin, 2020, 79)

During the long course of development, western and Chinese translation aesthetics have experienced ups and downs and share many similarities in translation principles, approaches, procedures etc. Firstly, both Chinese and western translation theories have gone through the process of development from dispersive statements to monographs which reflects the common law of development. Secondly, they both have experienced the dispute between literal and free translation.(Li Xiangmin, 2020, 79)

Confined by the limitation of the aesthetic subject's intuition and appreciation and weakness in objective analysis, traditional studies of translation in China are characterized by their fuzziness and ambiguity in logical intension. As compared with Chinese translation studies, western translation studies pay much attention to explicit definition and clearness of logical intention. Influenced by different systems of philosophy, culture and language, they have their distinctive features as well. (Li, 2020, 80)

Western traditional philosophy, though having passed through different stages, mainly regards human beings and nature as incongruous. It lays stress on dualism rather than holism. While through years Chinese traditional philosophy had laid great emphasis on harmony, integration and the mingling of opposites. Therefore, the differences between western traditional philosophy and Chinese traditional philosophy have exerted a great influence on translation studies. The influence is especially remarkable in the following aspects. Chinese traditional studies of translation trend to pay much attention on the wholes rather than parts, on intuition rather than reasoning. Therefore, the success of a translation work depends mainly on the perception and empirical insight of the translator rather than systematic investigation of its structural elements and logical verification. (Yu Jiying, Guo Jianzhong, 2006, 54)

Moreover, in China, translation theories are but a set of much talked-about principles or criteria such as “faithfulness, expressiveness, elegance” and “closeness of spirit” which can hardly break away from controversial discussions on literal and free translation and have been left to stick with classical literary aesthetics or philosophical aesthetics. Western translation studies, on the other hand, are inclined to lay emphasis on rational and impersonal analysis of structural elements. Therefore, western translation theorists are more likely to approach translation studies from various perspectives and fort systematic conclusion on translation theory. They have never ceased to seek theoretical reference from linguistics, poetics, philosophy, semeiotics, cross-culture studies etc to build their translation theories. In all, similarities and dissimilarities in Chinese and western aesthetic traditions may help us find out the commonness and idiosyncrasy, the universality and particularity between them so that we can get enlightenment from western translation theories and develop those of our own.(Li, 2020, 80)

3 Previous studies on Li Qingzhao’s Ci-poetry in China

In China, Bing Xin is the earliest one introducing Li Qingzhao and her works to the English -speaking world. In 1926, she finished her master thesis An English Translation and Edition of the Poems of Lady Li Yi-an in Wesley College in the United States. In this paper, she systematically explained the fundamental knowledge about Ci-poems and tried to translate twenty-five major Ci-poems of Li Qingzhao. It might be the first time for aca demia of western literature to contact with Ci-poetry. In some west ern countries, a few English translations were published and circulated after that. (Tang Lin, 2012，54)

Chu Dagao (aka Ch'u Ta-kao or TK Chu) is considered as the second one who introduced Li Qingzhao's Ci-poetry to the western world. In 1937, Chu Dagao published his Chinese Lyricsby Cambridge University Press, which has been difficult to obtain now. In 1987, he published another book 101 Chinese Lyrics (published by New World Express), with five Ci-poems of Li Qingzhao's in it.(Tang Lin, 2012，56)

In 1961, Lin Yutang published his famous book The Importance of Understanding Translations from the Chinese , with Li Qingzhao's Ci-poem shengshengman and Comments on Ci-poetry in it. This book aimed to introduce Chinese famous poets and works to the western world. Xu Jieyu published his article about English translation of Lyrics of Li Qingzhao in 1962, which included twenty Ci-poems in it. Specialized translation research on Li Qingzhao at home was done by Weng Xianliang. In 1985, his book An English Translation of Chinese Ancient Poems appeared for the readers at home and abroad. (Tang, 2012, 57)

Xu Yuangchong is one of the most experienced translators in China. He translated and published 60 Ci-poems of Li Qingzhao (some uncertain works also involved) in his magnum opus Literature and Translation in 2003. He drew the outline of the development of Chinese poetry translation in his works, which made a great contribution to popularity Chinese culture and enhancing its status in the world. Mao Yumnei is the daughter of Dr. Mao Yisheng, who is the most famous bridge engineer in China. She obtained her M A. Arts Degree from the Department of English at Washington University. Since the 1950s,she has begun tore search translations on the exchange of Eastern and Western cultures. After few years she published her monograph Picking the Best Ci-Poems from the Washing Jade with thirty-two Ci-poems of Li Qingzhao in it. (Tang, 2012, 58)

Since the twenty first century, Li Qingzhao' s Ci-poetry has attracted more and more audience by its unique artistic flavor. A great deal of scholars has devoted themselves to the translation and introduction of Li Qinghao and her works. YangJian's thesis On the English Translation of Ci-poems by Li Qingzhao is regarded as the earliest thesis in this period.In 2001, the reputable couple Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang published their works Song Lyrics (《宋词》).Other famous translators who have made outstanding contributions include Gong Jinhao (Gong Jinhao, 1999), Huang Hongquan (HuanHongquan, 2001), and Zhu Chunshen (Zhu Chunshen, 2003).(Tang, 2012, 58)

In 2005, Li Qing finished her dissertation A Contrastive Study on the Translations of Tz 'u Poems by Li Qingzhao, which published as a monograph in early 2009. Using the comparative method, she systematically induced and analyzed there search on various translations of Li Qingzhao' s Ci-poetry from the perspective of macro and micro.(Li Qing, 2005, 32)

4 A case study of Shengshengman from the perspective of Translation Aesthetics

Literary translation plays an imperative role in translation studies, and it’s an intricate process that needs many skills. For one thing, the aesthetic style and aesthetic feeling are very important for the author to compose his work. Therefore, the translator should choose the literary words to transform the aesthetic sense of the source text in the process of translation. For the other thing, literary translation is the representations of all-round artistic quality which can make the target reader get the similar appreciation of the original beauty of the target language context. (Dang Zhengsheng, 2010, 97)

声声慢 Tune: ”Slow, Slow Tune”

寻寻觅觅

冷冷清清

凄凄惨惨戚戚

I look for what I miss

I know not what it is

I feel so sad, so drear,

So lonely, without cheer

乍暖还寒时候

最难将息

How hard is it

To keep me fit

In this lightering cold!

三杯两盏淡酒

怎敌他晚来风急

Hardly warmed up

By cup on cup

Of wine so dry

Oh, how could I

Endure at dusk thedrift

Of wind so swift?

雁过也

正伤心

却是旧时相识

It breaks my heart,alas!

To see the wild gees pass

For they are my acquaintances of old.

满地黄花堆积

憔悴损

而今有谁堪摘

The ground is coveredwith yellow flowers

Faded and fallen in showers

Who will pick them upnow?

守着窗儿

独自怎生得黑

Sitting alone at thewindow

How could I butquicken

The pace of darknesswhich won’t thicken?

梧桐更兼细雨

到黄昏点点滴滴

这次第

怎一个愁字了得

On parasol-trees leaves a fine rain drizzles

At twilight grizzles

Oh! what can I do with a grief

Beyond belief?

4.1 Beauty in image

In this part, the author discussed is the Translation Aesthetics in Xu Yuanchong’s Translation of Shengshengman , and the first sentence of this poem is the typical one reaching coexistence of fiction and reality, the translations of the first sentence are analyzed in this part of the thesis.

Shengshengman is a representative work of Li Qingzhao, and the seven pairs of reduplicative characters at the beginning are also regarded as a poetic masterpiece. It has also attracted many translators trying to translate it. According to the statistics by Li Qing, Li Qingzhao started her writing as “寻寻觅觅，冷冷清清，凄凄惨惨戚戚”, The sentence and the repeated words are used to make full use of the advantages of Chinese, and strive to create an abstract and only contemplated artistic conception.(Qi jiajia, 2014, 44)

In the sentence, “寻寻觅觅” is the dynamic state of feeling as if bereft of something, “冷冷清清” is the static state of feeling as if bereft of something,“凄凄惨惨” is the feeling on the surface of inner heart, and “戚戚” is the feeling in the deep inner heart . This sentence seems to describe the inner feeling, but it aims to describe the real situation at that time in fact. (Yang Huiying, Liu Weixin, 2003, 10)

In his translation, Xu translated “寻寻觅觅” into ‘I look for what I miss ', attempting to indirectly convey the meaning of “寻寻觅觅” through the description of environment. that of Lin does not meet the first and fourth requirements. The second four characters,“冷冷清清”, is the description of surround environment (cold and quiet) and the static state of poetess' inner condition as well. Xu translated it into ‘I know not what it is ', which is not in accordance with the original text semantically, but his translation conveys the psychological condition of the poetess because of her suffering. (Qi, 2014, 44)

Hence, for the translation of these four characters, according to the five requirements of Liu Miqing, Xu’s versions of them are completely in conformity with the original poem. The last part of this sentence consists of three pairs of characters,“凄凄惨惨戚戚”,describing the poetess’ inner grief and sorrow. Xu Yuanchong translated these six characters into‘I feel so sad, so drear, So lonely, without cheer ', using alliteration to transfer the stylistic format and stylistic factors of original poem, reproducing the lonely situation of poetess. Xu Yuanchong has a deep understanding of this reduplicative characters. Therefore, he translated this part of the article in “so+adj” structure to explain the feelings of the Li Qingzhao's sadness and reconstruct the character image, which is very in line with the habit of English writing.(Qi, 2014, 44)

4.2 Beauty in sound

Poetry should not only pay attention to the beautiful image, but also the harmony, naturalness and smoothness of phonology. Li Qingzhao attaches great importance to rhythm in her ci, and the musical lyrical language used in Shengshengman is very distinctive. Xu Yuanchong is also very particular about the beauty of phonology when translating poems. In order to achieve the same effect on the phonology of the translated poems and the original words, he adopted the typical translation techniques of ending rhymes, alliterations, and double tones in the translated poems to make the translated poems read It is full of music, and it fully conveys the sadness of the original word.(Sun Yunyu, 2011, 130)

The vowels /iə/、/ai/、/au/ in the English translation of the poem are all diphthongs, and the sound is made by sliding one vowel to another. They are pronounced like a few sighs. Xu Yuanchong used these vowel sounds to imitate the sigh of a female poet. On the whole, the final rhyme of the entire English translation of the poem are very musical, and the sounds themselves give a sense of desolation, urgency, and anxiety, and accurately express the author's feelings.(Sun Yunyu, 2011, 131)

Xu choose “swift” to express “晚来风急” , so that the reader can see the image of the poet like withered leaves floating in the wind, at the same time choose the short sound/i/similar to “urgent” , skillfully reproduce the beauty of sound and the beauty of meaning. The rhymes “Alas” and “pass” in Xu’s translation are similar to the words “时” and “识” .The two words “faded” and “fallen” not only have similar meanings, but also rhyme /f/ alliteration. (Pan Jiayun, 2003, 54)

In the original poem, the word “gaunt” is the same side of the heart, and the meaning is similar. The translator also skillfully rhymed the now and how in the next sentence, “生得黑” being translated as “quicken the pace of darkness”, with the word “thicken” in the next sentence, adding to the sense of rhyme in the poem. (Dong Hui, 2003, 21)

The word “drizzles” and “grizzles” correspond to the reduplicated words “点点滴滴” in the translation. The short sound /i/ in the choice of words is similar to the sound of “点点滴滴”, here is another long Sound/i:/ to show the continuous sound of a little rain, further enhanced the feeling. The last sentence is a kind of spoken expression. The rhyming of “ief” with the words “grief” and “belief” not only reflects the beauty of the sound of the translated poem, but also pushes the feelings of the whole poem to a climax.(Nie Yanmin, 2014 , 103)

4.3 Beauty in lexis

The author thinks that the sentence “In this lingering cold “is totally express the content in the original image of “乍暖还寒时候” , the keyword “Linger” personifies the inconstancy of the weather at the end of autumn as an image that seems to be going but lingers. In addition, Xu Yuanchong’s translation of “最难将息”，the four abstract Chinese characters, “hard is it to keep me fit” , has added a few extra elements, which makes a female image that frail, sad and vulnerable, unable to adapt to the cold and uncertain weather.(Che Mingming, Zhao Shan, 2012, 82)

In the sentence “三杯两盏淡酒”, “三” and “两” here means the approximate number, but the corresponding English “three” , “two” cannot mean this meaning. To translate this meaning, Xu Yuanchong used “By Cup on Cup”， which means “cup after cup”. It paints a picture that a female wants to drive away the chill in the air with the contents of the cup. The helpless mood incisively and vividly expressed.(Yang Huiying, Liu Weixing, 2006, 10)

In sentence “雁过也 正伤心 确是旧时相识”, “正伤心” is the role part. To Express this almost desperate sadness, the translator use the word ”alas” to show author’s sorrows. Alas used to express unhappiness, pity, or concern. It’s a sad, disappointed, painful word that conveys the author’s feelings in an appropriate way.(Yang Huiying, Liu Weixing, 2006, 10)

For the sentence “满地黄花堆积 憔悴损”，Xu translated it into “faded and fallen in showers”. He turned the static physical description into a dynamic process of flowers withering, giving people the enjoyment of beauty. In order to show this dynamic beauty, Xu Yuanchong just uses a “showers” to sublimate the silent gesture of falling flowers into a sound water flow, so that the readers can get the sense of hearing in the visual sense.The meaning of the image of “黄花” may be lost on the target language readers, but people can feel the same about the rise and fall of all things in the natural world So,Xu use the word "faded" and "fallen" to convey it.(Che Mingming, Zhao Shan, 2012, 83,86)

4.4 Beauty in form

The most striking feature of poetry is its unique external form. The number of lines of poetry and the number of words in each line are fixed. As an extension and development of poetry, the form of words breaks through the constant limit of the number of words in poetry. One word, two words, many words, long sentences and short sentences intersect and correspond, and they are scattered and beautiful. In short, due to Chinese and English languages belong to different language families, the phonology is very different as well as the way of expression. (Li Lei, 2011, 92)

Therefore, the English translation of Chinese poems (ci) is a very difficult task. It is not easy to reflect the artistic conception of the original text, and it is even more troublesome to retranslate the beauty of form and rhyme of the original text.The different numbers of characters are in an orderly manner, and there is no lack of strong cohesion and centripetal force among the various characters. There is also a unique beauty.(Dai Caihong, 2006, 77)

As far as the ci shengshengman is concerned, the number of lines in the front and back is roughly symmetrical, with nine sentences in the front and eight sentences in the back. The length of each sentence is staggered, with nine characters long and three characters short. Sometimes short, the first, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth sentences of the first film and the first, second, fourth, sixth, and eight sentences of the second film are all rhymed, and the first, second, third sentence and the second sentence of the first film, the six sentences creatively use the phonetic rhetoric of repetition.(Dong Hui, 2003, 22)

Xu Yuanchong is also superior in showing the beauty of form. On the whole, the long and short sentences of the original poem are intertwined, and the appearance has a unique beauty of ci. The translation also uses a variety of long and short sentences, which are simple and refreshing. Xu Yuanchong is also unique in the arrangement of words. The supplementary use of the three subjects at the beginning, from the vertical view, the arrangement is neat and uniform, like a slim tree. Later, with the number of words in the original poem, the single-line arrangement gradually shortened or lengthened; the total number of words in each line of the original poem's 下阙(the last part of ci) is slightly more than that of the 上阙(the first part of ci), so the 下阙 in the translation also uses longer sentences.(Nie Yanmin, 2014, 103)

According to Xu Yuanchong’s translation, the whole word is translated into 26 sentences, of which 21 sentences are broken from the middle of the long sentence to form a rhyme, which not only corresponds to the original two-character three-word sentence, but also shows the beauty of the original word. So that each sentence shares a similar or identical ending, neatly, orderly and neatly reflecting the beauty of the shape of the end of the sentence, and at the same time achieves the effect of rhyming. On the whole, the translation is long and short, uneven and natural. The similar or same syllables at the beginning or end of the sentence between the lines give the original word a kind of architectural beauty, and the beauty of the original word is better preserved and conveyed.(Nie , 2014, 103)

Conclusion

Ci is a high-level artistic aesthetic activity. The beauty of poetry is abstract and hazy. To effectively convey this beauty, it is obviously useless to copy and imitate the original text. Poetry translation aims to achieve the reproduction of the original aesthetic effect in the translation. Of course, the so-called aesthetic effect includes many elements, the representational elements such as phonetics, lexis and sentence patterns, and the non-representational elements such as image, ideorealm, artistic conception and so on. The translator, as the aesthetic subject of translation, shoulders the important task of achieving aesthetic expressions. The best way of expression is to actively promote the conversion of the source language to the target language, thus completing the translation of aesthetic literature.In translation practice, translator should fully experience the beauty of the source language and its expressive characteristics, and seek the best of the target language in terms of sound, form, image, and lexis.

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--Zhu Xu (talk) 15:10, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Study on Translations of Inverted Sentences in Vanity Fair from the Perspective of Poetics 许鹏飞Xu Pengfei翻译学（Translation Studies）

许鹏飞 Xu Pengfei 202020080659

Abstract:

This thesis aims to discuss loss of poetic function and reappearance of poetic effects in translations of inverted sentences from the perspective of poetics. In literary translation, translators may not strictly follow forms and structures corresponding to original texts due to various reasons, which can help translators convey emotions and content of original texts but also do damage to some functions of originals unconsciously. This thesis chooses some excerpts from two versions translated by Yang Bi and Peng Changjiang respectively. About their translations, Yang Bi tends to choose free translation while Peng Changjiang pays attention to retain forms of original texts. Under the guidance of poetics theory, this part will discuss their different translations of inverted sentences and compare them to the original texts. And the author will analyze loss of poetic function and reappearance of poetic effects in the specific examples from two versions of Vanity Fair’s translation.

摘要：

本文旨在从诗学角度探讨倒装句翻译中诗学功能的损失和诗学效果的再现。在文学翻译中，译者时常不会严格遵从原文的形式与结构，这有利于译者对原文情感内容的传达，但也在无形之中损害了原文的某些功能。本文节选了杨必和彭长江二人译本中的部分文段，关于二者对《名利场》的翻译，杨必倾向于意译的方式而彭长江的译本则注意保留原文的形式。在诗学理论指导下，通过分析二者对于倒装句不同的翻译方式以及与原文进行对比研究。然后作者会分析两个《名利场》译本中具体例子的诗学功能损失以及诗学效果的再现。

Key words:

Literary translation;Vanity Fair;poetics theory;inverted sentence;poetic effect

关键词：

文学翻译；名利场；诗学理论；倒装句；诗学效果

Chapter 1 Introduction

When it comes to literary translation, it cannot escape from controversy and difficulty. It is considered that literary translation is quite hard because the sense of beauty and emotions may be lost in the process of translation before they reach target receptors. And one or more translators seek to give a good translation of the same original, hence re-translation often occurs. Vanity Fair is a novel written by English writer William Makepeace Thackeray in 1847 which depicts English society in the early nineteenth century.

About a hundred years later, Yang Bi translated it into Chinese in 1957. Her translation is free from the shackles of the original language structure, showing charm and original style of Vanity Fair. After Yang Bi’s translation, multiple translations of this book appeared. Among them, Peng Changjiang’s work is an impressive one. His translation, published in 1996, follows the original structure which is quite different from Yang Bi’s version in style, wording, and many other aspects. Both of them give their unique translations to Chinese readers and their translations own their characteristics and merits. Nevertheless, it is inevitable that something in source text may be lost in target text.

Their different translating strategies of inverted sentences are worthy of discussion. In literary works, an inverted sentence bears its task to achieve some special purposes. To explore these, this thesis will discuss some examples excerpted from the two versions compared with the original text under the guidance of poetics theory. According to comparisons and study, it will analyze poetic effects and poetic function in source text and translations from the perspective of poetics. Based on these, this thesis will focus on loss of poetic function and reappearance of poetic effects about translations of inverted sentences. And how literariness in original texts is retained or damaged in their translations will also be involved. (Yin Boan 2000, 79)

Chapter 2 An Overview of Relevant Theories

Before discussing the comparison between translations of Yang Bi and Peng Changjiang, this part will briefly introduce the theoretical basis of this chapter. In this section, the author will first give an introduction to relevant parts of poetics theory and then expounds on functions of language proposed by the Roman Jakobson, especially poetic function. And then this part will give an illustration of internal connections between poetics theory and poetic function. After these, it will briefly discuss inversion and its poetic function.

2.1 Poetics theory

Poetics originated in ancient Greece. Poetics in tradition is a study on poetry based on Aristotle’s Poetics, while Jakobson enlarges its fields. Roman Jakobson proposed that poetics can be applied in research on literature because its object of study is the art of language. According to Jakobson, the main question that poetics studies are what transforms verbal messages into arts. Poetics theory proposes that literariness in literature distinguishes it from other text types and gives it poetic effects. And it is literariness that makes literature a kind of verbal art. (Roman Jakobson 1987, 63, 69)

Correspondingly, literariness is the object of literature research. As a result, a vitally important issue in literary translation that needs to figure out is how to retain literariness in original works. This is closely connected with functions of language, especially poetic function, which is dominant and crucial for literature. Besides, cognitive poetics theory considers that the more efforts a reader makes to understand a work, the stronger poetic effects it will produce. (Roman Jakobson 1973, 62) (Pilkington 2000, 161 -169)

The unfamiliar expression is a technique of creating art and grabbing readers’ attention from the poetic perspective. And poetic language is a kind of self-focused message, different expressions can build different informational capacity of messages. Therefore, choices of word order and sentence structure in literary works cannot be ignored and should be seriously concerned in literary translation. That’s why this thesis pays attention to inverted sentences.(Shklovsky 1998, 16; Jakobson 1987, 67, 85)

2.2 Functions of language

At first, the Prague Circle proposed that there are three functions of languages, that are expressive, conative, and referential function. Then, linguists of the Prague Circle also proposed a fourth function—aesthetic function. This function indicates that language can serve art. In 1960, Jakobson raised another three functions: phatic, metalingual, and poetic function. Based on functions, he distinguished six elements in his model of functions that are necessary for communication to occur: context, addresser(sender), addressee(receiver), contact, common code, and message(as cited in Feng Zongxin). Poetic function originated from literariness is the main function of literature and it focuses on the message. (Roman Jakobson 1987,69) (Feng Zongxin 2006, 19-34)

How to use various linguistic devices to achieve the desired purpose is a focus of scholars who study various kinds of linguistic communication. In other words, different communicative purposes determine that linguistic devices should perform different tasks and fulfill different functions. As poetic function pays attention to a message itself and its expressive device is a kind of self-focused message, carriers of information should be focused on. Therefore, forms of original works should be taken into consideration. Combined with poetics, forms of original works can influence literariness, which cannot be ignored in translation. (Roman Jakobson 1981, 19) (Roman Jakobson 1987, 85)

2.3 Poetics theory and poetic function

In view of formalism, no matter what the art, it needs to be expressed through certain forms. The medium used in literature is language, and studyinge th art of literature is actually studying a language itself. Jakobson argues that poetics is an integral part of linguistics. Thus, the main research method of poetics is studying language through linguistics. As mentioned in 2.1, it is literariness that makes literature a kind of verbal art. And literariness is produced by certain permutation and combination of language. And Jakobson argues that, whereas most language is concerned with the transmission of ideas, the poetic function of language focuses on the ‘message’ for its own sake.(Roman Jakobson 1958, 63)

Formalist scholars led by Jakobson believe that the intentional violation of conventions results in the variation of forms, and thus forms defamiliarization. The process by which readers gain understanding from reading and decoding these novel and inexplicable forms of language will produce poetic effects and aesthetic feelings. In a short, analyzing poetic function of language in literary works is an indispensable method to appreciate literature from the perspective of poetics. (Wang Dongfeng 2010, 8) (Shklovsky 1998, 16)

2.4 Inverted sentences

For some reason, people need to put part or all of the predicate verb before the subject in writing, which produces inverted sentences. There are two types of inversion. One is obligatory and the other is optional. The former is decided by grammar and the latter is mainly chosen by writers. This thesis will choose examples of optional inversion to study. The rhetorical functions of optionally inverted sentences can be divided into five categories, that are emphasizing, balancing sentence structure, connecting the preceding and the following, vivid description, and expressing emotions. (Zhang Keding 2001, 19) (Lu Yang 2008, 126)

Emphasizing, vivid description, and expressing emotions are of vital importance for shaping characters and construction of plots. Therefore, an inverted sentence is a form closely connected with poetic function and poetic effect. In literary works, an inverted sentence is a way of defamiliarization. It uses inversion to achieve literariness by emphasizing some information or emotions to promote the development or shape characters.

For instance, “Where is your daughter?” “On the table stands she.” Here, it can be observed this inverted sentence is a rheme-transition-theme structure, which is a marked and emotional sequence. Daughter is a message questioner has provided in the question. And the respondent gives the answer in an inverted sentence. In this situation, the respondent aims to emphasize the information about the location of the daughter.(Feng Zongxin, 2006, 30)

This kind of sentence form is a writing skill that an author uses to carry specific messages. Readers need to take efforts to understand an inverted sentence itself and the specific meaning and message implicated by an author. And the poetic function of inverted sentences is of great significance to the realization of poetic effects of a text. It will be discussed in detail in the next chapter.

Chapter 3 Comparative Analysis of Translations of inverted sentences in Vanity Fair

In the history of translation, the phenomenon of suppressing forms has existed for a long time in both east and west. And in terms of translation methods, free translation prevails while literal translation is suppressed. Yang Bi’s translation is full of humor and smoothness. Her natural and expressive translation avoids translationese and removes the trace of interpretation and stiffness, which becomes a classic version of Vanity Fair’s translation in China.(Wang Dongfeng 2010, 6)

However, her inclination to free translation also causes some issues when studying her translation from the perspective of poetics. This point is also prominent in the translation of inverted sentences. After reading her translation, the researcher found that she cares less about sentence forms and usually changes sentence structures. In contrast to Yang Bi, Peng Changjiang adopts a different method to tackle inverted sentences. Actually, their translating styles and strategies are distinct. In the following sections, the author will discuss comparisons between their translation with examples in detail.

3.1 Analysis

In the following part, it will mainly analyze the two versions’ arrangements of word order and sentence structure in translations of inverted sentences. And it will discuss the influences of their translations on poetic effects and poetic function through analyzing examples of inverted sentences. The researcher chooses five examples from Vanity Fair as followed.

Example 1 Many a dun had she talked to, and turned away from her father’s door; many a tradesman had she coaxed and wheedled into good-humour, and into the granting of one meal more.(Thackeray 1994, 17)

Yang Bi’s translation: 她常常和逼债的人打交道，想法子打发他们回去。她有本领甜言蜜语的哄得那些做买卖的回心转意，再让她赊一顿饭吃。(Yang Bi 1957, 11)

Peng Changjiang’s translation: 有不少逼债人上门，她跟他们周旋，把他们从家里劝走；有不少买卖人，她连哄带骗把他们哄得高兴，让她再赊一顿饭。(Peng Changjiang 2005, 11)

This text is excerpted from a paragraph that introduces Rebecca Sharp. The author’s language here is very subtle. Thackeray skillfully designs this text. He writes this sentence with Rebecca as the subject in the active voice, and he designs sentences as inverted ones, bringing objects of Rebecca's action to the beginning of sentences. It emphasizes the information about what she had dealt with. This form is a realization of defamiliarization. Readers need to make efforts to understand the complete meaning of this text under this form. (Zhang Keding 2001, 22)

This text shows us Sharp’s childhood. She had to deal with troubles and make a living when she was still a kid. Exercised by her hard life, she could tackle these. But it does not mean that she deserves this hard life. Therefore, Thackeray puts “many a dun” and “many a tradesman” forward to express Sharp’s passivity in her early life. She had no choice so she was active in actions and passive in acceptance. She seems to be at ease, but it is the life that makes her have no choice. Through this carefully designed sentence structure, the inverted sentence implicitly shows that Sharp lives in a poor and bad environment, while the active voice clearly states that she is smart and mature.

These sentences realize their poetic effects and poetic function through this special form. It is necessary to pay attention to this form in order to retain the literariness of the source text. But in Yang Bi’s translation, she generally translates this text in a way that converts sentences to active voice and put the subject in front of the sentence. This omits some true meanings and important information about Sharp, which damages literariness. In contrast, Peng Changjiang uses amplification to retain the information of activity and passivity between character and environment.

In addition, he adds “上门” to show the passivity that Sharp has to face duns as a kid. And he also keeps the order of characters in this sentence, preserving poetic function of language and achieving poetic effects contained in the source text. There is a topic of Vanity Fair that we should notice. Thackeray writes this work with no fame to critically scrutinize the capitalist system and expose the darkness of the society at that time. Defamiliarization here has its underlying intention and message which should be focused on when translating.

Example 2 So imprisoned and tortured was this gentle little heart, when in the month of March, Anno Domini 1815, Napoleon landed at Cannes, and Louis XVIII fled, and all Europe was in alarm, and the funds fell, and old John Sedley was ruined.(Thackeray 1994, 177)

Yang Bi’s translation: 这温柔的小女孩子感觉到烦恼和苦闷。那时正是公元一千八百十五年的三月里，拿破仑在加恩登陆，路易十八仓促逃难，整个欧洲人心惶惶，公债跌了价，约翰·赛特笠老头儿从此倾家荡产。(Yang Bi 1957, 175)

Peng Changjiang’s translation: 这颗小小的温柔的心就是这样被禁锢，受煎熬。当时是公元一八一五年三月，拿破仑在戛纳登陆，路易十八逃亡，全欧洲惊恐不安，公债下跌，老约翰·塞德利破产。(Peng Changjiang 2005, 190)

This sentence describes the situation when Amelia Sedley’s family is broke and she hasn’t get any response from her lover for a long time. Amelia was depressed, worried and distraught under the circumstances. Thackeray uses an inverted sentence here, putting her feelings at the beginning of the whole sentence to emphasize her anxiety and worry. In such a long sentence, the author put her experiences behind her feelings as a subordinate clause. This is a deliberate form that could highlight Amelia’s sufferings in soul and body because of these upheavals.

When translating, the two adjectives imprisoned and tortured should be focused on in order to express Sedley’s situation and feelings. In translations of the two versions, they realize the importance of the order of clauses and translate it in a similar form to the source text. However, when dealing with this inverted sentence, both of their translations change it to a theme-transition-rheme structure. The original one is a rheme-transition-theme structure, which is marked and carries poetic function. (Zhang Keding 2001, 22)

Changing the sequence of components impairs its poetic function and poetic effects. The emotions in Chinese and English expressions are not equivalent. Besides, the lexicon of Sedley’s feelings used in Peng’s translation is closer to the source text than Yang Bi’s translation. Yang Bi uses a freer way of choosing words to show these feelings. Although they do not follow the original form, it can be forgivable. Because if they followed the structure, it would be translated like “太折磨了，太煎熬了，这颗幼小的心。”. This translation does not conform to Chinese grammatical norms, which breaks the cohesion of this sentence. In this case, translators need to find other methods to make up for the damage of poetic effects in process of changing structure.

Example 3 What humiliation and fury:what pangs of sickening rage,balked ambition and love;what wounds of outraged vanity, tenderness even, had this old worldling now to suffer under!(Thackeray 1994, 238)

Yang Bi’s translation: 老头儿是个名利心极重的俗物，想到儿子这样的丢他的脸，气得发昏，只觉得一阵阵的怒气冒上来，彻骨的难过。他的野心和他对儿子的骨肉至情受了个大挫折。他的虚荣心，还有他的一点儿痴心，也遭到意想不到的打击。(Yang Bi 1957, 234)

Peng Changjiang’s translation:这年老的世俗之徒，现在羞怒交加；野心受挫，爱心无着落，气得他发昏；虚荣心，甚至还有点温情，受到了粗暴的伤害，更使他心如刀绞。(Peng Changjiang 2005, 254)

This sentence is excerpted from chapter 24, which describes that old Osborne knows that his son wants to marry Sedley from Dobbin. The original sentence uses a rheme-transition-theme structure, which is marked and emotive. Besides, when it comes to word order, normal word order is typical and unmarked while an inverted sentence is atypical and marked. From the perspective of poetics, an atypical and marked expression is defamiliarized contributing to foregrounding while typical and unmarked expression is contributing to backgrounding. Here, Thackeray uses defamiliarization to achieve poetic effects. Thackeray puts the old man's anger, pain, sufferings forward to emphasize his feelings. Character’s emotions are highlighted intuitively in this form of expression. (Zhang Keding 2001, 22)

Regrettably, it is rare to see such a long inverted sentence in Chinese. So, Yang Bi and Peng Changjiang both change this sentence into a theme-transition-rheme structure, which does damage to poetic function of the original. However, they adopt diverse translation strategies that produce different results. Yang Bi splits this sentence into three sentences that is different from Peng Changjiang’s translation. Although her translation may be more in line with Chinese reading habits, the defamiliarization of the original sentence has disappeared. Her splitting of the whole sentence also weakens the continuity and progression of emotion which largely impairs the poetic function of the original sentence. Nor does Peng Changjiang retain this rheme-transition-rheme structure.

It is a pity that differences between Chinese and English makes it difficult to put long clauses before a subject which will cause a logical problem. In Peng Changjiang’s version, his word order is almost the same as the source text, preserving the flavor and poetic effect of the original to the greatest extent. In addition to slightly changing the inverted sentence, Peng Changjiang still follows the original form, using short clauses to retain the continuity of emotion. Thus, the situation in the source text is vividly reproduced.

Example 4 Here, too, in this humble tenement, live care, and distrust, and dismay.(Thackeray 2003, 507)

Yang Bi’s translation: 这家子的生活是够清苦的，他们也有他们的烦恼和心事，也免不了互相猜忌。(Yang Bi 1957, 498)

Peng Changjiang’s translation: 这儿，在这卑贱的屋子里，也有忧虑、猜疑和恐慌。(Peng Changjiang 2005, 538)

This sentence is excerpted from chapter 50, in which Amelia’s family sank into poverty and her life got stuck in trouble. At the beginning of this chapter, it tells the impoverished status of her family and lays the background for Amelia having to send her son away. This example is the first sentence of laying background which sets the tone of this chapter. There is no character in this sentence. which is narrated from the perspective of an objective bystander. And inversion here puts the family’s poverty in front and human feelings behind, which corresponds to the content of this chapter.(Zhang Keding 2001, 21)

This arrangement implies to readers that care, distrust and dismay may be caused by the family’s humble status. Besides, the word “humble” is a quite agreeable and inoffensive depiction of their situation while this inverted sentence highlights their humble situation. Correspondingly, Amelia’s family is in deep poverty but still trying to maintain the vanity. As mentioned above, this inverted sentence means a lot for producing poetic effects. The writer uses this form to attract readers' attention to this chapter and create literariness combined with the content of this plot.

Yang Bi and Peng Changjiang both retained the original sequence, with the situation in the first place and emotions in the last. Yang Bi uses “这一家子”, “他们” and “他们的” to connect the whole sentence while Peng Changjiang uses “这儿” and “这”. Comparing the two translations, the latter is closer to the original sentence because it retains the design of no character. What’s more, there are progression and transition of background introduction in this sentence. “这儿” and “这” correspond with “here” and “this”, which retains progression and transition and poetic effects.

3.2 Conclusions

William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair is a classic satirical novel, and sarcasm can be seen everywhere in this work. Inversion is a significant form to build this satirical tone. So, translators should make efforts to retain the poetic function and poetic effects of this satirical tone in inverted sentences. Through the discussion of examples in 3.1, it can be found that Peng Changjiang's translations of inverted sentences are more consistent with the form of the original text. Many of the emotions and writing skills contained in this inverted form are fully preserved in his translation.(Zhi Xiaolai, Zeng Lisha 2015, 90)

An inverted sentence is a typical example that shows literariness and usually carries an important message. In Vanity Fair, Thackeray uses a lot of inverted sentences to show characters’ personalities, situations and experiences, which is an impressive writing skill. This form has a significant influence on the story, which needs more attention to translate. Whereas, Yang Bi lived in a time when people criticized and suppressed formalism, that’s why her translation seems freer. Because of this, she lays emphasis on stories and diction while omits the power of form so that she does not translate inverted sentences with retaining main structures.(Wang Dongfeng 2010, 7)

In the era that Peng Changjiang lives, influenced by Russian formalism, people realize the importance of form again. And it can be observed that he pays more attention to forms in his translation of inverted sentences. In his translations, he makes efforts to retain the original sentence structure. When translating according to the form does not conform to Chinese grammar, he will use similar forms to retain poetic effects contained in the original form as much as possible.(Wang Dongfeng, 2010, 11)

In the era that Peng Changjiang lives, influenced by Russian formalism, people realize the importance of form again. And it can be observed that he pays more attention to forms in his translation of inverted sentences. In his translations, he makes efforts to retain the original sentence structure. When translating according to the form does not conform to Chinese grammar, he will use similar forms to retain poetic effects contained in the original form as much as possible.(Wang Dongfeng 2010, 11)

In translation, the basic reason for a change of form is the difficulty of translation, that is, it is possible or necessary to change the form of the original text only when a translation with corresponding smoothness cannot be obtained without changing the form. Arbitrarily changing the form of the original text will destroy its poetic effect and author’s purposes. In this novel, William Thackeray vividly shapes many characters through his careful diction. His expression on the development of plots and delicate feelings of characters cannot be separated from forms.(Wang Dongfeng 2007, 48)

Inversion is a sentence that changes the order and structure to emphasize a certain sentence component. Its distribution of information is designed by the author to promote the development of the plot. Therefore, a translator should conserve this inverted form as far as possible as long as it does not affect the readability of texts. When an inverted sentence form cannot be retained, we should also pay attention to keep the order of sentence components and structure of rheme and theme as much as possible. And how to deal with inversion properly and retain its poetic effects remains to be further studied. (Lu Yang 2008, 128)

Chapter 4 Summary

It is often said in Chinese literature that one has to grasp the content and forget the form. However, This is not always applicable to translation because forgetting forms may result in losing meanings. This thesis makes a comparative analysis of translations of Vanity Fair. Through discussion, it can be seen that forms deliberately chose by the author bear specific functions in this story of vanity. An inverted sentence designed with purposes is an important form that needs attention in translating, especially optional ones. They usually own a task to achieve poetic function.(Lu Yang 2008, 128)

Sometimes, translators change the original form in order to take care of readers’ language habits. Maybe it is not necessary. This kind of change may produce a good work but will also sacrifice literariness that an author designed on purpose. This does not mean that translators must follow exactly the same form without considering whether it conforms to the grammatical norms of the target language or not. Instead, it means translation should consider the influence of form on poetic function and poetic effect. What’s more, maybe literary writers don’t aim to make every reader understand the whole text. They may write to express feelings and thoughts to let readers explore and feel.

Translators try to give an equivalent text without damage to forms, which can give readers opportunities to think about what contains in forms by themselves. When changing forms, translators may also ruin writers' emotions on characters or stories contained in forms, which will destroy literariness unconsciously. Literary translations should be more cautiously treated. Every detail may have a specific intention. Without literariness, literary works will lose their souls, and poetic effects on readers will also disappear. Nowadays, with converting attention on forms again, when translators try efforts to make a great translation, they maybe could think about paying some attention to formal correspondence to retain literariness.(Wang Dongfeng 2010,9)

Chapter 5 References

[1] Jakobson,R. (1987). Language in Literature,Cambridge,Massachusetts&London:The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

[2] Jakobson,R. (1973). Modern Russian poetry:Velimir Khlebnikov.In.E.J.Brown(ed.).Major Soviet Writers:Essays in Criticism. Oxford University Press.

[3] Pilkington,A. (2000). Poetic Effects: A Relevance Theory Perspective . Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

[4] Shklovsky, V.(1998). Art as technique. In Julie Rivkin &Michael Ryan(eds.). Literary Theory: An Anthology (2nd ed).Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

[5] Feng Zongxin 封宗信. (2006). 现代语言学流派概论 [An Overview of Modern Linguistics]. 北京大学出版社[Peking University Press].

[6] Zhang Keding 张克定. (2001). 英语倒装句的语篇功能[Textual Functions of English Inversion from a Pragmatic Perspective].外国语(上海外国语大学学报)[Journal of Foreign Languages],(05):18-24.

[7] Lu Yang 卢杨. (2008). 浅谈英语倒装句的修辞功能[On Rhetorical Functions of English Inversion]. 合肥工业大学学报(社会科学版)[Journal of HeFei University of Technology(SocialSciences)
]22(06):126-128.

[8] Jakobson, Roman. (1958/1981a). Linguistics and Poetics. in Selected Writings Ⅲ:Poetry of Grammar and Grammar of Poetry. Hague Mouton.

[9] Wang Dongfeng 王东风. (2010). 形式的复活:从诗学的角度反思文学翻译[Resurgence of form: Reflection on literary Translation from a poetic perspective] [J].中国翻译[Chinese Translators Journal],31(01):6-8,11.

[10] Zhi Xiaolai, Zeng Lisha 支晓来,曾利沙. (2015). 讽刺口吻在修辞格中的体现——兼评《名利场》的两个中译本[The expression of sarcasm in figures of speech: Comments on two Chinese translations of Vanity Fair].广东外语外贸大学学报[Journal of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies],26(02):90-93.

[11] Yin Boan 尹伯安. (2000). 重译贵在创新——《名利场》两种译本的评析[Innovation Is the Key to Re-translation:An analysis of two versions of translation of Vanity Fair].山东师大外国语学院学报[Journal of Basic English Education],(04):79-83.

[12] Thackeray, William. (2003). Vanity Fair. Wordsworth Editions Ltd.

[13] Yang Bi 杨必. (1957). 《名利场》[Vanity Fair]. 北京:人民文学出版社[People's Literature Publishing House].

[14] Peng Changjiang 彭长江. (2005). 《名利场》[Vanity Fair]. 北京:中国戏剧出版社[China Drama Press].

[15] Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary. (2009). Oxford University Press.

[16] Wang Dongfeng 王东风.(2007). 从诗学的角度看被动语态变译的功能亏损——《简·爱》中的一个案例分析Function Loss in Passive-active Reversal Concerning Material Processes in Literary Translation: A case study of a piece of translation from Jane Eyre from a poetic perspective.外国语(上海外国语大学学报)[Journal of Foreign Languages] , (04):48.

--Xu Pengfei (talk) 13:05, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

A Study of the Chinese Prose Translation from the Perspective of Translation Aesthetics-Based on the English version of Cong Cong

Abstract

There are great differences between Chinese and English languages. Especially the language of Chinese prose and its form, which have distinctive features, contains rich Chinese cultural characteristics, increasing the difficulties when translate Chinese prose into English. The paper mainly introduces the origins and development of translation aesthetics both in China and abroad, and some translation methods of Chinese prose. The author chooses the English version of Cong Cong translated by Zhang Peiji as the representative work to study its translation methods and the way of aesthetics representation with the theory proposed by Liu Miqing, to draw a conclusion that the language features of Chinese prose could be manifested by means of translation aesthetics in the process of translation. By presenting the application of the translation aesthetics in prose translation, this paper is expected to help language learners have a deeper understanding of the translation methods in Chinese and English literature.

摘要

中英语言存在较大差异。尤其是汉语散文的语言和形式特色鲜明，蕴含丰富的中国文化特色，使得汉语散文的英译难度加大。本文主要介绍了中外翻译美学的起源和发展以及一些汉语散文的翻译方法，并以张培基教授翻译的《匆匆》英译本为范本，运用刘宓庆教授提出的翻译美学理论，研究其中运用的翻译方法及审美再现的方式，由此得出结论在翻译的过程中借助翻译美学理论可以使汉语散文的语言特色得以体现。通过展示翻译美学在散文翻译中的应用，本文期望帮助语言学习者更深入地了解汉语及英语文学作品翻译的方法。

Key words

Chinese prose translation; translation aesthetics; Cong Cong

关键词

中国散文翻译；翻译美学；《匆匆》

Introduction

Literature is an artistic way to express language. The Chinese prose, as one of the important literary genres, with its features that scrambled in appearance but united in spirit, is widely favored by many readers. Cong Cong, as one of the master works of Zhu Ziqing, was written in 1922 when the May Fourth Movement was coming to an end. At that time, Zhu Ziqing taking the responsibility of literator, with beautiful language and refined structure, delicately described his resignation and plaint for time elapsing, and implied the reality that the young people felt confused about the future of the country. In the prose, Mr. Zhu’s reflection on time not only touched the youth at that time, but also alerted today’s readers.

The “beauty” of the Chinese prose is the most important as well as the most difficult problem to solve in translation. As the integration of aesthetics and translation, translation aesthetics’ basic principles are used to analyze and explore aesthetic difficulties during the process of interlingual transfer, including the aesthetic constituents of aesthetic object (original text, translation text), the dynamic role of aesthetic subject (translators and readers), the connection of aesthetic subject and object, the types and means of aesthetic reproduction in translation and the standard of translation aesthetics, etc.

The aesthetical process of Chinese prose translation is to coordinate the conflicts and incoherence which exist in different cultures when translating. People have accumulated much experience in national prose study in the past thousand years, but the study for Chinese prose translation still lagged behind, let alone the study by systematic theories or from the aesthetic orientation.

Exploring the Chinese prose translation with aesthetic theories, whichever from the view of theory or practice, both of them could be used for reference. Throughout the history of national translation theory development, it is not difficult to find that since ancient times, the traditional Chinese translation theory have reflected abundant aesthetic ideas. According to that, this paper takes the translation aesthetic theory proposed by Liu Miqing as the primary theoretical framework, to study and analyze the English version of Cong Cong translated by Zhang Peiji. Professor Zhang has devoted to the translation of Chinese modern prose for a long time, making significant contribution to the theory of the Chinese modern prose translation, especially to the translation practice.

The paper mainly includes twelve parts. The first is the introduction which defines the study subject of the paper, proposing the study purpose and significance through summarizing predecessors’ studies; from the second to the fourth parts mainly introduce theoretical framework of the paper which was proposed by Mr. Liu Miqing, explaining the origins of Chinese translation aesthetics and some involved concepts in the paper such as aesthetic subjects and objects, regular and standard; and the following three parts simply focus on some methods in the process of Chinese prose translation, which mainly involve four methods: Literal translation and free translation, domestication and foreignization.

By comparing these methods this paper could make people realize the differences of translation methods and choose the proper way when translating; the eighth and the following three parts are based on the previous parts, according to the theories of translation aesthetics and methods, to analyze the translation beauty in Cong Cong, its language, image and style beauty; the final part is the conclusion, through a large number of analysis getting a conclusion, to make it clear that the Chinese modern prose, as a beautiful art, its beauty could be manifested during the process of translation by imitation, rebuilding and translator’s re-creation, and that the Chinese prose translation itself is a process of pursuing beauty, therefore translators need to continuously improve and perfect in practice.

An Overview of Translation Aesthetics

Historically, the development of translation theory both at home and abroad has closely connected with aesthetics, for example, in the west, the famous “three principles of translation” proposed by Alexander Fraser Tytler; and Paul Valery, a great French translator, advocated that the technique of translation mostly depended on the translator’s aesthetic perception for the literature’s truth value; in China, when people translated the ancient Buddhist Scriptures, someone had proposed that, faithful translated texts lacked beauty, whereas beautiful translated texts lacked faithfulness. Yan Fu also put forward “faithfulness”, “expressiveness” and “elegance” these points in 1896 when translating Theory of Natural Selection. [6](Yan Fu, 2010, 6)

Although the translation and aesthetics both have a long history of development, they were linked into one conception—Aesthetic-poetic translation for the first time in 1954 by an eminent American scholar, Joseph B. Casagrande. And Wang Zuoliang, a great Chinese scholar and translator, has proposed in Chinese Translation Standard that the translator should put aesthetics at the first place when translating, and leave translation standard behind, which also connected translation with aesthetics. [7](Wang Zuoliang, 1991, 113) And up until now, the connection existing between translation and aesthetics has been widely accepted in the field of translation, and the “translation aesthetics” has become a basic conception.

The relationship between translation and aesthetics

There are various definitions of translation. Oxford English Dictionary explains translation as—to turn from one language into another;[1] (Hornby, 1988, 2149) and the New Webster International Dictionary defines it as—to turn into one’s own or another language. [2](Gove, 1961, 1956) In Chinese dictionary Han Yu Da Ci Dian, “translation” is defined as—to express the meaning of one language by another language. [8](Luo Zhufeng, 1986, 2374) And Eugene A. Nida, the famous American translator has said, “translating consists of reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style”.[2] (Nida & Taber, 1969, 12-24)

From these definitions, a conclusion can be made that translation is essentially a process of transforming language and words, so translation can be divided into interpreting and translating; with the development of science and technology, there are human translation and machine translation.[9] (Fang Mengzhi, 2004, 296) What is more, the translation of written language is also divided into two parts, non-literary translation and literary translation. Comparing with the translated texts of non-literary translation, that of literary translation embodies more uncertainty and diversity. Facing with so many options, how the translator makes a judgment and selects one text as the final version requires the translator has a standard for reference. The author believes that aesthetic analysis can be a feasible way in literary translation.

Although in China and the west, aesthetics has developed for a long time, it was not given the name until 1750 by a German philosopher Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. The definitions of aesthetics vary from scholars to scholars, especially in the west. The author selects one of them as the study foundation of this paper. The Basic Principles of Aesthetics written by Liu Shucheng has a relatively clear definition for aesthetics, which says that aesthetics is a branch of learning that deals with the general law of beauty and with the creation or appreciation of beauty; in detail, aesthetics studies the nature of beauty and its law, and the aesthetic connection of subject and object, art and reality, and the aesthetics experience. [10](Liu Shucheng, 2006, 9-20) Aesthetics can be divided into different parts according to its study objects, such as natural beauty, artistic beauty, linguistic beauty and social beauty.

Based on the previous part, translation is a process of transforming language and words and the aesthetics studies objects including language beauty, so ultimately, it is language that connects translation and aesthetics. As combining translation with aesthetics or taking the aesthetic theory into the translation and practice, a new subject is formed—translation aesthetics. Strictly speaking, translation aesthetics studies the nature and the law of translation beauty and the aesthetic relation between the translator and the original and translated text, and the aesthetic relation of translated text and the original text.

It is the translator’s aesthetic experience. The process of translating is also the aesthetic activity; the translator could refer to the classification of aesthetic forms to analyze the aesthetic factors in the original text and translated text. Meanwhile, the translating process itself belongs to one of the aesthetic study objects, which includes the translator’s aesthetic experience, process, and judgment. Translating is a dynamic aesthetic and creative process which closely connects with the original text and translated text. The beginning of translation is the original text and the ending of translation is the translated text, while what the author is talking about is aesthetic translation or literary translation, that is to say, both the original and translated text contain many aesthetic factors, which demands more from translators.[11] (Liu Miqing, 1986, 46-51)

The aesthetic thinking throughout the whole process of literary translation, plays an important role in faithfully expressing the idea of the original text, retaining the vivid language of the translated text and reproducing the style of the original text. So the translator needs to transfer the aesthetic factors in the original text into the translated text, whatever the presentational elements or non-presentational elements, which was proposed by Liu Miqing in the passage Basic Conception of Translation Aesthetics published on the Chinese Translators Journal. [12](Liu Miqing, 1986, 19-24) The next part would be the illustration of Liu Miqing’s translation aesthetics.

Liu Miqing’s thought in translation aesthetics

Professor Liu’s aesthetic theory mainly includes the translation aesthetics’ category and tasks, its aesthetic subject and object, and the general law of translation aesthetics. In the paper, the writer will give a brief introduction to the translation aesthetic subject and object and its general law.

In the Basic Conception of Translation Aesthetics, Professor Liu Miqing puts forward that the aesthetic subject is the translator.[12] (Liu Miqing, 1986, 19-24) He thinks that if the translator wants to represent the beauty of the original text, the aesthetic constituents of the original text must connect with the aesthetic condition of the aesthetic subject, i.e. the translator. And the aesthetic condition of the aesthetic subject includes three aspects, literary ability, aesthetic sense and aesthetic experience. Literary ability as the most basic requirement enlightens people’s aesthetic sense. A translator with higher literary ability will have better sense and reproducibility for the beauty of the original text.

And aesthetic sense means the ability to sense beauty and the sensibility for beauty, which usually stem from the intuition. If a translator has high literary ability that could deepen his aesthetic sense, in such way, he could possess the relatively high level of aesthetics and could put this ability into the translating practice, to optimize the aesthetic sense. Aesthetic experience is the aesthetic perception and cognition produced by repeating aesthetic activities. Practice makes perfect, abundant aesthetic experience could bring out the best of the aesthetic ability of the aesthetic subject. A translator without enough aesthetic experience, even if he has high literary ability, facing with a beautiful original text, he could not optimize his aesthetic ability. The aesthetic subject must possess three abilities at the same time, so that he could manifest the beauty of the original text in the greatest extend.

It is self-evident that the aesthetic object of translation is the original text. Professor Liu proposes that judging the beauty of the original text involves the aesthetic values, and the basis of judging the aesthetic values of the original text is its aesthetic constituents, in other words is the aesthetic elements which compose the features of the original text. Meanwhile, Liu Miqing puts forward two types of aesthetic elements, one is the “aesthetic presentation” elements and the other is the “non-presentational elements”.[12] (Liu Miqing, 1986, 20)

The aesthetic presentation element in the original text is the beauty in its language form, including the phonetic beauty, which is called the formal beauty of the matter in aesthetics. It normally could be felt directly and be reflected through human’s vision and hearing. For example, a beautiful prose could give people the feeling of beauty through its language, rhythm or phonology. The non-presentational elements, contrasting with the presentational elements, have not direct connection with the language form of the original text. It is usually not intuitionistic and “uncountable” as it often cannot be expressed by words, sentences or texts.

The aesthetic constituents of the language form usually can be counted, for instance, the number of parallel sentences, rhetorical devices or alliterations all are numerable; while not the non-presentational elements. It is impossible to quantify the features of an article, such as its artistic conception, charm, and linguistic modality. However, these elements are crucial for the aesthetic values of an article. Although they are not given specific language form or material form, they could be sensed. With this point, Professor Liu describes that as “nonquantitative obscure collection” in translation aesthetics. [12](Liu Miqing, 1986, 21) Its core is the obscurity, and through the following Professor Zhang’s translated text people could sense the obscurity clearly.

Liu Miqing points out that the translation aesthetic experience often goes through the following steps: the cognition for the aesthetic constituents of the aesthetic objects; the conversion of aesthetic cognition; the modifying for the result of conversion; the representation of the result of modifying. In summary, cognition, conversion, modifying and representation these four steps are included.

The Translation Methods of Chinese Prose

Prose is a lively and dexterous literary form, whose structure is flexible and language form is free from the constraint of rhythm. A beautiful prose requests refined language, thoughtful thinking and clear theme, which could give people a beautiful sense. While the prose translation, no matter from English to Chinese or from Chinese to English, is difficult works for all translators. Prose translation is an aesthetic practice, not only requiring the translator to convey the form beauty in the original text, but also to convey the content and style beauty, to achieve the harmony between the original text and the translated text.

Many great translators at home and abroad have put forward various translation theories or methods. In this paper, the author will resort to some prominent theories or methods to illustrate the translation of the Chinese prose.

Literal translation and free translation

It has a long debate on literal and free translation, which mainly argues about the definition of literal and free translation, or which one should be used in the process of translating; these debates put the literal translation and free translation on an opposite position. [14](Ye Zinan, 2001, 5-8) Some people advocating the literal translation think that the literal translation should not add or reduce any words, by doing so, the meaning and information of the original text could be maintained accurately, while the free translation is on the contrary.

Others supporting free translation maintain that many translated texts translated literally, are not only text rigid, but also difficult to read and understand. The author thinks that there are two reasons leading to this circumstance. One is that there is great difference between Chinese and English. Facing with this situation, the translator often confronts with two options: a sentence can be translated both literally and freely, at this point, different people have different attitudes toward these two methods, so the disputes appear; and the other is different people have different definitions for literal translation and free translation.

China has a long history of translation development, and during the process, many great translation masters have appeared, such as Xuan Zang in Tang Dynasty and Yan Fu in modern time, whose achievements all have exerted great influence on the development of translation methods in China. The debates between literal and free translation started from the process of translating Buddhist scriptures when, Dao An, a famous monk in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, who advocated the literal translation, worried that free translation would destroy the information in the original text; while at the same period, Kumārajīva, a monk and translator who came from the Kingdom of Kucha, can not only be able to speak Sanskrit but also to understand Chinese language, thinking that it is necessary to add or dele some contents in order to convey the meaning of the original text better.

This debate went down to the period of Xuan Zang, who did not clearly state whether he supported literal or free translation. Generally, people titled his methods as “new translation”, in other words, using these two methods at the same time in a proper way. When dealing with different contexts, he applied adding, reducing and some other methods to reserve the meaning and spirit of the original text, which made a perfect combination between literal and free translation. Although until today there are still some disputes about literal and free translation, people have come to a consensus that both of them as the basic translation methods, aiming at conveying the information of the original text to the target language in a loyal way.

It is wrong to say which one of them is good or bad. And with the development of China’s translation theories, the definitions of literal and free translation have been improved a lot. Generally speaking, literal translation means that the language form of the original text should be maintained as much as possible as well as its words, sentence structure or rhetorical device, meanwhile the translated text is required to be fluent and easy to understand and must be loyal to the original text; and the free translation starts from the meaning of the original text, not only requiring about clearly expressing the literal meaning of the original text, but its implication conveyed to the reader and loyal to the original text.

Domestication and foreignization

The origin of two terms can be traced back to the speech On the Different Methods of Translation delivered by a German ideologist Schleiermacher, who thought that translation had two methods, one was that the translator “leaves the author in peace as much as possible, and moves the reader toward him” ; and the other is that “the translator leaves the reader in peace as much as possible, and moves the author toward him”, but he did not give the two methods a specific name. [4](Shuttleworth & Cowie, 2004, 43-60)

And the Dictionary of Translation Studies published in 1997, edited by Mark Shuttleworth and Moira Cowie, thought that Venuti was the first person who concluded these two methods in 1995 with two terms “domestication and foreignization”. As the extending of literal and free translation, domestication and foreignization break up the constraint of language factors. The literal and free translation mainly focus on the language level, while the domestication and foreignization mainly refer to the cultural level. The literal and free translations are translation methods while the domestication and foreignization are translation strategies. Although they have something in common, the distinct differences still exist.

Eugene A. Nida, as the representative of domestication, he proposed “functional equivalence” in his book The Theory and Practice of Translation. In this book, he wrote that “in terms of the degree to which the receptors of the messages in the receptor language respond to it in substantially the same manner as the receptors in the source language”, which indirectly expressed the key points of the domestication, that is focusing on the target language, making readers have the same feeling or responding to the original text readers. [3](Nida & Taber, 1969, 24)

However, Venuti who advocated foreignization, thought the term domestication has some negative connotations, for it lost the features of the original language during the process of translation, which restricted the development of cultural diversity. [5](Venuti, 2004, 16-17) Contrary to the domestication, foreignization advocates to focus on the source language, maintain the exotic features and style of the original language. Just like literal and free translation, domestication and foreignization are contrary as well as complementary.

So, choosing a proper way in translation people should consider some factors, for example the author’s intention, the translating purpose and the level and demands of readers. And in the process of translating, a translated text is not completely confined within domestication or foreignization, but the translator always takes two or more methods unconsciously. Considering the translating purpose of the literature, the two translation methods are often used in the same text at the same time. It is not difficult to find that all great translated texts use these two methods together under the precondition that the content of the original text could be expressed accurately rather than just simply choose one of them and use it singly in the whole text.

The Translation Aesthetics in Cong Cong

Translation aesthetics is an important branch in translation system, which is widely used to translate poems, prose and fictions. Cong Cong, as one of the master works of Zhu Ziqing, is always appreciated for its beautiful language, vivid image and profound thinking. Chinese prose and English prose are quite different, which makes the translation of Chinese prose difficult. Professor Zhang Peiji has worked a long time on the translation of Chinese prose. His translation methods and theories provide good references. This part the author mainly takes the English version of Cong Cong translated by Zhang Peiji as an example, using Professor Liu Miqing’s translation aesthetics to analyze the translation methods and aesthetic representation in Cong Cong.

Cong Cong was a masterpiece written by Zhu Ziqing, a famous Chinese prose master, on March 28, 1922 and was published on April 11 in the same year. It is a prose about sighing for the elapsing time and warning people to value the time, and is the representative work in the period of May Fourth Movement.The first special point of the prose lies in that Zhu simultaneously used three different personal pronouns: you, I and he. [15](Xue Gongping, 2008, 229) “You” in this prose, is the person whom the author is talking with; is the interlocutor communicating with “me”; people can also call “you” as a fictitious friend.

At the first paragraph of the prose, the author expressed his feeling of treasuring time and nostalgia for the passing time through rhetorical questions like “I” asking “you” why the time goes by never to return.[16] (Zhang Peiji, 2007, 55-60) And in the middle of the prose, the author called the time as “he”, to describe the elapsing of time, expressing “my” abashed and anxious feeling about the passing time. Through using the three personal pronouns the prose described the time and sighed for its elapsing, making readers have a feeling of familiarity as well as vitalize the time and the years.

The most artistic feature in the prose is the sensual description for the elapsing of time. In order to emphasize the hasty sense of “the time” as an alive object, the author applied both personification and parallelism, to give the time human’s emotion, character and temperament. In the first sentence of the prose, Zhu used parallelism to attract readers’ attention, leading them immerse in the beautiful poetry; and next put forward four questions without answers. In this way, people can clearly realize that the time is invisible and irreversible, which make them feel lost.

Aesthetics representation in Cong Cong

The author is very fond of the English version of modern Chinese prose translated by Zhang Peiji, always willing to study the beauty of his translated text. Cong Cong also is one of the author’s favorite Chinese proses, whose language style attracts the author a lot. These translation methods used by Professor Zhang in Cong Cong completely reflect the application of translation aesthetics in prose translation.

So in order to learn more about the technique of Chinese prose translation, the idea that using translation aesthetics to analyze the translation methods applied by Zhang Peiji was produced. According to the previous parts, the aesthetic subject is the translator, i.e. Professor Zhang Peiji, who is proficient enough in the field of prose translation, and possesses high level of literary ability and abundant aesthetic experience. Therefore it is unnecessary to pay much attention to the aesthetic subject. In this chapter, the author mainly focuses on the aesthetic object, i.e. the prose, to analyze the beauty of the translated text.

Beauty in language

The language beauty firstly is reflected by rhyme beauty. Rhyme is one of the basic aesthetic units, and is the important element to make the language beautiful. In the original text, there are many rhymes, and Professor Zhang’s approach toward the rhyme beauty is worth learning. Example sentence: 那是谁？又藏在何处呢？ Translated text: But who could it be and where could he hide them? [16](Zhang Peiji, 2007, 57)

Through the rhetorical question, the author expressed his anxiety about the elapsing of time. Professor Zhang applied the alliteration to convey the emotion of the author, which makes reader feel neatly and read fluently, reaching the translating goal.

And secondly the language beauty is shown by the words beauty. In translation, choosing proper words is crucial for the quality of the translated text, because the English language and the Chinese language have some differences. Paying attention to the cultural differences is also a process to pursue the correspondence in aesthetics. However, it is difficult to choose the proper words sometimes, especially in literature translation. That is to say, in the prose translation, people must select the words with aesthetic values, to reach the standard of “elegance”. Professor Zhang chose the words exquisitely in the translated text, which showed the beauty of the words. Here are some examples:

①“我不知道他们给了我多少日子” Translated text: I don’t know how many days I am entitled to altogether.[16] (Zhang Peiji, 2007, 57) “给了” was translated into “entitled to”. “Entitled” is a quite formal word, which means to give someone the official right to do or have something. By using this word, Professor Zhang fully expressed the passive and resigned feeling of the author, achieving the aesthetic effect of the original text.

②“但我的手确乎是渐渐空虚了” Translated text: But my quota of them is undoubtedly wearing away. [16](Zhang Peiji, 2007, 57) In this sentence Professor Zhang used the free translation. “Quota of them” means a certain amount of days or my allotted span, which conveys the anxious and uneasy feeling of the author in a vivid and delicate way, and also can be easily understood by the readers of the target language. And in this sentence, the translator chose the free translation. For the difference between English and Chinese, it is not suitable to translate directly. And from the aesthetic perspective to analyze, it is the process of pursuing corresponding and rebuilding the beauty of the original text. If the translator chose imitation to translate the sentence, not only the meaning but the beauty would lose and may cause misunderstanding as well.

Thirdly, language beauty especially can be reflected by the rhetoric beauty. In this prose, parallelism was the most used device, second was the metaphor and personification. For all these rhetorical devices, Professor Zhang resorted to all of them in the translated text. That is to say, for rhetorical devices of the original text, Zhang used the literal translation in the translated text, in other words, Professor Zhang retained the rhetoric beauty of the original text. For example: Example sentence: 燕子去了，有再来的时候；杨柳枯了，有再青的时候；桃花谢了，有再开的时候. Translated text: If swallows go away, they will come back again. If willows wither, they will turn green again. If peaches shed their blossoms, they will flower again. [16](Zhang Peiji, 2007, 57)

The original text had three parallel sentences, with bright and neat rhyme, arousing readers’ interests and helping them to catch the theme of the prose quickly. The translated text, which retained the sentence pattern of the original text, also adopted parallelism, making the translated text as fluent as the running water and conveying to the readers the same feeling as the original text. It also can be called “corresponding”, which could retain the formal beauty of the original text and avoid the loss of aesthetic values. What is more, another highlight in the translated text was “if” at the beginning of every sentence, which reminded readers of the famous verse written by Shelley—If Winter comes, can Spring be far away. That is the translator’s masterly design, taking these cultural differences into account and guaranteeing the readability of the translated text.

Beauty in image

Image is the indispensable elements in Chinese literature, using which in an ingenious way can make readers resonate with the author. In Cong Cong, the author applied rich images to express his feelings, of course, these images, without exception, were carefully translated in the translated text. For example, “swallows”, “willows” and “peaches” represented the changing seasons and the elapsing time; “a drop of water falling off a needle point”, “the sun edging away”, “the wisps of smoke and the thin mists” all these specific images were retained in the translated text to express the abstract philosophy, making the same influence on the target language readers’ emotion as the original text on the source language readers, and representing the aesthetic values of the original text. Professor Zhang still used the literal translation to translate these images, through imitation, or accurately speaking, through the corresponding, representing them to achieve the “functional equivalence”.[16] (Zhang Peiji, 2007, 57-60)

Beauty in style

The style of the prose Cong Cong is very distinct. Firstly, it had sophisticated structure and distinct systems; secondly, its words were pretty and meaningful, with plain and concise features; thirdly, the emotion of the author was blended into the scene in this prose. And the most prominent feature of the prose was its language style. Throughout the whole prose, the author adopted the colloquial language such as tell “me”, “you”, “he”, “wash hands”, “rice bowl”, “have meal”, “lost in reverie” to describe vividly the elapsing of time and the helpless feeling of the author, which made the prose close to life and easy to understand and accept.[16] (Zhang Peiji, 2007, 57-60) Professor Zhang Peiji adopting literal translation and free translation together and focusing on the domestication, by imitating and rebuilding, properly reproduced the style of the prose in translated text, which is absolutely a good example to learn Chinese prose translation.

Conclusion

Literature as a cultural symbol of a country plays an important role in cultural communication, and literature translation as an important branch of translatology, especially prose translation, should be paid more attention. Prose translation as an art, involving form and content these two aspects, and for most translators, it is a challenging task. The translator must pay attention to both aspects, which not only requires the high literary ability, but also the sensitive aesthetic ability. Only by choosing the proper translation methods, can the author create the aesthetic values of the prose translation. What is more, the Chinese modern prose, as a beautiful art, its beauty could be represented during the process of translation by imitation, rebuilding and translator’s re-creation. Meanwhile, now that the Chinese prose translation itself is a process of pursuing beauty, translators need to continuously improve and perfect in practice.

References

[1]Hornby, Albert Sidney. Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary [M]. London: Oxford University Press, 1988, 2149.

[2]Gove, Philip Badcock. New Webster International Dictionary [M]. Springfield: Merriam Webster, 1961, 1956.

[3]Nida, Eugene A & Taber, Charles R. The Theory and Practice of Translation [M]. Leiden: Brill, 1969, 12-24.

[4]Shuttleworth, Mark & Cowie, Moira. Dictionary of Translation Studies [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2004, 43-60.

[5]Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator’s Invisibility [M]. Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2004, 16-17.

[6] 严复. 天演论[M]. 北京: 中国画报出版社. 2010, 6.

[7] 王佐良. 论新开端[M]. 北京: 外语教学与研究出版社. 1991, 113.

[8] 罗竹风. 汉语大词典[M]. 上海: 汉语大词典出版社. 1986, 2374.

[9] 方梦之. 译学词典[M]. 上海: 上海外语教育出版社. 2004, 296.

[10] 刘叔成. 美学基本原理[M]. 上海: 上海人民出版社. 2006, 9-20.

[11] 刘宓庆. 翻译美学概述[J]. 外国语. 1986, 2: 46-51.

[12]刘宓庆. 翻译美学基本理论构想[J]. 中国翻译. 1986, 4: 19-24.

[13] 刘宓庆. 翻译美学导论[M]. 北京: 中国对外翻译出版公司. 2005, 157.

[14] 叶子南. 高级英汉翻译理论与实践[M]. 北京: 清华大学出版社. 2001, 5-8.

[15] 薛功平. 朱自清散文《匆匆》赏析[J]. 科教文汇. 2008, 7: 229.

[16] 张培基. 英译中国现代散文（一）[M]. 上海: 上海外语教育出版社. 2007, 55-60.

--Zhao Xiaoyan (talk) 13:25, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

A Study on the translations of Cosmetic Trademarks from the Perspective of Translation Aesthetics 张琪 Zhang Qi，202020080667 English Language and Literature

张琪 Zhang Qi，202020080667 English Language and Literature 英语语言文学

Abstract

With the tide of economic globalization, foreign cosmetics brands are actively starting to enter Chinese market. The trademark symbolizing the lintel of the brand is the first brick that knocks on the door of customers' hearts. The quality of cosmetics trademark translation will directly affect the consumers’ psychology. This chaper intends to discuss the aesthetic principles and translation techniques used in the translation of cosmetics trademarks from the perspective of translation aesthetics. It aims to provide a reference for better standardizing the translation of cosmetics trademarks and let cosmetics trademarks and translation aesthetics work together to reflect people’s pursuit of beauty and humanistic ideas.

Key Words

translation aesthetics；trademark translation；cosmetics

题目

翻译美学视角下化妆品商标的翻译

摘要

随着经济全球化的浪潮，国外的化妆品品牌踊跃开始登陆中国市场。象征品牌门楣的商标是叩响顾客心灵之门的第一块砖。化妆品商标翻译质量的好坏会直接作用于顾客的消费心理。本文拟从翻译美学的视角探讨化妆品商标翻译所遵循的美学原则及翻译技巧，旨在为更好的规范化妆品商标的翻译提供参考以及让化妆品商标与美学携手体现人们对美的追求和人文理念。

关键词

翻译美学；商标翻译；化妆品

Introduction

The trademark is a special symbol carefully selected or created by an enterprise to distinguish the products of other enterprises. Its meaning and function have obvious characteristics. A trademark is like a business card, a golden business card for a company's products to stand on the market. The importance of its translation is self-evident. As the market economy in the beauty industry continues to heat up, a dazzling array of branded cosmetics has entered the international market for competition. The fierce competition has made businesses pay special attention to the translation of cosmetic trademarks.Because cosmetics themselves contain beauty and represent beauty, their translation is destined to be an aesthetic process that integrates beautification and optimization. The translation of cosmetics trademarks processed with "beauty" and "excellence" will arouse people's beautiful yearning for cosmetic products, making people feel comfortable and catering to the consumer psychology of female audience. Meanwhile,it will stimulate the desire of demanding and bring consumers a warm aesthetic pleasure.(Li 2000, 58)

Translation aesthetics is to use the basic principles of aesthetics and modern linguistics to study and explore the aesthetic issues in interlingual transfer, to help translators understand the general laws of translation aesthetic activities, and to improve the ability of interlingual transfer and aesthetic discrimination of translations(Mao 2003,5). Translation aesthetics occupies a special position in translation theory. Translation aesthetics has broad prospects for development and it is still waiting for development. Its research fields can include many major issues in modern translation studies. These issues are exactly what other fields of translation studies don't include（Liu 1986，51）.

Taking into account the needs of cosmetic trademark translation and the development and uniqueness of translation aesthetics, this chaper will combine the characteristics and functions of cosmetic trademarks together to apply translation aesthetics theory to the practice of cosmetic trademark translation. It will discuss the aesthetic principles and the translation techniques embodied in the cosmetic trademark translation through analyzing a large number of examples, so as to achieve the purpose of successfully attracting consumers to open up markets for businesses. At the same time, translation aesthetics, as a major breakthrough in traditional translation theory and an important supplement to translation theory research, opens up a new perspective for the research on cosmetic trademark translation.

1.Trademark and Trademark Translation

1.1 Definition、Features and Functions of Trademark

For the definition of trademark, different scholars have different interpretations. Trademarks are linguistic signs that appear in the form of words and characters. They are a distinctive category in a language vocabulary. They are carefully selected or created by individuals or individual companies to distinguish products from other companies. Therefore, the meaning and function carried by this special symbol have obvious characteristics, which are prominently manifested in the distinctiveness, specificity, associativity of trademark and its function including identification、quality assurance、 legal protection and advertising（Wang 1997，25）. Additionally, Zhu Fan believes that trademarks are language signs that appear in the form of words with specific and rich symbolic meanings, carrying unique commodity information and cultural information（Zhu 2002,16).

Trademarks are words, names, symbols or patterns used by manufacturers or merchants to make people recognize their own products or services and distinguish them from those of other competitors (Zhou 2003, 61). Besides, Modern Chinese Dictionary also defines trademarks. It defines trademarks as "marks, signs (pictures, pictographs, etc.) engraved or printed on the surface or packaging of a product, It is different from other products of the same kind". From the explanations of trademark above, we can conclude that the trademark has following features: it is a linguistic sign and it’s distinctive. As an important part of commodities , it contains special significance for the companies and enterprises.(Modern Chinese Dictionary 2002, 1677)

For the functions of trademark, Yujun concludes that the function of the trademark itself is the basic motivation for providing legal protection to the trademark. It is generally believed that trademark functions mainly include identification function, quality assurance function and advertising function. The identification function of a trademark refers to a trademark that helps consumers distinguish it from multiple suppliers of similar goods or services. The quality guarantee function of a trademark means that consumers start to regard a specific trademark as a symbol of quality. The advertising function of a trademark means that a trademark is obviously a symbol tool and can be used for advertising. It is worth mentioning that the packaging with the trademark itself has also become the medium of advertising. When so many products are placed on supermarket shelves or other self-service equipment, the advertising medium is particularly important for today's product promotion(Yu 2009, 74-75).

According to the discussion about the definition, features and functions of the trademark above, we can find that although a trademark is only a small part of a product, it cannot be ignored for the integrity of the product and its function for the value of the product.

1.2 Features of Cosmetics Trademarks

The cosmetic trademark is the image representative of cosmetics. In order to attract consumers' attention at the first time and to have sustained appeal, an effective cosmetics trademark is one of the most essential and important factors. Through investigation and analysis, some scholars summarized that cosmetics trademarks have the following characteristics: people’s names, place names, and vocabularies suggesting beautiful images are often used in the content. (1) The name of the person in the cosmetics brand is mostly the name of the founder of the brand, such as Givenchy (founder Givenchy), Estee Lauder (founder Estee Lauder) and so on. Brands are sometimes named after other famous people. The name of the Australian brand Aesop (Aesop) reminds people of Aesop's fables, promoting the product's concise and simple concept(Shang 2011,97)

(2) Place names in cosmetics trademarks reflect the birthplace of the brand or imply the brand concept, such as Suiss Programme (Swiss, the birthplace of Switzerland), Albin (the name of a chalky cliff on the coast of the United Kingdom, which means a beautiful country with pure whiteness). (3) Brands that use words that imply beautiful images include Angle (angle :French brand angel beauty), A-cademie ( French brand Academie), etc.The form is streamlined with fewer characters to facilitate memory transmission, such as H2O, DHC, VOV, etc. Some cosmetics brands are named after people whose names are long and inconvenient to remember. They also adopt abbreviated forms, such as CD (Christian Dior), YSL (Yves Saint Laurent), CK (Calvin klein) and so on(Shang 2011,98).

The rhyme and sound effects are often crisp and sweet, or gentle and soft, which can stimulate consumers psychological harmony and comfort, and make them be willing to accept. For example, in the Japanese skin care brand Clean&Clear, both words begin with /kl/, which shows alliteration. It is full of rhythm, reminiscent of a clean, beautiful, lively and lovely girl image. Both words of the Canadian brand Pretty Rally have two syllables, and both end with /i/. The pronunciation is clear and loud, giving people a crisp and jumping rhythm(Shang 2011,98).

1.3 Trademark Translation

Regarding trademark translation, American advertising master E.S. Lewis put forward the famous AIDA principle in 1898, that is--successful advertising should have four concerns: Attention （attracts attention）, Interest (generates interest), Desire (triggers desire), and Action (stimulates action). In other words, as long as the trademark translation can play the above-mentioned role, the translation can perfectly convey the message of the beauty of the original trademark, attract the attention of consumers and trigger a strong desire to buy;this is a successful translation. The trademark translation is not a simple conversion between language symbols, but to reflect the "short and brilliant" characteristics of the trademark itself. The translation must take into account the differences in language and culture, conform to the aesthetic psychology of customers, and realize the established brand function (Wang 2011, 236).

From the perspective of language form, the structure of a trademark is simple and easy to understand. Compared with other forms of inter-language conversion, the translation process is not affected by the deeper language levels such as sentences, paragraphs, and chapters, so it seems simple, which results in the translation of trademarks. Don't take people seriously. However, Professor Qian Guanlian believes: “People have two levels of requirements for the creation of any tool: practical and aesthetic(Qian 1993, 13).”

Therefore, the trademark translation should achieve the perfect unity of sound and meaning. At the same time it is necessary to overcome the cultural barriers of the translated language and conform to people's aesthetic taste and consumer psychology. In a word, it is not easy to do a good job in the translation of trademarks. It needs the guidance of translation theory and also needs to master certain translation skills.

2.Translation Aesthetics

2.1 Aesthetic Origins of Translation Studies

For the Chinese language view, language functions and aesthetic judgments are inseparable. Chinese philosophers have been talking about beautiful words and beliefs since ancient times. Lao Tzu put forward the idea of boosting the letter and suppressing the beauty and held a negative attitude towards the beauty of disguise. Confucius proposed reaching the acme of perfection and unification of text and quality, Mencius proposed benevolence and justice for beauty. Xunzi proposed consideration of text and quality and unity of beauty and goodness. Judging from the history of Chinese aesthetics, beauty and faith, text and quality are the oldest and consistent propositions(Wang 2011,135）.

Beauty and text refer to the perceptual form of literary works, and faith and quality refer to the essence of content. The ideal aesthetic state is glasses grace. It is obvious that the dispute between literature and quality in traditional Chinese translation theory is the process and manifestation of Taoist aesthetics giving way to Confucian aesthetics. Since the 19th century, new translation ideas such as Yan Fu's faithfulness, smoothness, and elegance, Ma Jianzhong's good translation, Qian Zhongshu's contextualization theory, and Fu Lei's similarity theory have also further promoted Chinese translation(Wang 2011,135）.

2.2 Aesthetic Subject and Aesthetic Object in Translation

The study of academic content such as the aesthetic subject and aesthetic object in translation has always been the content that scholars pay more attention to. The aesthetic subject refers to the person who performs aesthetic activities on the aesthetic object, and the aesthetic subject of translation (TAS) is the translator. As far as translation is concerned, the aesthetic attitude of the aesthetic subject involves the concept of translation, and its task must be twofold: the understanding and appreciation of the original language, and the reproduction or creation of the original aesthetic information（Jiao 2010，104).

The aesthetic subject of translation has two basic attributes.One is subject to the aesthetic object, that is, the original text is subject to the translatability limit of the formal beauty of the original language, the translatability limit of the non-formal beauty of the original language, the cultural difference of bilingualism and the time and space difference of art appreciation . The second is the translator's subjective initiative, that is, the translator's initiative, creativity, and the high level of activation and stimulation of the aesthetic potential of the aesthetic object. Chinese aesthetics summarizes these characteristics as "subjective practicality". In translation, if the translator does his best to suppress the objective constraints, translation can still become a handy creative activity(Jiao 2010,104).

The exertion of the subjective agency of translation depends on whether TAS has the following aesthetic conditions. Specifically, it refers to the aesthetic emotion of the aesthetic subject: emotion, knowledge, talent and will. The so-called "emotion" is aesthetic emotion. The so-called "knowledge" can refer to insight, as well as the vision expanded and enriched by the translator's personal experience. The so-called "talent" refers to actual ability or skill, which is manifested in language analysis ability, aesthetic judgment ability, language expression and rhetoric ability. The so-called "will" refers to the perseverance to learn(Jiao 2010,105).

The study of aesthetic objects is mainly for the original text. Because different scholars have different perspectives, the specific classifications are also different. In "Introduction to Translation Aesthetics", Liu Miqing divides the aesthetic objects into "textual aesthetic appearance" and "non-representative beauty". In fact, it is to appraise the intrinsic beauty of the original language form and the charm of the article. Additionally, Mao Ronggui refined the aesthetic objects into phonological beauty, rhythm beauty, simplicity beauty, charm beauty, artistic conception beauty, tone beauty, image beauty, neat beauty, stylistic beauty , fuzzy beauty and other forms of analysis(Liu 2005,130).

In addition, Huang Long’s article "The Aesthetics of Translation" elaborates on the aesthetic issues of translation from six aspects: rhetorical beauty, artistic conception, beauty, image beauty, typical beauty and macro beauty. Its essence is still the study of translation objects. It can be seen that although the specific classification of this type of research is different, its essence is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the exterior and connotation of aesthetic objects.Regarding the relationship between aesthetic subject and object, Liu Miqing believes that only when the aesthetic subject and the aesthetic object are combined organically can translation, as an aesthetic reproduction process, produce aesthetic effect and translation is beautiful(Huang 1988,180).

2.3 Aesthetic Interpretation of the Translation of Cosmetic Trademarks

Trademarks, translation aesthetics and cosmetics are all products of a certain historical stage of social development. The trademark originated from the name attached to the works by the ancient Greek writers, and the trademarks with pictures and texts appeared in the Northern Song Dynasty in China. In the modern market economy society, trademarks constitute a part of products and tend to be universal. Their nature is not only a mark for distinguishing commodities, but also a tool for market competition. Trademarks have revealing and propaganda functions, so that their role in commodity exchange and market competition not only indicates the origin of the goods and guarantees the quality of the goods, but also has the role of advertising and promotion.Therefore, a successful trademark translation can make consumers have beautiful associations, thereby creating brand identity(Encyclopedia of China 2009, 283).

What is beauty? Women would rather cut off three meals for a beautiful dress and men would not regret seeing a beautiful girl at the cost of hitting a tree. Humans would not hesitate to climb up the heights without hesitation, all for the sake of beautiful clothes, beauty present and " The physical and mental pleasure brought by "seeing the small mountains" is also called aesthetic feeling. Beauty is essentially a kind of direct or indirect physical pleasure. The physical pleasure induced by "beauty" is elevated to the level of culture, rationality, and spirit, so that human physiological experience has cultural and spiritual connotations of "beauty", and human society can move toward a harmonious and beautiful state due to the pursuit of beauty(Mao 2015,29).

The aesthetics of translation leads people to appreciate the beauty of the artistic conception of "suddenly looking back, but the person is in a dim light" through the conversion of two languages. The object of research is the aesthetic object (original, target) in translation, the aesthetic subject (translator, reader) in translation, aesthetic activity in translation, aesthetic judgment in translation, aesthetic appreciation, aesthetic standards, and creativity in translation The aesthetic reproduction and so on(Mao 2015,29).

Both translation aesthetics and cosmetics can bring beauty to people and make people happy both physically and mentally. Cosmetics generally have a pleasant fragrance, which can make a person's appearance clean and beautiful, and is good for physical and mental health. The translation of cosmetics trademarks has become an indispensable object to carry and convey beauty(Encyclopedia of China 2011, 553).

3. Translations of Cosmetic Trademarks Guided by Translation Aesthetics

3.1 Aesthetic principles of cosmetics trademark translation

3.1.1Rhythmic Beauty

Rhythmic Beauty means that the trademark name has a bright sound, a clear rhythm, and a sense of music, which gives people a beautiful listening experience. A successful trademark translation should be easy to remember, rich in imagination, and easy to read. For example:

Clean Clear is translated as "可伶可俐", For the translation of Clean Clear, the first letter of the English trademark is "Cl", it adopts alliteration and the vowels in the middle part are the same. Besides, the pronunciation is very smooth, which like a tongue popping out. When translating into Chinese, translators separate the singular word "伶俐", and use the characteristics of Chinese double vowels and compound vowels to make the translated name sound bright. What’s more, the Chinese characteristics of flatness and syllable length change make the trademark sound sonorous, powerful, smooth, and rhythmic(Zeng 2010,183).

For the translation of the trademark "美加净" into "Maxam", it perfectly embodies the beauty of phonology. First of all, the pronunciation of the first syllable of "Maxam" and the pronunciation of "美" in "美加净" form a correspondence. When people see the letter "M", they will think of the Chinese pronunciation of "美" to obtain a feeling of beauty. In addition, the pronunciation of "Maxam" is short but powerful, giving people a fresh and natural feeling, which coincides with the brand concept of Maxam(Zeng 2010,184).

3.1.2 Image Beauty

On the one hand, Image beauty, as far as translating poetry is concerned, it has the same poetic format and rhythm as the original text. This beauty of form is built on the basis of similarity. For trademark terms, the translation should be in the form of a trademark, and the language should be concise and clear, easy to see, easy to read, easy to understand, and worthy of memory. It is best to use good words. Different countries, nationalities and regions use different characters, and their preferences for certain characters are also very different.

For example, the Chinese characters that Chinese people like are mostly "福", "寿"喜", "乐", etc. Another example: Avon is translated as "雅芳", Arche is translated as "雅倩", Colgate is translated as "高露洁", Safeguard is translated as " "Shufujia", Rejoice translated as "飘柔", etc. These translated names are linguistically recognizable, easy to read, and easy to see, which is what we call the beauty of form, and "“雅、芳、倩、黛、露、佳、飘、柔” in Chinese have elegant, refined, , graceful and feminine charms. Not only can they leave a good impression on consumers, but they can also be beautiful in the fragrant and aromatic scent when using the product. The products represented by these translation standards have always been trusted, in addition to the product itself, it is also related to the simplicity and memorability of the translation standards(Ye 2010,112).

On the other hand, the translated name of cosmetics should have "clear meaning, concise graphics, clear image, easy to remember" as its artistic characteristics, and it states the product characteristics intuitively and clearly, so that the product image is clear and prominent, which is easy to resonate with consumers, and is conducive to obtaining good impressions and strong memory impression. According to the language characteristics of Chinese and the language psychology of the Han nationality, the Chinese translation of female beauty products should choose words with beautiful content and sweet rhyme, and the sound should be bright and the rhythm should be clear, giving people the enjoyment of visual and auditory beauty(Ye 2010,113).

Such as: American cosmetics Maybelline, the Chinese translation is "美宝莲". "美" implies that its function is to make consumers more beautiful, and "莲" implies that its effect is to make consumers as beautiful as a lotus. Both the sound and the meaning are used. The two languages are integrated, and the sound is bright and the meaning is beautiful.The French skin care product Clarin is named "娇韵诗" in Chinese. It chooses "娇" and "韵" to express the beauty of "feminine and tenderness". The addition of "诗" makes people feel "picturesque and poetic", leaving female consumers with a deep impression.

3.1.3 Conceptual Beauty

The conceptual beauty of a trademark refers to that the trademark of a product highlights a certain artistic conception through the associative meaning of the vocabulary or the connotation combination of the constituent words, so that people have rich and beautiful associations, and arouse people's yearning and pursuit of beauty. Therefore, it creates beauty in the minds of consumers, so that the products stand out and are accepted by consumers. Therefore, it creates beauty in the minds of consumers, so that the products stand out and are accepted by consumers(Zeng 2010,185).

In addition, The conceptual beauty requires that the trademark of the product can make people produce rich associations. That is, through the associative meaning of the vocabulary or the connotation combination of word formation, a certain artistic conception is brought out. For example, the Chinese translation of BIOTHERM is "碧欧泉", it is one of the three major European skin care brands. The author believes that this translation is very clever, and it can be described as a perfect combination of sound, form and meaning. The trademark of the source language has rich connotations(Ye 2010,115).

Bio- means the life of the skin, and -therm refers to mineral hot springs, because there is a kind of mineral hot springs in the mountains of southern France. It has special effects on the human body, especially the skin, and BIOTHERM products are organic The active factor PETPTM is extracted from this mineral hot spring. In the Chinese translation of its name, "碧" is reminiscent of clear water, blue sky, and full of greenery. "欧" and "泉" refer to the birthplace of the product. The design of the trademark is based on blue, which makes people even have more creative, fresh and natural, elegant and pure feeling(Zeng 2010,186).

3.2 Translation Techniques under the Guidance of Translation Aesthetics

3.2.1 Free Translation

Free translation is based on the meaning of trademark words. The trademark translated by free translation can vividly express the utility of the product through careful selection and addition of words, which is conducive to consumer memory. Free translation neither uses the original name nor the direct Chinese meaning of the original name. Instead, it is based on the characteristics of the product, giving full play to imagination and creating a translated name with another meaning, thereby achieving the purpose of respecting consumers' cultural habits and aesthetic value(Zhu 2008,366).

For instance, the cosmetics trademark "Lancome", the founder of its brand name Armand Petetjean took inspiration from a beautiful castle "Lancome" surrounded by roses in central France. He believed that every woman is like a rose with her own posture and charm.The translation of the trademark as Lancome is unique, because in China, “兰”means orchid, which represents elegance and beauty. It is the most beautiful flower, like the rose surrounding the castle, exuding fragrance and beauty; “蔻” is a scented herb in Chinese, “豆蔻年华” is often used to describe young and beautiful. As Armand described, every woman is as young and beautiful as a rose(Zhu 2008,366).

Cosmetics Juven "柔美娜", Juven is equivalent to young in English, meaning "young", people think that young is beautiful; the translator adopts free translation, flexibly and creatively translating Ju-ven into "柔美娜", which correctly conveys the efficacy of the cosmetics to consumers that you can get soft, beautiful and young skin by using this product(Zhu 2008,367).

Another example is cosmetics Clinique (倩碧). Clinique originally means clinic in English. Under the guidance of dermatologists, Clinique has developed the first 100% fragrance-free skin care product.The translation of “倩碧” can make people have beautiful associations. “倩” means beautiful and“碧”means turquoise, light and clear color. By free translation of such a name, consumers will have beautiful associations-healthy and beautiful, crystal clear skin. Just imagine if literally translated as a clinic, and who would dare to use such a product? In addition, examples of free translation include: H2O "水之奥", Prettiean "雅姿丽", etc., which have reached the goal of respecting consumers' cultural habits and aesthetic values(Zhu 2008,367).

3.2.2 Transliteration

Transliteration refers to a translation method that uses phonemes as a unit to retain the pronunciation of the original text in the translation so as to highlight the main functions of the original text. The transliteration of the trademark is meaningless of the original trademark. The pronunciation of the original trademark is expressed in the target language and the text symbols of the target language.Transliteration of a trademark should follow the principle of name obeying the owner, that is, if the original text is in Japanese, it should be pronounced in Japanese, if the original is in French, it should be pronounced in French, if it is German, it should be pronounced in German, and if it is Italian, it should be pronounced in Italian.The same goes for other languages(Zhang 2007,121).

The translated name translated by the transliteration method retains the beauty of the original trademark’s phonology .Although it does not conform to the Chinese rules in terms of word creation, it has ulterior motives in the choice of Chinese characters. After careful selection, it appears novel and unique and caters to women consumers’ curiosity and aesthetic psychology.Besides, it is relatively straightforward, and also brings convenience to translation” . Therefore, most cosmetics trademarks use this translation method. American cosmetics Maybelline, its original name is full of flavor. The Chinese translation of "莲" implies that its effect is to make consumers beautiful like a lotus. It takes its pronunciation, "美宝莲". "美" implies that its function is to make consumption and take its meaning. The two languages can be integrated, which is a superior work（Yu,An 2006：98）.

3.2.3 Literal translation

Literal translation is to find words with the same or similar meaning in the target language according to the meaning of the original trademark word. The advantage of the literal translation method is that it retains the original trademark name, conveying the information and feelings of the original name, which achieves harmony and unity in meaning with the trademark pattern. For example, the makeup brand "Cover Girl" is literally translates as "封面女孩", which means that the girl who uses this cosmetic is as glamorous as the model on the cover(Zhang 2009,125).

Natural Beauty "自然美", the concept of this cosmetics brand company spanning seven countries in the Asia-Pacific region is "Nature is Beauty". The literal translation retains the purpose of the trademark to retain fresh and natural beauty. Another example is the famous British health and beauty chain store—The Body Shop(“美体小铺”). Its main products are body care and facial masks. The products are natural and healthy. With Literal translation, this brand can retain the purpose of the trademark and make skin and body become more beautiful.

In addition, the literal translation of "little nurses"("小护士") as Mininurse is also for purpose. People think of nurses as angels, caring for people who are cared about.The purpose of this translation is to tell consumers that the products of "little nurses" are as gentle and considerate as nurses, and by this way it achieves promotional purpose.

3.2.4 Creative Translation

If neither transliteration nor literal translation can vividly reproduce the characteristics of the original trademark, then consider putting aside the consideration of the original trademark's phonology and meaning, and adopt a new and innovative approach. It is not necessary to stick to the similarity of simple phonology, nor to ponder its literal referential meaning. Translators can fully open up new ideas, find new ways, boldly innovate, and give readers unlimited reverie. In other words, the unconventional method is a special free translation method, which refers to the renaming of products under the premise that the culture and customs of the target language country allow it. Although the translated name of the target language is quite different from the original meaning of the original name, it can achieve the same goal by different routes(Zhou 2003,63).

For example, the American brand Neutrogena is translated as "露得清", which is derived from the Latin words "Neutralis" and "Genus", which means "new birth". The combination of the two words implies the meaning of creating natural effects. When the brand was founded, it was famous for a soap that was comfortable and had good function on cleansing the skin. It was known as the precious soap from Belgium. "Recommend products suitable for skin" has always been at the core of the Neutrogena brand philosophy. Translating Neutrogena into "露得清", although it doesn't seem to have much connection with its literal meaning, it fits the original intention of clean and clear skin in the brand story.

Conclusion

From the perspective of translation aesthetics, this chapter analyzes the aesthetic principles and translation techniques used in the process of cosmetic trademark translation through specific examples. For the translation of cosmetics trademarks, it is not a simple conversion of one language to another, so it requires that we should be based on the specific circumstances of the aesthetic characteristics of the trademark words, and from the perspective of translation aesthetics, we should fully consider the aesthetic ability of the aesthetic subject and aesthetic needs to accurately and fully reproduce the aesthetic objects—the rhythmic beauty, image beauty and conceptual beauty of trademark to consumers by combining with the respective characteristics of the two languages and cultures of English and Chinese, so as to promote product sales and achieve its commercial value.

When translating cosmetics trademarks, as Xie Hua pointed out, the translator must flexibly handle language and cultural differences and conflicts according to the context in the translation process. You cannot be imprisoned in words for the sake of literal translation or transliteration or free translation, ortherwise;it will make the words rigid; At the same time, in order to successfully express the connotation of the trademark and show the charm of the trademark, translators should strive to get rid of the shackles of rigid equivalence, be flexible and innovative, choose the best method for trademark translation, and try to give the trademark the best appropriate translated name(Xie 2000,85).

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--Zhangqi (talk) 13:59, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

A Study on Ba Jin's Translation of Oscar Wilde's Fairy Tales from the Perspective of Translation Aesthetics 周园曲 Zhou Yuanqu 202070080630 英语笔译

Abstract

Oscar Wilde, as a leading figure in the Aesthetic Movement, was famous for his ornate words and sharp wit. His fairy tales embodies and exhibits his aesthetic ideal. Until now, his two collections of fairy tales The Happy Prince and Other Tales as well as A House of Pomegranates still receive popularity around the world. And one of the most favored translation editions of Wilde’s fairy tales in China was written by Ba Jin. This thesis is aimed to analyze from the perspective of translation aesthetics what Ba Jin did to make the representation of beauty possible. This thesis includes three chapters. In Chapter One, the author introduces the definition and development of translation aesthetics, and Liu Miqing's theory about translation aesthetics to provide theoretical support for the rest part of the thesis. In Chapter Two, the author explores from the aspect of translation aesthetic subject what aesthetic conditions Ba Jin possessed to let him reproduce the beauty in the original work. In Chapter Three, the author analyzes Ba Jin's translation from four levels including sound, diction, image and style to see what translation skills he used and what translation theories he held to make it possible to reproduce the beauty in the original work.

Through analysis, the author finds that a literary translation of high quality should not only deliver the logic information but also reproduce similar aesthetic feelings.

Key words

Ba Jin; Oscar Wilde; Fairy tales; Translation aesthetics

摘要

作为美学运动的代表人物，奥斯卡·王尔德的语言优美华丽，风趣机智，而他创作的童话作品则被认为是其美学思想的最佳载体。直到今天，他的两部童话集《快乐王子》和《石榴之家》依然在世界范围内广受欢迎，而巴金先生的王尔德童话译本则是国内最为推崇的译本之一。本篇论文旨在从翻译美学的角度分析巴金是如何在其译文中再现了原作中的美。本篇论文包括三个章节：第一章介绍了翻译美学的定义、其发展历史以及刘宓庆的翻译美学理论，旨在为后文的论述提供理论铺垫。第二章从翻译审美主体的角度探索了巴金重现原作美所具备的审美条件。第三章作者从音乐美、词汇美、意境美和风格美四个角度，举例对比分析了原文和巴金译文，总结了巴金再现原文美的翻译技巧和翻译思想。

通过对巴金的王尔德童话译本的分析，作者发现，一篇高质量的文学作品译文不仅要传达原文的基本逻辑信息，还要能为译文读者重现与原文作品相似的美的感受。

关键词

巴金 奥斯卡·王尔德 童话 翻译美学

Introduction

The fairy tales by Oscar Wilde, like his other works, exhibited his great talent for language. The Happy Prince and Other Stories published in 1888 and A House of Pomegranates in 1891 collected nine fairy tales. All of them were of musical tone and ornate words, creating indescribable beauty of tragedy. The stories sparkling with poetic beauty and wisdom received favor all over the world.

In China, Wilde’s fairy tales were first translated in 1909. Zhou Zuoren and Lu Xun translated The Happy Prince to classical Chinese and published it in a book named Other Land (《域外小说集》).Although the book didn’t sell well, it introduced Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales to China. In 1920s, more translations of the fairy tales were seen in various books and magazines. Mu Mutian in 1922 translated five stories. In the year of 1933, You Baolong translated seven stories of Wilde’s fairy tales. In 1946, Mu Mutian made a complete translation of Wilde’s nine stories. Among all of the Chinese translations, one of the most influential editions was translated by Ba Jin. His translation was firstly published in 1947 and revised and reprinted twice respectively in 1957 and 1980.

In CNKI, 157 essays conduct research on Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales. And the study object of twenty essays is the translation of Oscar Wilde’s stories. Among them seventeen essays covered Ba Jin's translation. Scholars often conduct their research on the following angles: the influence of translation of Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales in China; translator’s subjectivity; reception aesthetics; translation of children’s literature; translation aesthetics. There are three theses adopting an aesthetic view to study Ba Jin's translation of Wilde’s fairy tales. Lin Lin (2007) compared the aesthetic features of the original work and Ba Jin's translation from an aesthetic perspective. Liu Xiaoyin (2012) used Mao Ronggui's theory of translation aesthetics to analyze the aesthetic elements in Ba Jin's translation. Yang Liqiu (2016: Ⅴ) in 2016 built a Excel database to make a textual analysis of the 1981 version of Kuai Le Wang Zi Ji in a systematic manner from lexical, syntactical and discourse levels. Their study on Ba Jin's translation of Oscar Wilde’s works provide guidance for this thesis and the future studies.

It is indisputable that Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales read like poetry. Since Ba Jin's translation is one of the most favored translation editions in China, it must have rendered similar aesthetic beauty to its Chinese readers. Therefore, a question arises: how did he convey the same aesthetic effect in his translation? Translation aesthetics provides an appropriate angle for studying this issue.

In this thesis there are three chapters. Chapter One introduces the definition and development of translation aesthetics. Because Liu Miqing systematically expounded a series of issues of translation aesthetics and raised translation aesthetics to a new height, Chapter One also introduces his theory about translation aesthetics so as to provide theoretical support for the discussion in this thesis. Meanwhile, the author also wishes that the introduction of translation aesthetics could interest more people in the study of this field. In Chapter Two, the author discussed from the translator himself what aesthetic conditions he had to transfer the beauty of the original text. In Chapter Three, the author analyzed from four levels including sound, diction, image and style to appreciate Ba Jin's transfer of beauty in Wilde Oscar’s fairy tales.

Chapter 1 Translation Aesthetics

In order to better analyze Ba Jin's translation work from the perspective of translation aesthetics, in the following part, the author introduces the definition and development of translation aesthetics and Liu Miqing's theory about translation aesthetics.

The Definition of Translation Aesthetics

In A Dictionary of Translation Studies, Fang Mengzhi's defines translation aesthetics as follows: to discuss the special influence of aesthetics on translation; to explore translation’s aesthetic origin; to apply an aesthetic view to learn about the scientific and artistic attributes of translation; applying basic principles of aesthetics to set up different aesthetical criteria for different text styles in translation, and to analyze, interpret and solve the problems concerning aesthetics in the process of transferring language. (Fang Mengzhi, 2004, 296)

The Development of Translation Aesthetics

Translation aesthetics is fundamentally related to traditional Chinese translation theories. Meanwhile it makes efforts to turn them into modern translation theories by absorption of western translation studies and application of theories of aesthetics. After tens of years of contribution made by the scholars, it has become one of the main frameworks of China’s translation theory, with interdisciplinary features and distinctive Chinese characteristics.

Nearly all of the traditional Chinese translation theories are rooted in philosophy-aesthetics. Zhi Qian, the ancient famous Buddhist scripture translator, held that rhetoric was not needed, which was influenced by Lao Zi's aesthetic idea “Truthful word may not be beautiful, while beautiful words may not be truthful.”(信言不美，美言不信) “Truthful words” and “beautiful words” are actually corresponding to “zhi”(质) and “wen”(文) respectively, the oldest and longest-lasting aesthetic proposition in China. Although in Zhi Qian’s time, “zhi” defeated “wen” as the winner, “zhi” and “wen” were coordinated in the later history. Most of the scholars came to agreement that an excellent prose or poem shouldn’t ignore neither content or diction. Influenced by traditional aesthetics, keeping balance between “wen” and “zhi” became the mainstream of Chinese traditional translation theory. When the modern times began, other important translation theories emerged. Yan Fu put forward “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance”. Fu Lei’ set forth “being alike in spirit”. Qian Zhongshu came up with “sublimation”.

In 1960s and 1970s, however, the progress of traditional Chinese translation theories went to a grinding halt. In 1980s, Chinese translation studies began to learn from western translation theories, such as skopos theory, deconstructive translation theory, feminist translation theory and so on and so forth. Some of them contributed directly to translation practice and others attempted to interpret the hidden factors influencing or manipulating the translation activities. As the focus of Chinese translation studies is mostly on the western translation theories, some scholars stressed that Chinese translation studies might lose our own voice in the field of international translation studies. They advocated turning back to traditional translation theories and put forward a new translation theory with distinctive Chinese characteristics.

In this context, an increasingly number of scholars bend their mind to translation aesthetics.

Comparative Aesthetics of Literary Translation by Xi Yongji in 1992 is the embryo of translation aesthetics. Following the artistic rule, Xi Yongji showed a positive attitude to the artistic and aesthetic value of the original and target text. He used plentiful examples of comparative literature to make an analysis of the influence of aesthetic factors of literary works on the choice of the translators.

Aesthetic Linguistics by Qian Guanlian in 1993 lays a linguistic foundation for translation aesthetics. Aesthetic linguistics applies aesthetic approach to study language and endeavors to provide a theoretical explanation for the aesthetic issues in language. An Introduction to Translation Aesthetics by Liu Miqing in 2005 built a theoretical framework of translation aesthetics. His theories will be elaborated in the next section.

Jiang Qiuxia's Aesthetics Progression in Literary Translation: Image-G Actualization in 2002 is an important theoretical achievement. Jiang in her book explored the influence and aesthetic effect of Gestalt image had on literary translation from an aesthetic perspective.

Mao Ronggui's Translation Aesthetics in 2005 is the first book that directly uses “translation aesthetics” as its title. The book made an aesthetic comparison of sounds, forms, meanings, sentences and words, and put forward different methods in translation practice. An aesthetic view permeated his discussion.

Comparative Aesthetics of Literary Translation by Xi Yongji in 1992 is the embryo of translation aesthetics. Following the artistic rule, Xi Yongji showed a positive attitude to the artistic and aesthetic value of the original and target text. He used plentiful examples of comparative literature to make an analysis of the influence of aesthetic factors of literary works on the choice of the translators. Aesthetic Linguistics by Qian Guanlian in 1993 lays a linguistic foundation for translation aesthetics. Aesthetic linguistics applies aesthetic approach to study language and endeavors to provide a theoretical explanation for the aesthetic issues in language. An Introduction to Translation Aesthetics by Liu Miqing in 2005 built a theoretical framework of translation aesthetics. His theories will be elaborated in the next section.

Liu Miqing's Theory about Translation Aesthetics

Liu Miqing's theory about translation aesthetics stands as a milestone in the development of translation aesthetics. Because of his dedication to this field, translation aesthetics becomes one of the main frameworks of China’s translation theory, making China’s translation theory distinctive from the model of western translation theory. (Mao Ronggui, 2005, 9) The following part will introduce his main ideas on translation aesthetics.

In his book An Introduction to Translation Aesthetics published in 2005, his views on translation aesthetics are elaborated systematically. It explores the aesthetic origin of translation. The writer introduces the history of western and Chinese translation theory. It could be concluded from his book that firstly both of the Chinese and western translation studies are linked to aesthetics from their very beginning; secondly, aesthetics has played a much more active role in the history of Chinese translation theories than it has done in western translation theories. Two notions in aesthetic translations are put forward. One is translation aesthetic object (TAO) and the other is translation aesthetic subject (TAS). TAO is the original text. Its beauty depends on its aesthetic value. The aesthetic value is analyzed from aesthetic constituents. Liu Miqing divides aesthetic constituents into two systems. The sound beauty, character beauty, word beauty and sentence beauty are included in the formal system. The mood and tone of the original text and the images and symbols in it are incorporated in the informal system. The latter system is also called the fuzzy sets. Correspondingly, TAS refers to the translator. Two basic attributes of TAS are the original text’s objective conditioning on it and more importantly its own subjective dynamics. TAS is constrained by the translatability of the original text’s formal and informal beauty, the cultural differences of two languages and the time-space difference of art appreciation. The subjective dynamics of TAS includes the translator’s capability, aesthetic feeling, knowledge, and tenacity.

The writer also explores the system of aesthetic consciousness in translation. The cognitive schema of aesthetic translation is put forward. It includes four levels, which are perception, imagination, understanding and representation. And the general rule of representation is followed as comprehension, transformation, improvement and representation. “Imagination” and “empathy” are regarded to be important for the representation.

Chapter 2 Ba Jin as Translation Aesthetic Subject of Oscar Wide’s Fairy Tales

As it has been discussed in the Chapter One, translation aesthetic subject is the translator. According to Liu Miqing, a beautiful translation depends on two factors, which are the aesthetic constituents of the TAO and the aesthetic conditions of the TAS. Only when the two factors interact with each other, can the translation work fully reproduce the beauty of the original work. (Liu Miqing, 1986, 20) Hence, the aesthetic conditions of the TAS are of great importance. Without it, the aesthetic representation would become impossible.

In translation aesthetics, the aesthetic conditions of the TAS incorporated the translator’s cultural literacy as well as his/her aesthetic consciousness and experience. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to discuss from the perspective of TAS how Ba Jin's translation fully conveyed beauty of the Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales. The discussion will include two parts: (1) the translator’s cultural literacy and (2) his aesthetic consciousness and experience.

Ba Jin's Cultural Literacy

According to Liu Miqing, TAS’ cultural literacy serves as the most basic condition in aesthetic translation activity. It lays foundation for aesthetic consciousness and without it, a translator would become color-blind even though he is in a colorful world of translation. (Liu Miqing, 1986, 21) For translators, cultural literacy is like an indispensable pair of spectacles to survey the beauty of a text. As for Ba Jin, he did possess a pair of very sophisticated glasses.

He was undoubtedly a literary master of the twentieth century, although he often said that “I was no litterateur”. (Ba Jin, 2003, 443) In 1904, he was born in a large gentry family. From his grandfather to his father, they were all government officials. With a well-educated family background, his language learning started early. At the age of five, he was already learning Essence of Classical Chinese (《古文观止》). This childhood experience equipped him with solid language capability of Chinese. From 1920 to 1922, he was a student in Chengdu Foreign Language Specialist School, where he exposed himself to as much western literature and sociological works as possible. It was in this school that Ba Jin learned English and completed his first translation work, the English edition of The Signal. In 1929, he came back from France to China. More excellent work of his came out, such as “Torrents Trilogy” (namely Family, Spring and Autumn) and “Love Trilogy” (namely Fog, Rain and Electricity).

Although his student life came to an end when he returned to China, he didn’t stop learning. Learning was something that accompanied all his life. He learned from books and learned from life. School and book were not the only source of one’s cultural literacy. Going out of campus and being in that chaotic age, he witnessed people’s suffering and he himself went through ups and downs. His understanding of life was deepened and his sympathy for the masses was aroused. The pursuit of truth, goodness and humanitarianism became life of his works.

In conclusion, knowledge acquired from books and life experience together constituted Ba Jin's cultural literacy. A good command of Chinese and English and his rich life experience enabled him to have abundant cultural literacy, which played a fundamental role in his comprehension and reproduction of the beauty in Oscar Wilde’s works.

Ba Jin's Aesthetic Consciousness and Experience

Before Ba Jin's aesthetic consciousness and experience are discussed, it is of necessity to clarify the definition of aesthetic consciousness and experience. In translation aesthetics, aesthetic consciousness refers to the translator’s sensitivity to beauty in the original text. It is usually got from intuition, but for a translator with a high level of cultural literacy, this sensitivity can be deepened. As for aesthetic experience, it refers to accumulated aesthetic sensation acquired from repetitive aesthetic activities. (Liu Miqing, 1986, 21)

Ba Jin's translation thoughts were scattered in the postscript, prologue or epilogue to his translation work. In this Chapter, his aesthetic consciousness and experience will be discussed based on the above sources.

Among Ba Jin's translation works, the most favored are his Russian translation works and his translation of Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales. Why did these translation works possess high quality and receive widespread popularity? In the author’s opinion, it has something to do with Ba Jin's choice of works to translate. In his epilogue to Collection of Ba Jin's Translation Works he said, “I only introduce the work I like.” In fact, one common theme of his translation of Russian works and Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales was that they both accused the capitalists of oppressing the proletariat, which was exactly what Ba Jin would like to criticize. Most people are sensitive to words, pictures, or music that could resonate with them. In this aspect, Ba Jin was no exception. He showed great sensitivity to the words that had deep sympathy for ordinary people. “In my first novel Perishing （《灭亡》）, I quoted conversations from Signal. Thirty years later, I translated it with the same excitement. I love it more than I love my own works. In it, I find my own thoughts and feelings.” (Ba Jin, 2003, 445) For Ba Jin, he was sensitive to the words in the original work as he was to his own works. Hence, he had the aesthetic consciousness he needed to translate others’ works. He was ready for them.

Most people know Ba Jin as a marvelous writer. What is less well-known is that he is also an outstanding translator. Cao Ying, a famous translator of Russian literary works, commented, “Ba Jin's translation was vivid and loyal to the original text. No one can top him in translation of Gorky’s short stories.” Gao Mang also said that Ba Jin’s language was beautiful and conveyed the lingering charm of the original text. (Wang Zhanbin, 2007, 20) In fact, the quality of Ba Jin's translation works was no inferior to his original works and the characters of the foreign works he translated amounted to over three million characters. He translated novels, fairy tales, prose writings and etc. Through a lot of translation practices, Ba Jin accumulated rich aesthetic experience, which could be found in his epilogues or prologues. One piece of aesthetic experience of his could be concluded as comprehension. “When I like an article, I always try to have a deeper understanding of it. I read it over and over again and constantly think about it. After I understand it, I want to use my words to express the writer’s ideas.” (Ba Jin, 2003, 443) One characteristic of Ba Jin's translation was his loyalty to the original work, which must benefit a lot from his effort to fully comprehend the original work. It is worth mentioning here that Ba Jin's comprehension was more than the understanding the aesthetic constituents of the TAO, he endeavored to empathize. When he translated Chekhov’s works, he said “The difficulty is to properly show the truly benevolent heart of the writer. If the translator couldn’t understand that heart and fails to show it to the reader, what’s the point of the translation?” (Ba Jin, 1991, 3) When faced with the issue of literal translation or free translation, Ba Jin held that a good translator shouldn’t be constrained by the question of choosing only one method of the two, but to consider which one could better help himself/herself to reproduce the artistic conception. Artistic conception was highly valued be Ba Jin. In his postscript to Stories on the Prairie (《草原集》), he (Ba Jin, 2003, 248) mentioned twice that “I fear that I would ruin the whole artistic conception.” From above, it could be concluded that in Ba Jin's aesthetic experience, faithfulness and artistic conception were worth much attention. The latter is exactly corresponding to the fuzzy sets of TAO in translation aesthetics.

Chapter 3 Aesthetic Features in Ba Jin's Translation

Chapter Two has talked about from the perspective of TAS how Ba Jin's translation fully conveyed beauty of the Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales. It made an analysis of the aesthetic conditions Ba Jin possessed. Thus, in this chapter, the author is going to look at the result of Ba Jin's translation to appreciate his transfer of beauty from Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales.

In Chapter One, it has been mentioned that whether an original text is beautiful depends on its aesthetic value. And the aesthetic value of an article was analyzed from its aesthetic constituents which covered goodness in the levels of sound, diction and tone of the text and the images and symbols in it. In this chapter, we will appreciate the beauty of Ba Jin's translation by comparing it from four aspects with Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales, which are sound, diction, imagery, and style. The beauty of sound and diction can be classified into the formal system. The beauty of imagery and style belongs to the informal system, i.e. the fuzzy sets.

Beauty in Sound

Oscar Wilde has a bond with music. Anyone who has read his The Happy and Prince and Other Stories would be touched by its sad and beautiful stories, which could be partly attributed to the melodious words in the book. The forceful rhythm in Wilde’s fairy tales could easily lead his readers into a pure and melancholy world created by him. After the reader finishes reading, the moving plots together with the bright beats echo in their mind.

Eg1- “Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “far away across the city I see a young man in a garret. He is leaning over a desk covered with papers, and in a tumbler by his side there is a bunch of withered violets. His hair is brown and crisp, and his lips are red as a pomegranate, and he has large and dreamy eyes. He is trying to finish a play for the Director of the Theatre, but he is too cold to write anymore. There is no fire in the grate, and hunger has made him faint.” (Oscar Wilde, 2015, 6)

Here in the Wilde’s language, we can clearly feel what Ba Jin called “his musical tone”. In the beginning of the conversation, Wilde wrote three “swallow” as the Prince’s salutation to the swallow. The repetition slows down the speed of the language and also the thoughts of the readers. During this deceleration, he/she will put their attention to the following part. Besides, the repetition shows the gentleness of the Prince and his sincerity of request. Parallel structure was also used in this paragraph. For example, “his hair is” and “his lips are”; “he is trying to” and “but he is too cold to”. The use of parallelism adds a bright beat to the language. When Wilde was describing the appearance of the young man, he also used short paratactic sentences, which leaves the whole sentence well-proportioned and rhythmic to read. In the last sentence of this paragraph, assonance was used, for example “grate” and “faint”, which perfectly ends the conversation, depicting the plight which the young man is in.

Eg1- “燕子，燕子,小燕子，”王子说，“远远的，在城的那一边，我看见一个年轻人住在顶楼里面。他埋着头在一张堆满稿纸的书桌上写字，手边一个大玻璃杯里放着一束枯萎的紫罗兰。他的头发是棕色的，乱蓬蓬的，他的嘴唇象石榴一样地红，他还有一对朦胧的大眼睛。他在写一个戏，预备写给戏院经理送去，可是他太冷了，不能够再写一个字。炉子里没有火，他又饿得头昏眼花了。”（Ba Jin, 1981, 11）

The above paragraph was Ba Jin's version. From his translation, we can see his endeavor to imitate the beauty of sound in the original work. As for the three “swallow”, he didn’t change the repetition and just translated them directly. The same was with the short sentences and parallel structure. He didn’t change the stop of the sentence and began the description of the young man in every short sentence with a “他”. Here, you may think imitation is easy and without too much brain work. But it isn’t true. Vivid imitation requires creation, which is especially seen in somewhere seems to be untranslatable. The translation of “there is no fire in the grate, and hunger has made him faint.” to “炉子里没有火，他又饿得头昏眼花了。”is an excellent example. Ba Jin managed to maintain the beauty of sound to the largest extent. “火” , “昏” , “花” all begins with the initial consonant of the Chinese syllable “h”, which contains the same meaning of the original text and at the same time created similar musical beauty.

Here is another excerpt of musical beauty in Wilde’s fairy tales:

Eg2-Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sang of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb. (Oscar Wilde, 2015, 16)

This sentence is taken from The Nightingale and the Rose. It depicted the melancholy and moving scene when the nightingale pressed her heart against the thorn as she was singing. Wilde here used repetition and parallelism to strengthen the musical tone of the language, which made the sentence itself sound like a song. The moving effect of the nightingale’s sacrifice was strengthened be the melody of repetition and parallelism, helping the reader feel a kind of emotional advance when reading it. Let’s look at how Ba Jin transferred the musical tone:

Eg2-她痛得越厉害，越厉害，她的歌声也唱得越激昂，越激昂，因为她唱到了由死来完成的爱，在坟墓里永远不朽的爱。（Ba Jin，2010, 25） Wilde’s repetition in the translation was rendered as “越…越…” and the parallel structure was kept as “…的爱；…的爱”. When one is reading the translation, he/she could feel the same emotional up and down which climbs up to the summit when one reads the last “激昂” and then goes down as “因为” begins the next sentence.

From the above example, it can be seen that Ba Jin adopted the approach of imitation to convey the beauty of sound in the original text. But imitation is not easy, it requires a clever mind to create similar aesthetic effects.

Beauty in Diction

The language in Oscar Wilde’s fairy tale was not only delightful to the ear, but also pleasant to the eye. One will first be enchanted in his melodious rhythm and then be amazed by his choice of words. Every word is like a pearl woven in a net. No one can replace it with another word, for it will then despoil its beauty of integrality. Here is an excerpt from The Happy Prince.

Eg3-Then the snow came, and after the snow came the frost. The streets looked as if they were made of silver, they were so bright and glistening; long icicles like crystal daggers hung down from the eaves of the houses, everybody went about in furs, and the little boys wore scarlet caps and skated on the ice. (Oscar Wilde, 2015, 9)

This paragraph depicted the street scene after the little swallow gave away all the fine gold off the Prince. The snow and frost fell down. Everything became crystal. Men, women and little boys were all wrapped in warm clothes and went out to enjoy the beautiful snow scene. The sparkling natural scenery and people’s joyful activities constituted a harmonious picture of a snowy day. When describing the tranquil view, Wilde used simile to make the scenery more visually sensible, such as “looked as if” and “long icicles like crystal daggers”. The metaphorical objects he chose added vividness to the snowy view. Apart from the figure of speech he used, the adjectives in the article were also accurate and appropriate. “Bright”, “glistening” and “crystal” were very proper words to portray the sparkling snowy scene. This picture also impressed Ba Jin and he vividly rendered it in his translation:

Eg3-“随后雪来了，严寒也到了。街道好像是银子筑成的，它们是那么亮，那么光辉；长长的冰柱象水晶的短剑似的悬挂在檐前，每个行人都穿着皮衣，小孩子们也戴上红帽子溜冰取乐。”（Ba Jin，1981, 16）

Faithfulness is one obvious characteristic in the translation of this paragraph. Ba Jin kept loyal to the figures of speech in Wilde’s stories. The forms of personification and simile didn’t take any change to maintain the original beauty to the largest extent. For example, the translation of “came” to “到了” and “来了”, and “as if” and “like” respectively to “好像是” and “ 像……似的”. Only two places were slightly different from the original work, which were the translation of preposition “in” to the verb “穿” and addition of “取乐” to modify “skating”. The first change he made was necessary, because in Chinese one would not use the collocation of a preposition plus a noun of a certain clothes to describe one’s dressing. The second change was made to emphasize the boys’ happiness hidden between lines of the original text, making it easier for young readers to perceive the contrast the writer used in the story.

One distinctive language feature of the fairy tale is that it is full of personifications. In the third example, we will see how the translation successfully transferred the vividness of the personifications in the original text.

First, we will look at the original text:

Eg4-The Snow covered up the grass with her great white cloak, and the Frost painted all the trees silver. Then they invited the North Wind to stay with them, and he came. He was wrapped in furs, and he roared all day about the garden, and blew the chimney-pots down. “This is a delightful spot,” he said, “we must ask the Hail on a visit.” So the Hail came. Every day for three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle till he broke most of the slates, and then he ran round and round the garden as fast as he could go. He was dressed in grey, and his breath was like ice. (Oscar Wilde, 2015, 9)

The following is Ba Jin's translation:

Eg4-雪用她的白色大氅盖着草，霜把所有的树枝涂成了银色。她们还请北风来同住，他果然来了。他身上裹着皮衣，整天在园子里四处叫吼，把烟囱管帽也吹倒了。他说：“这是一个适意的地方，我们一定要请雹来玩一趟。”于是雹来了。他每天总要在这府邸屋顶上闹三个钟头，把瓦片弄坏了大半才停止。然后他又在花园里绕着圈子用力跑。他穿一身的灰色衣服，他的气息就像冰一样。（Ba Jin，1981, 22）

In the original text we can see that in Wilde’s description, “Snow”, “Frost”, “North Wind” and “Hail” were all personified by endowing them with the speaking ability like human’s and several lively verb phrases, such as “roared about”, “blew down”, “rattled on”, “broke” and “ran around and around”. These verbs vividly shaped the four naughty and mischievous winter weather characters. If a translation aims to transfer the same aesthetic effect, the translator must render these verbs as lively as they were in the original text. Ba Jin did this. When one is reading his translation, he/she cannot help being amused by these winter weather characters. As for “roared about”, “blew down” and “broke”, Ba Jin directly translated their corresponding Chinese meaning to “四处叫吼”, “吹到了” and “弄坏了”, keeping the figure of speech of personification. When dealing with “rattled on” and “ran around and around …as fast as he could go”, he made some changes. “Rattled on” was translated to “闹”. “Rattle” in the original text was a description of the noises that “Hail” made. The translation of it to “闹” kept the sound of rattling and meanwhile highlight the mischief of the “Hail”. If “rattled on” is directly translated to “咔嗒咔嗒响了”, the effect of the personification will definitely weakened. Therefore, the single character of “闹” was vivid and concise. As for translation of the running of the Hail, Ba Jin changed the description of running speed in the original text to the portraying of the Hail’s running manner, which was appropriate given that it conveyed effect of the personification.

From the above analysis, the author finds that at the level of diction, Ba Jin attached importance to faithfulness, the idiomaticity of the target language and the conveyance of the same aesthetic effect.

Beauty in Imagery

Before we conduct analysis of the beauty in imagery in the original work and the translation, it is necessary to clarify what “imagery” is involved in this thesis. In Oxford English Dictionary, the word “imagery” has two meanings: a. language that produces pictures in minds of people reading or listening; b. pictures, photographs, etc. In this thesis, the imagery refers to the first meaning.

The tragic beauty of The Nightingale and the Rose often brings its readers to tears. Oscar Wilde, using his musical language and pearl-like words, evoked mental pictures of ethereal beauty in this fairy tale. Here is an excerpt from it.

Eg5- She sang first of the birth of love in the heart of a boy and a girl. And on the top-most spray of the Rose-tree there blossomed a marvelous rose, petal following petal, as song followed song. Pale was it, at first, as the mist that hangs over the river- pale as the feet of morning, and silver as the wings of the dawn. As the shadow of a rose in a mirror of silver, as the shadow of a rose in a water-pool, so was the rose that blossomed on the topmost spray of the Tree. (Oscar Wilde, 2015, 15)

The above excerpt was Wilde’s delicate description of the rose’s blooming with the nightingale’s song. In his description, there was direct portraying, such as “petal following petal”, which added dynamic beauty to the whole imagery. In addition, he adopted association to describe color of the rose. He associated paleness of the flower with “mist that hangs over the river” and “the feet of morning”, and its silver with “the wings of the dawn”. The mist and light of the dawn were pale-white, just as the budding rose. At the end of this paragraph, Wilde used the same technique of speech to describe the delicacy and tenderness of the blossom bathed in the moonlight. This association not only described the color and appearance of the rose, but also enlarged the version and cloaked the whole scene with a kind of ethereal beauty.

The following excerpt shows how Ba Jin reproduced the beautiful imagery:

Eg5- 她起初唱着一对小儿女心里的爱情。在蔷薇树的最高枝上开出了一朵奇异的蔷薇，歌一首一首地唱下去，花瓣也跟着一片一片地开放了。花起初是浅白的，就像罩在河上的雾，浅白色像晨光的脚，银白色像黎明的翅膀。最高枝上开花的那朵蔷薇，就像一朵在银镜中映出的蔷薇花影，就像一朵在水池中映出的蔷薇花影。（Ba Jin，2010, 25）

“Rose”, “petal”, “mist”, “shadow”, “mirror of silver” and “water pool” were all visualized in his mind. The images appeared one by one before his eyes when he was reading the original work, and mixed together as a whole in his mind. After fully comprehended beauty of the imagery, he used his own words to reproduce the imagery. He used reduplicative words “一首一首” and “一片一片” to depict the continuous melodious singing and the slow blooming of the rose. Through the context and visualization, he knew that morning cannot be simply translated to “早晨”, since the adoption of association was to depict the color of the petal. “晨光” would be an appropriate choice, because only “光(light)” could have a specific color. But “黎明” is different from “早晨” given that the word itself emphasizes the light of daybreak when the sun rises above the horizon. Therefore, he didn’t make any change to it. As for other images that could be directly translated without confusing the reader, Ba Jin translate them according to the original text.

From the above analysis, the author finds that the image conveyed by Ba Jin was a harmonious whole. The beauty of image in the original text was reproduced vividly in Ba Jin's words. It could be speculated that when rendering the image of beauty in translation, Ba Jin used visualization to revive the image in the original text. And at the same time, he tried to comprehend the emotions in the original text. The combination of pictures and emotions aroused his aesthetic feeling and then he transferred it with his own words in the translation. This kind of empathy is very important in translation aesthetics when a translator attempted to reproduce the beauty of image. In fact, the speculation of Ba Jin's psychological activities when he was doing translation could be partly verified though the epilogue to his 1947 edition fairy tales. “Here I woke up very early in the morning, and I would take a walk along the road. I would go to the foot of the mountain near the field to listen to the singing of the birds. After the walk, I came back to the room in the hotel. The sunlight was so bright so I didn’t want to let it go and do nothing. I sat before the window and translated one of Wilde’s fairy tales entitled The Selfish Giant.” Ba Jin realized the importance of empathy, and his vivid translation of The Selfish Giant also proved the magic of empathy in aesthetic representation. In order to reproduce the beauty of the original text, Ba Jin would put himself in a similar situation with the scene in the original text. Though it is not always feasible or necessary to put oneself in a situation that is physically identical with the scene in a text, Ba Jin's endeavor and his successful translation told us the importance of empathy in transferring the beauty of imagery in an original text.

Beauty in Style

Oscar Wilde, as one of the leading figures of the Aesthetic Movement, held that “Art for art’s sake”. In his fairy tales, every word and sentence exhibited his pursuit of aestheticism. His words were ornate and of musical tone. His narration was rather quiet and objective. But for some reason, readers would feel a dull pain in the heart when reading these stories.

Here are three excerpts from Oscar’s fairy tales, which depicted the good-hearted characters’ scene of death.

Eg6- “What a strange thing!” said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry. “This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must throw it away.” So they threw it on a dust-heap where the dead Swallow was also lying. (Oscar Wilde, 2015, 10)

Eg7- “Look, look!” cried the Tree, “the rose is finished now”, but the Nightingale made no answer, for she was lying dead in the long grass, with the thorn in her heart. (Oscar Wilde, 2015, 16)

Eg6- “What a strange thing!” said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry. “This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must throw it away.” So they threw it on a dust-heap where the dead Swallow was also lying. (Oscar Wilde, 2015, 10)

Eg7- “Look, look!” cried the Tree, “the rose is finished now”, but the Nightingale made no answer, for she was lying dead in the long grass, with the thorn in her heart. (Oscar Wilde, 2015, 16)--Zou Xinyu2 (talk) 14:30, 19 December 2020 (UTC)Zou Xinyu

Eg8- “…and there poor little Hans was drowned. His body was found the next day by some goatherds, floating in a great pool of water…” (Oscar Wilde, 2015, 34)

The four dead characters in the above excerpts were all very good-hearted ones who sacrificed their life for love. But when Wilde’s was depicting their death, his words were very simple and objective, without mixing his own feelings. This unemotional narration was very common in his fairy tales. But the more indifferent his tone was, the more shock and sadness he brought to people. How did Ba Jin transfer this style of narration to the readers? Let’s have a look of his translation.

Eg6- “真是一件古怪的事，”铸造厂的监工说。“这块破裂的铅心在炉里熔化不了。我们一定得把它扔掉。”他们便把它扔在一个垃圾堆上，那只死燕子也躺在那里。（Ba Jin, 2010, 17）

Eg7- “看啊，看啊！”树叫起来，“现在蔷薇完成了。”可是夜莺并不回答，因为她已经死在长得高高的青草丛中了，心上还带着那根蔷薇刺。（Ba Jin, 2010, 26）

Eg8- “……可怜的小汉斯就淹死在这儿了。第二天他的尸首被几个牧羊人找到了，正浮在一个大池塘的水面上……”（Ba Jin,2010, 48）

From the above translation it can be found that Ba Jin didn’t add his own feelings in the translation just because he felt sympathetic for these characters or because he sensed the writer’s implied sorrow and therefore presumptuously thought that this sorrow should be explicitly expressed in the text. He fully comprehended the original text, from the word, rhythm to the writer’s feelings. His conveyance of beauty of the style in the original text was established on his understanding of the whole text. Thus, his translation was accurate, natural and smooth, reproducing the same style without trace of translation. When one is reading his translation, he/she could enjoy the same aesthetic beauty of the original text. The following is an example of his transfer of Oscar Wilde’s irony in The devoted friend.

Eg9- “‘There is no good in my going to see little Hans as long as the snow lasts’, the Miller used to say to his wife, ‘for when people are in trouble they should be left alone, and not be bothered by visitors. That at least is my idea about friendship, and I am sure I am right. So I shall wait till the spring comes, and then I shall pay him a visit, and he will be able to give me a large basket of primroses and that will make him so happy.” (Oscar Wilde, 2015, 25)

Eg9- “磨面师常常对他妻子说：‘雪花没有化的时候，我去看看小汉斯，是没有好处的，因为人在困难的时候，应该让他安静，不应当有客人去打扰他。这至少是我对于友谊的看法，我相信我是对的。所以我要等到春天来，才去探望他，那时他便可以送我一大篮樱草，这会使他非常高兴。’”（Ba Jin, 2010, 38）

The Miller in The Devoted Friend was a greedy, selfish and shameless figure. He always asked poor little Hans for a favor as a return for his generous present, a broken wheelbarrow, which he didn’t give to Hans even when Hans was dead. Even though he was rich, he always tried to extort some benefit from Hans. He was one of those who only ask but never give. The above excerpt was Wilde’s satirical description of the Miller’s noble idea of friendship. The words and sentences “should be”, “at least”, and “I am sure I am right” in the original text vividly showed the Miller’s arrogant tone. In Ba Jin's translation, they were translated as “应该”, “至少”, and “我相信我是对的”, which was in accordance with the original text. In the original text, the Miller seemed to be a very considerate friend since whatever he would do, he always put others before himself. He didn’t visit Hans in a snowy day because one should be left alone when he was in trouble, not because he himself feared the biting cold on the way to visit. His extortion of “a large basket of primroses” was because it would make Hans happy, not because he himself coveted the beautiful flowers. This kind of satire in Wilde’s writing was fully reproduced in Ba Jin's translation. The words “他便可以” told the readers what a privilege little Hans would have when the Miller visited him in spring. He would save the trouble of going all the way to the Miller’s home and how happy he would be when he gave the present to the Miller.

It can be seen from the above analysis that Ba Jin highly respected the original writer’s writing style. In fact, when it comes to translation of style, he said, “Translation should firstly be loyal to the original work. The style of translation should be based upon that of the original work. The tone and lingering charm should be remained as much as possible so as to reproduce the original style.” It is his translation attitude of faithfulness, fully comprehension of the whole text and his own natural and smooth expression that lead the readers back to Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales to appreciate the beauty of style in the original work.

Conclusion

Oscar Wilde had an erudite way with words and is often quoted to this day. His collection of short stories is imbued with a timeless quality. The tales possess such romantic charm and moral charge that they read like traditional fables crafted and refined by generations of storytellers over one hundred of years.

It was Ba Jin who brought those wonderful stories to Chinese readers at large. In his translation, readers could feel the same aesthetic effect. As a literary giant in China, Ba Jin created dozens of marvelous novels and translation works. Learning and practice helped him accumulate rich aesthetic experience and deepened his aesthetic consciousness. The sufficient aesthetic conditions laid solid foundation for his transfer of beauty in Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales.

On sound level, he mainly used imitation to convey beauty in the original work. Repetition, parallelism and assonance in the original text largely remained in his translation. But his imitation was not rigid. It was a kind of creative imitation in order to better reproduce the sound beauty in the original work.

On diction level, he thought highly of faithfulness and the idiomaticity of the target language. He tried to choose the most appropriate and vivid word in Chinese to translate the word in the original text so as to being faithful to the aesthetic effect in the original text.

On image level, he used visualization and empathy to reproduce the beauty in the original text.

On style level, he stressed the importance of faithfulness and endeavored to maintain the tone and lingering charm as much as possible to reproduce the style of the original work.

Therefore, Ba Jin's translation of Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales is natural, smooth and beautiful, leading the readers back to the wonderful world Wilde created. One obvious feature of Ba Jin's translation is that he put an emphasis on faithfulness. But his faithfulness transcended only being faithful to the logical information in the original text, being loyal to the aesthetic information was also incorporated in his faithfulness to the original text. This provides us with much enlightenment on translating a literary work. Thanks to Oscar Wilde, it was him who presented us with such beautiful fairy tales. And thanks to Ba Jin, it was him that reproduced the beauty of the original work.

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