History of Translation Studies 13

A Brief Introduction to the Translation Theories of Catford and Eugene Nida

杨晨婷 Yang Chenting, Student No.202070080615 英语笔译

Abstract

This paper is on the translation theories of Catford and Eugene Nida. In the book A Linguistic Theory of Translation, Catford defines translation as “the substitution of one equivalent language (the translated language)’s textual material for another language (the original language),”(Catford 1965) and regards the search for equivalent components for the original language as the central problem. Thus, he proposed that the mission of translation theory is to find the essence and the condition of equivalence components.

Eugene Nida proposed the dynamic equivalence based on communicative theory. In the light of the communicative function of a language, he believes that except for information transmission, language has many communicative functions, such as expressive function, cognitive function, interpersonal relationship function, imperative function, performative function, emotive function, etc. Translation should not only transmit information but also convey the above-mentioned functions of a language, which is the “equivalence” pursued by Nida. Since Nida views translation as a communicative activity, he argues that the effectiveness of translation depends on receiving the maximum amount of information with the minimum of effort.

Key Words

Catford; Eugene Nida; Translation theory; Dynamic equivalence

摘要

卡特福特在《翻译的语言学理论》一书中写道：“翻译是用一种等值的语言的文本材料去替换另一种语言的文本材料”(Catford 1965)，并把寻求源语言中的等值成分视作翻译的中心问题，从而提出翻译理论的目的就在于确定等值成分的本质和条件。

尤金·奈达在交际学理论的基础上提出了动态对等的翻译理论。从语言的交际功能出发，他认为语言除了传递信息外，还有许多交际方面的功能，如表达功能、认识功能、人际关系功能、祈使功能、司事功能、表感功能等。翻译不仅需要做到传递信息，还需要实现上述的功能，这也就是奈达所追求的 “等效”。由于奈达把翻译视作一种交际活动，所以他在衡量翻译的效果时也是从翻译所传递的信息量出发，认为翻译的效果取决于花最小的功夫接受最大的信息量。

关键词

卡特福特；尤金·奈达；翻译理论；动态对等

Introduction

Since the 1950s, several scholars in the West have begun to focus on structural theory, transformative theory, function theory, discourse theory and information theory of modern linguistics, who regarded translation as one subject of linguistics. From the perspectives of comparative linguistics, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, semantics, semiotics, communication, etc., they brought forward relatively well-organized translation theories and methods, making great contributions to translation research. Roman Jakobson, Eugen A. Nida, J.C. Catford and Peter Newmark are all representatives during that time. And scholars above have certainly drawn people's attention to the theory research of translation. (Yuan Ruirui 2009,12)

The paper is aiming at introducing the translation theories proposed by J.C. Catford and Eugene Nida.

Introduction of Catford's theory

Catford is one of the representatives of the linguistic school, and his book—A Linguistic Theory of Translation, published in 1965, has become one of the most influential works for contemporary translation theory research. From a modern linguistic perspective, this book interprets some common translation problems. At the same time, it has led to a huge response in Western linguistic and translation theory circles, praised as “a work that explored a new way for the research of translation theory”.(Bao Zhennan 1982,68)

The Nature of Translation

According to Catford, translation is the study of the relationship among languages, and he sees translation as an inter-language activity, the process of which is to replace the text of one language (the original language) with the text of another language (the translated language). Catford views translation activity based on the knowledge of comparative linguistics, holding that the process of translation is the process of comparing grammars and vocabularies.(Catford 1965,20)

The Classification of Translation

Catford classifies translation into six categories from three aspects.

In terms of the degree of translation, it includes “full translation” and “partial translation”. Full translation means every word of the original text should be replaced by the material from the translated text; partial translation, also called zero translation, is one in which a part or some parts of the original text are not translated. Then the untranslated parts are directly cited in the translated text without any change. (Liu Junping 2007,137-140)

In terms of language levels, there are “total translation” and “restricted translation”. Total translation means that no matter what grammatical structures or vocabularies are, the original language has its corresponding equivalence in the translated language; However, this does not equal to complete equivalence; restricted translation refers to translation limited to one language level, such as phonetic translation, lexical translation, morphological translation and grammatical translation. (Liu Junping 2007,137-140)

In terms of ranks of language structure, translation can be divided into “rank-bounded translation” and “unbounded translation”. Rank-bounded translation pays more attention to the lower-level language structure, i.e., word to word and lexeme to lexeme; unbounded translation, however, is not limited by language structures, such as “free translation”. He also points out that literal translation is not the same as word-for-word translation, which is a kind of translation combined word-for-word translation and free translation. (Liu Junping 2007,137-140)

Translation Equivalence

From Catford's definition of translation, it is easy to find that equivalence is the keyword. Since the central problem of translation is to find corresponding equivalence in the translated language, while the central task of translation theory is to explain the essence and the condition of equivalent forms. In terms of equivalence, translation is dynamic, including textual and formal correspondence. Textual equivalence refers to the equivalence of a translated text with a given original text in a specific situation. (Pan Menglai 2020,1)

But in some cases, lexical items in the original text don’t have the corresponding ones in the translated text. For example, “the sun also rises” in Chinese is “太阳照常升起”, which doesn't translate the definite article “the”. In this case, only phrases can realize equivalence. Formal correspondence means that the grammatical categories of the translated text, as well as the original text, are special to its languages respectively. Since part of speech, person and tense are defined by their interrelationship in the language, formal correspondence is relative, not absolute. (Wang Xiaoqin 2009.3)

According to Catford, to achieve equivalence, the translated text must share certain occasions with the original text, and the more occasions it shares, the higher the quality of the translation is. Shared occasions mean that the translated text and the original text can play the same role in certain situations. If the linguistic units are changeable in a given situation, then they can be regarded as equivalent forms. Translators are not supposed to choose the equivalent forms with the same meaning, but with the same or similar characteristics on certain occasions.(Catford 1965,20-21)

Translation Shifts

The term “shifts” was coined by Catford. He holds that shifts are the correspondence of the original language into the translated language in the process of changing its form. Translation shifts are the deviation of the formal correspondence in the process of translating the original language into the translated language. Conversions include level shifts and category shifts. Level shifts refers to the fact that the words used in the translated text and the original text are at different linguistic levels, and also refers to the conversion of the grammar and the vocabulary. (Liu Junping2009,140)

Category shifts, on the other hand, refers to the translation deviating from the two language forms, including structural shifts, class shifts, unit shifts, and intra-system shifts. (Catford 1965)

Limits of Translatability

Catford points out that limits of translatability have two conditions—one is linguistic untranslatability and the other is cultural untranslatability. Linguistic untranslatability means that the translated text has no corresponding formal features to the original text, with no available vocabulary or grammar that can replace the original text, such as polysemy and puns. Cultural untranslatability is caused by non-linguistic factors such as different social customs. Catford, however, argues that part of untranslatable terms associated with culture can also be seen as linguistic untranslatability because there is no strict or absolute distinction between linguistic untranslatability and cultural untranslatability. (Catford 1965)

Introduction of Eugene Nida's theory

Eugene Nida is an important figure in the translation field. He has devoted himself to the American Bible Society for over half a century. His life-long research has put the Bible in the first place. Therefore, his translation theories have come into being because of his translation practice. (Nida 1964)

Dynamic Equivalence Theory

Formal correspondence and functional equivalence (dynamic equivalence) were introduced by Eugene Nida. According to Nida, dynamic equivalence means that the target language receiver and the source language creator are able to have a similar response, which is the closest and natural equivalence to the source language. “Equivalence” is for the source language, while “natural” is for the target language, and “closest” is the combination of the two on the basis of a high degree of approximation. (Eugene Nida 1964)

Based on Chomsky’s Generative Grammar, he proposes functional equivalence, summarizing the translation process into three steps: analysis, transfer, and restructuring. The first step is to understand the original text and the second step is to transfer the meaning of the original text. In the end, the equivalence of the semantics and style can be acquired. Nida also believes that formal correspondence will distort the grammar and style of the target language, making it difficult for the target readers to understand or even misunderstand the text. (Tang Baolian 2013)

In the process of translation, Nida points out that the “equivalence” of dynamic equivalence includes four aspects—lexical equivalence, syntactic equivalence, textual equivalence and stylistic equivalence.

(1) Lexical equivalence. The meaning of a word lies in its usage in a language. In terms of English-Chinese translation, English and Chinese vocabulary includes five kinds of correspondence—word equivalence, synonyms, polysemy, intertwined meanings, and unequal words, among which the complete equivalence of words is mainly among proper nouns. Though there is no word with the same meaning, languages can express similar meanings with different forms. (Tang Baolian 2013)

(2) Syntactic equivalence. Again, in the term of English-Chinese translation, syntactic equivalence is much more complicated than lexical equivalence. Since English is hypotactic, while Chinese is paratactic, the tenses are different. For example, In English, the singular and plural forms of nouns and the tenses of verbs cannot be found in Chinese. In the process of translation, therefore, it is necessary to find equivalent concepts. The concepts of “了” and “过” in Chinese can reflect the tenses in English. (Zheng Jingting 2020,31)

Sometimes, differences in vocabulary can create obstacles for syntactic equivalence in translation. There are relational pronouns in English but not in Chinese, which means that in English-Chinese translation, the order and the combination of definite clauses needed to be taken into consideration. (Zheng Jingting 2020,31)

(3) Textual equivalence. A text is a unit of language-using. Linguistic context, situational context, and cultural context are the three aspects of textual equivalence. Context analysis is used to determine the meaning of words or semantic units in the original text, thus determining the semantic transformations. Situational analysis, however, cannot figure out the exact meaning of certain linguistic phenomena from the context. Therefore, only by referring to the events, participants, and modes of communication that take place at the time can the language be determined. (Tang Baolian 2013)

Difficulties such as lexical gaps, cultural misunderstandings, and even cultural conflicts are often encountered in translation, which are difficult to be solved by translation skills, so the translator must have a deep understanding of the culture of the source language and the target language. Nida once said, “As for a truly successful translation work, being familiar with cultures is even more important than mastery of the languages, because words only have its meaning in culture-related issues. (Tang Baolian 2013)

(4) Stylistic equivalence. In order to create a translation that truly reflects the style of the source language, the translator must master the source language and target language and be proficient in both languages.

The concept of equivalence is a fundamental topic in translation research. Nida uses the communicative method to solve this problem. He insists that anything that can be expressed in one language can be expressed in another language; communication between languages and cultures can be carried out by finding translation equivalence and reorganizing the form and semantic structure of the original text in an appropriate way. (Chen Ning 2020,19)

Therefore, the translated text should be easy for the target reader to accept, which should also conform to the norms of the receiving language. This further became his theory—dynamic equivalence, the closest and most natural equivalence. One way to define dynamic equivalence is to describe it as the most natural equivalence.

This definition includes three basic terms. First, equivalence. It focuses more on the source language; second, natural. It refers to the target language; third, the closest. It connects the two based on extreme similarity; fourth, dynamic equivalence. It means using the most natural and equivalent language to transfer the meaning from the original text into the target text. “The closest” focuses on the meaning, choosing the closest meaning followed the rule of “being natural”. (Chen Ning 2020,19)

To realize dynamic equivalence, the translator should focus on the meaning and the spirit of the original text and not be restricted to the linguistic structure of the original text or formal equivalence. According to Nida’s definition, dynamic equivalence is not equal to the traditional “free translation” or “flexible translation”, because dynamic equivalence has its own strict requirements, which requires the translation to reproduce the original meaning as perfectly as possible in different linguistic structures, while there is no demand for “free translation” or “flexible translation”. “Free translation” often depends a lot on the creation of the translator. (Tan Zaixi 1999)

Obviously, the fundamental task of translation is to achieve equivalence between the translated text and the original text. However, there is no absolute equivalence between two different discourses, whether they are intralingual communication or interlingual communication. What translators are seeking is the closest equivalence, which means the translation should be as close as possible to the original text. Also, the translation should be natural and without translationese. To achieve this goal, translators should consider the communicative intent of the source language and the style of the target language and analyze the reading abilities of the target language readers. (Tan Zaixi 1999)

If there is too much for receptors to think, translators may run the risk of readers’ misinterpreting or misunderstanding of the translation. In translation, the main task for translators is to convey the information of the original language in time. In order to do this, the translator must make sure that the original text can be properly understood by the reader. Therefore, the most difficult part of a translation job is to find the “critical point” that connects the original text to the translated text in the most natural way. (Tan Zaixi 1999)

Reader's Response Theory

Reader’s response theory Nida proposed is used to explain his dynamic equivalence theory, and from this perspective, he points out some translation standards and techniques that can be adopted in the translation practice. Reader’s response theory focuses on domestication in terms of translation skills. Domestication emphasizes the “idiomaticness” of the translated text, which means using the speech forms in line with the expression of the target language, thus making receptors easily understand the meaning of the original text. (Duan Lina 2015,12)

Nida advocates that translations should be so natural that readers can understand them without any cultural background knowledge of the original language, which requires that we should use as many expressions of the translated language as possible, instead of borrowing words or loan words from the original language. Reader’s response theory focuses on the reader of the translated text and the information communication, thus placing more importance on the contents of the text. Many elements in the original text, such as language expressions and certain behavioral patterns, are converted into forms with cultures familiar to the receptors. (Duan Lina 2015,12)

According to Nida, in order to preserve the content, the adjustments made to the source language depends on the difference of the linguistic and cultural differences between the source language and the target language. In a sense, this is like conducting a market survey to test the public's reaction to a product. If the public shows no affection to the product, no matter how good it is, or how good it looks in a showroom, it will not be accepted. Undoubtedly, Nida’s theories make sense. If a translation work does not take readers into consideration and ignore the reader's reaction, it surely can’t be said to be a qualified one. (Liu Junping 2007)

For example, if one wants to translate the Analects into modern English, in order to maintain the ancient style, he plans to use old English. The consequence will be that English readers will find it difficult to accept the translation. Of course, a small number of researchers who are proficient in old English may accept it, but the Analects should be read by more than just a few researchers. Here is another example. Shakespeare’s works are popular, which bring joy to English readers, but if his works translated into Chinese mislead Chinese readers, such a translation cannot be an ideal translation. Therefore, the translation should never be detached from the background of the original text, and the translator should also consider the thinking modes of the receptors in understanding the content. (Liu Junping 2007)

Three Developing Periods of Nida's Theories

The period of descriptive linguistics, from 1943 to 1959, is the first major period of the development of Nida’s translation thoughts and his academic activities. In this stage, his research focused on the syntactic and lexical phenomena. He depicts language differences not as insurmountable barriers, but as different phenomena with the same essence. During this period, Naida’s research center gradually shifted from a general description of English syntax and lexicon to a specific study of multilingual comparisons, especially the study of the Bible translation. (Yuan Ruirui 2019,12)

The period of communicative theory, from 1959 to 1969, plays an important role in the establishment of Nida’s authoritative position in the Western translation circle. In 1964, he published an important monograph, Toward a Science of Translating, which can be regarded as one of the most important milestones in the development of Nida’s translation. Nida’s basic translation thoughts in this period can be summarized into the following four aspects:

(1) Nida believes that translation is not only an art, a skill but also a subject.

(2) He applies communication theory and information theory to the study of translation, seeing translation as a way of communication, which is the main symbol of the second period of Nida’s thought, and also one of the biggest features in his whole theory system.

(3) The concept of dynamic equivalence was proposed.

(4) As far as the translation process is concerned, Nida advocated the four-step method—analysis, transfer, restructuring, and examination. (Shi Cuiui 2009,01)

The third period is about social semiotics, starting from the 1970s. Nida made a series of revisions and additions to his theory and further developed it on his research, incorporating its useful elements into a new model of social semiotics. The book From One Language to Another, published in 1986, introduces Nida’s research since the 1980s, which was the representative of the third period. The following four changes and developments have been clarified in this book:

(1) It emphasizes that everything about translated texts are meaningful, including language form.

(2) It points out that the rhetorical features play a decisive role in linguistic communication.

(3) Dynamic equivalence is replaced with “functional equivalence”, thus making its meaning clearer.

(4) It encourages to translate with sociolinguistics and social semiotics. In his view, language must be regarded as a symbolic phenomenon, and the interpretation of it cannot be separated from its social environment. Besides, the meaning is divided into rhetorical meaning, grammatical meaning and lexical meaning, each of which contains referential meaning and associative meaning. (Tan Zaixi 1999)

Comparison Between Catford's Theory and Nida's Theory

Although Catford and Nida are representatives of the linguistic school of translation theory in the West, they clarify their theories from different angles, thus making a term with two different connotations. Based on A Linguistic Theories of Translation written by Catford and The Theory and Practice of Translation written by Nida, the following are going to discuss some differences in meaning, equivalence and form.

Meaning

Nida's translation theories are primarily in the service of the Bible translation, with the ultimate goal of getting readers to believe in Christianity. Therefore, in the translation of the Bible, transferring the information and message is of paramount importance. For the purpose of spreading the religion, Nida not only considers the meaning to be translatable, but he even considers the meaning to be sacrosanct because it's a process of conveying “God’ s will”. (Zhao Huiyan 2016,24)

Nida's definition of translation also clearly indicates the relationship between meaning and form, putting the meaning in the first place. In the analysis of semantics, Nida subdivides it into grammatical meaning, referential meaning, and connotative meaning, which also becomes the basis of his four modes—analysis, transfer, restructuring and examination in the translation process. From the perspective of the linguistic universalism, Nida always insists that the information conveyed by one language can be conveyed by another language, while the meaning remains the same. (Zhao Huiyan 2016,24)

Compared with Nida’s translation theory, Catford does not discuss the specific problems encountered in translation but focuses on the essence of translation, i.e., what is translation, also a more fundamental content in the study of translation theory. Catford emphasizes the individuality of languages, stressing that each language has its unique semantic system influenced by its unique culture and that lexical and grammatical systems embodying the semantic system are also unique. He focuses on the relationship between two languages and analyzes the causes of their differences: each language has its own system and different ones exist in different systems. (Tang Yilang 2008,04)

Each kind of language, at the same time, is composed of numerous subsystems, which leads to the division between contextual and formal meaning. Contextual meaning refers to the meaning of a word or sentence in a particular situation, which is translatable; formal meaning refers to the relationship between a word and its grammatical system, which is untranslatable due to the differences between various systems.

According to Catford, “In our view, meaning is a characteristic of a language. The source language has its own meaning and the translated language also has its own meaning”. “The idea that the source language has the same meaning as the translated language, or that a transfer of meaning occurs in translation, is untenable”. Obviously, this assertion is a deconstruction and subversion of “meaning” in traditional translation theory, which is Catford’s most unique insight. But it is also for this reason that his theory aroused all sorts of suspicions, and it is absurd to think that meaning is untranslatable without “carefully reading of the original work, which is often guessed by the literal meaning of the work”.(Nida 1969)

In comparison, their translation theories have a common basis for defining meaning, that is, meaning is constant.

Equivalent

“对等” is often misinterpreted due to its literal meaning, understood to be exactly the same. Some scholars argue that this is the Chinese translation field’s misunderstanding of the meaning of “equivalent”, and suggested that it be translated as “相当”. Instead of discussing the translation of this term, we can still feel the different connotations of “equivalent” in Nida’s and Catford’s theories by a comparison. (Xia Qun 2016,06)

Nida argues that the equivalence in translation is because different languages can have the same function. As long as the receiver’s reaction towards the information is approximately the same as the original text creator, dynamic equivalence can be realized. (Then he replaced it “functional equivalence”.) When explaining equivalence, Nida points out that translators should not overly pursue the correspondence between the original form and the translated form, but should turn their attention to conveying the meaning of the original text accurately. Therefore, when the original form is easily misunderstood by the reader or when the structure of the original text is obscure and difficult, which may cause inconvenience to the reader, the translator is allowed to change the original form. (Zhang Peng 2005, 02)

Nida’s dynamic equivalence theory doubts the static model of textual comparisons, arguing that only when the receptors can understand the translated text thoroughly can he or she respond in a way that is consistent with the original text readers. Therefore, dynamic equivalence emphasizes the readers’ response.

According to Catford, “Translation is the replacement of textual material in one language by equivalent textual material in another language”. In this definition, Catford does not use the word “text” but “textual material”, because he believes that the meaning of one text cannot be fully transferred into another text. Equivalence cannot always be found, so it can only be said to be a substitution.

Catford attributes the translation equivalence in traditional translation theory to experience, and proposes his own conditions for translation equivalence: if the original language and the target language can achieve equivalence, they must coincide with at least some characteristics of the entities they refer to. Obviously, according to his theory, equivalence is possible only if the entities involved in the two languages share some common features. And such equivalence can only exist between the same levels (phonology, grammar, and lexis), and there can be no equivalence among four different levels, basically because the different levels have different entities. Since two equivalent words cannot have identical entity characteristics that perfect equivalence does not exist. This explains why, in Catford’s view, there is no perfect translation. At this point, Catford seems to go deeper into the essence of languages. (Catford 1965)

Form

The word “form” is both involved in Nida’s and Catford’s translation theories, which have different meanings in their theories. The “form” in Nida’s theory mainly refers to the form corresponding to the content, including the rhythm, word, parallelism, and other distinctive grammatical structures. For the Bible translation, meaning must be given priority in order to convey the contents, which means that the form can be greatly changed during translation. If both equivalent form and content are pursued, the content should be taken into consideration first, and then the form; if the two are failed to realize, the form can be abandoned. (Gao Hong 2017,09)

As for the different opinion on the issue of changing the form, Nida puts forward a restriction to distinguish it from free translation: form changing are not suitable for all texts, such as poetry translation. In addition, if the meaning can be accurately expressed while remaining the form, the original form should be preserved as much as possible, which is more suitable when the form and content are in conflict. Catford views language as a “form”, opposite to the concept of “entity”. Form includes four dimensions, including phonology, grapheme, grammar, and vocabulary, all of which belong to language itself. Entities refer to raw materials, including phonology, lexis, and context, which are non-linguistic. Form always corresponds to an objective entity. In Catford’s theory, form can in fact be understood as a system, i.e., each language is composed of different systems, and these systems include numerous subsystems. (Gao Hong 2017, 09)

Therefore, translation between two languages belonging to different systems means looking for identical (or at least partially identical) entity characteristics in the source language and the translated language. As each language cannot have a completely consistent system, even the most closely-related languages have their own unique forms, and the formal meanings of the two languages cannot be exactly the same. In the process of translation, therefore, meaning cannot be completely transferred into another language, which is also an important point that distinguishes his theory from others. (Tan zaixi 1999)

Conclusion

This paper mainly introduces the translation theories proposed by Catford and Nida and makes a comparison between the two.

Nida emphasizes the importance of the interaction in translation, focusing on readers’ response in translation and clarifies the idea that translation, in the end, serves the reader. In order to achieve this goal, the fundamental requirement is to change form to convey content. For those texts in which the primary purpose is to convey information, it is very important to change the form. However, for texts like poems, this method may not suitable.

Catford mainly focuses on the study of language, with little reference to culture, but it seems to go deeper into the essence of language, thus dividing it into four levels and defining form and entity respectively. He explains some ambiguous views people have, such as how to understand translatability and untranslatability. From another angle, his theory reminds us that in the process of translation, all levels of language should be taken into consideration.

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--Yang chenting (talk) 12:42, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Yang chenting

On the Differences of Nida's and Newmark's Theory - 康灵凤 Kang Lingfeng 202020080607 英语语言文学

康灵凤 Kang Lingfeng 202020080607

Abstract

Eugene A. Nida and Peter Newmark are notable translators and translation theorists in the western world. They respectively each proposed a translation theory system after many years of translation practice. Nida put forward functional equivalence theory. Newmark presented semantic translation, communicative translation, the text type theory, and the correlative approach to translation, making up for the weaknesses of Nida's theory. Their translation theories inevitably have some similarities in that they were created under the same social background. This chapter will compare their translation theories, and analyze the differences between Nida's and Newmark's translation theories.

Key Words

Functional equivalence; semantic translation; communicative translation; text type

题目

探讨奈达和纽马克翻译理论之区别

摘要

尤金·奈达和彼得·纽马克是西方著名的翻译家和翻译理论家，经过多年的翻译实践，他们各自提出了一套自己的翻译理论系统。其中奈达提出了功能对等理论，彼得·纽马克提出了语义翻译、交际翻译、文本类型理论及后来的交际翻译法，弥补了奈达功能对等理论的一些缺陷。因两人处于同一时代，他们的翻译理论不可避免的有相似之处，但是两人的翻译理论也有不同，本章节将对比两者的翻译理论，着重分析奈达和纽马克两人翻译理论的差别。

关键词

功能对等；语义翻译；交际翻译；文本类型

Introduction of Nida's and Newmark's Translation Theories

Nida is a prolific translation theorist. The main academic activities of his life revolve around Bible translation. Nida worked for translation department of American Bible Society and organized the translation of Bible, and drew some conclusions when translating Bible. His first monograph was Bible Translating released in 1946. According to these experiences, he published Toward a Science of Translating in 1964, and The Theory and Practice of Translation in 1969, etc. His translation theory and the phrase-dynamic equivalence was first introduced in the former book with many examples about Bible in this book.

Peter Newmark and Eugene A. Nida were the same century and Newmark was two years younger than Nida. But Newmark's translation theory appeared 20 years later than Nida's. Since 1974, Newmark has begun to teach students translation theories in the university and tried to write passages about translation problems. It was said that Newmark's ideas were from his classes. His first work-Approaches to Translation was published in 1981, which gained widespread praise immediately. Semantic translation and communicative translation were put forward in this book. Then he came up with the theory of text type and correlative approach to translation. (Wang Luo 2012, 101)

In China, many translators regarded their translation theories as the guidelines when translating and used their translation theories to evaluate and compare others' translations. There are a lot of theses on the Internet that use their theories. There are also a lot of theses about the comparative study of Nida's functional equivalence theory and Newmark's translation theory in China. Until now, there have been people focusing on the similarities and differences of their theories. Plenty of differences are mentioned by scholars like Lin Kenan, Lao Long, Chen Lin, Wang Jing, Zhang Xu, Hu Dawei, Yin Kexiu, etc. (Lao Long 1990, 52)

As these scholars wrote, first, Nida had ideas that translations should be readers-centered, and translators should put the intelligibility of translations first. And Newmark considered that translators should be loyal to writers of source texts first, source language second, and readers third; second, Nida emphasized free translation and sought functional equivalence first and formal equivalence second while Newmark attached importance to literal translation; third, although their research methods are based on linguistics, Nida's methods mainly originated from transformational generative linguistics and Newmark's mainly stemmed from comparative linguistics; fourth, Nida and Newmark have different translation evaluation criteria. Nida evaluated translations according to readers' response and Newmark believed that evaluation of translations were related to types of source texts and different texts had corresponding evaluation criteria. (Lao Long 1990, 52)

In addition, both Newmark and Nida supposed that every language could be translated into another language. The ability of translatability was confirmed. There are many other differences about their theories. Scholars have made a detailed study of their differences. A few scholars study one of their many differences, and their researches have looked more closely at their differences. Most scholars try to find out all the differences between them. In the process of studying, some scholars hold extreme attitudes toward their theories. For instance, some scholars perceive that Nida opposed formal equivalence. （sources missed） Some inaccurate conclusions were drawn that Nida only focused on free translation and Newmark totally used literal translation and did not care about free translation. Some scholars reckon that some ideas of Nida's theory are contrary to that of Newmark's theory. The reasons why some scholars summarize such false conclusions are that first, they do not begin an intensive study and have a rush for quick results; second, Nida's and Newmark's were at the stage of development at that time and some scholars saw some imperfect ideas and put them into researches but it was likely that Nida and Newmark revised and added some ideas in the following texts. This chapter will illustrate their differences from five aspects, which are their kernel theories, the definition and nature, research methods, translation texts, and translation evaluation criteria. There are two parts about translation texts, which are the content and form in translation, degree of emphasis on the texts. (Lao Long 1990, 52)

Chapter 1 Nida's and Newmark's Kernel Theories

Nida and Newmark had different kernel theories. First, this part will introduce the development and main content of Nida's translation theory in detail, and then introduce the main content of Newmark's translation theory.

1.1 Introduction of Nida's Kernel Translation Theory

Nida mastered many languages and investigated more than 100 languages. He published over 200 theses and about 40 works and about 20 works of them are about language and translation. He mentioned dynamic equivalence,and in 1969, he wrote The Theory and Practice of Translation. In this book, he formally proposed the definition of dynamic equivalence "which is that dynamic equivalence is therefore to be defined in terms of the degree to which the receptors of the message in the receptor language respond to it in substantially the same manner as the receptors in the source language". (Nida 1969, 24)

This theory now is called functional equivalence. Due to people's misunderstanding of dynamic equivalence, the expression-dynamic equivalence is superseded by functional equivalence in his From One Language to Another. Both of them have little differences. The theory pays more attention to the functional equivalence of information instead of direct formal translation. It poses a requirement to the target language in translation close to the source language in meaning and style. (Liang Ge, Xian lei, Ren Chaoying 2016, 16)

It is concluded that translation is not to rigidly follow the surface equivalence between two languages, but to combine the message, emotion and style of the original text to make the translation convey the same information as the original text to the greatest extent. There are four aspects of functional equivalence theory, which are lexical equivalence, syntactic equivalence, textual equivalence and stylistic equivalence. In addition, Nida proposed two kinds of equivalence in the 1990s which were added into his functional equivalence theory. (Liang Ge, Xian lei, Ren Chaoying 2016, 16)

One is maximal equivalence, which means that the target readers can understand and appreciate the translation in the same way as the original readers. It's the ideal state pursued by translators. The other is minimal equivalence, which means that the target readers should be able to understand the translation and then can imagine how the readers of the original text understand and appreciate the original text. The development of functional equivalence theory experienced three stages. The first stage was that he applied modern linguistic fruits into his theory. (Liang Ge, Xian lei, Ren Chaoying 2016, 16)

The idea of deep structure and surface structure of transformational generative linguistics was shown in his theory. The second stage was that Nida thought his theory was based on information theory. A good translation should assure readers of the source text and readers of the translations that they can get the same understanding from the translation and the source text. The third stage was that Nida considered that social semiotics was the foundation of functional equivalence, translating meant translating the meaning, and semiotics was the most comprehensive system for analyzing meaning. Nida's theory is widely used in the comparative analysis of two translations, the appreciation of subtitle translations, and some reports about technology, etc. (Liang Ge, Xian lei, Ren Chaoying 2016, 16) (the division of these few paragraphs here is a little bit strange）--Jiang Fengyi (talk) 08:56, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

1.2 Introduction of Newmark's Kernel Translation Theory

Taking different types of texts into account, he divided texts into three types, which are expressive, informative and vocative texts. The core of expressive function is that speakers and writers voice their emotion and do not care about readers' response. The typical expressive texts include literary works such as lyrical poems, novels, dramas, authoritative speeches, autobiographies, private letters, etc. Translators should put the author first when translating expressive texts. (Chen Jing 2004, 68-69)

Not only are translators faithful to the content of source texts, but also the translations in style should be in line with the author's language style. The key points of informative function are extrinsic context, the reality of a topic, extra-linguistic factors, etc. The informative texts contain encyclopedic knowledge, whose form is standard, textbooks, newspapers, etc. The objects of vocative texts are readers, whose aim is that a writer attempt to lead readers to act, think as his intentions. Instruction books, publicity materials, applications are part of vocative texts. (Chen Jing 2004, 68-69)

What's more, Newmark also came up with semantic translation and communicative translation. Communicative translation attempts to produce on its readers an effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original. Translators even can revise the original mistakes with a view to realizing communicative goals. Semantic translation attempts to render, as closely as the semantic and syntactic structures of the second language allow, the exact contextual meaning of the original. Semantic translation pays attention to the intentions and meaning of the original writers. "Few texts are purely expressive, informative, or vocative: most include all three functions, with an emphasis on one of the three". (Newmark 1988, 56)

Concerning the situations of over-translation and under-translation, Newmark presented the correlative approach to translation in 1994. The more important the language of the original or the source language text, the more closely it should be translated. Newmark stated that the approach did not reject his two other translation methods. On the contrary, it brought the two together more closely on that basis. (Chen Jing 2004, 68-69)

Chapter 2 The Definition and Nature of Translation

What is translation? Basically every translator will be asked and has his or her own definitions. For Nida and Newmark, they each developed a theory system. And Nida and Newmark had different explanations about the definition of translation. Nida gave his definition that translation consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalence of the source language message, first in terms of meaning and second, in terms of style. Nida also mentioned that "translating means communicating". (Nida 1969, 12)

And Newmark said that it is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text. (Newmark 1988, 45) It can be seen that the focus of Nida's definition is on the closest natural equivalence, meaning, and style and the emphasis of Newmark's definition is on meaning, and text. It seemed that Nida had a broader scope than Newmark from the perspective of the definition. But in fact their main ideas are different. Nida thought over translation from the view of communication and Newmark tended to give a thought to translation from the perspective of types of texts. (source missed) Apart from the definitions of translation, they argued over the nature of translation. People have some controversies about Nida's opinions about the nature of translation. There are two main views. One is that "Nida ever thought that translation was a kind of science, which later was modified by him and he reckoned that translation was a kind of science and translation was also a kind of art".(Shao Lu 2007, 62) The other is that "Nida never said translation was a kind of translation". (Zhang Jinghao 2005, 61)

The first view is based on the titles of his book in 1964-Toward a Science of Translating and the title of one of his passages in 1969-Science of Translation. Nida also stated that "translating is far more than a science. It is also a skill, and in the ultimate analysis fully satisfactory translation is always an art". (Nida 1969, 7) It is illogical to say that translation is a kind of science according to these phrases such as science of translation, and science of translating and the sentence-translating is far more than a science. The better understandings of Nida's sentences are that translation is scientific and artistic, and a good translation should be a work of art.

Newmark was clear about the nature of translation, who indicated that "for standardized language..., there should be only one correct equivalent, and that is the science of translation. Whilst for non-standardized language, there is rarely only one correct equivalent, and that is the art or craft of translation". (Newmark 2001, 77) Translation is both scientific, technical and artistic from his point of view, which nature is dominant depends on the types of source texts. In general, they all agreed that translation is scientific, artistic but the difference is that the ultimate goal of translation is be a work of art from the perspective of Nida and Newmark insisted translators should judge the nature of translations according to the types of source texts.

Chapter 3 Research Methods of Translation

Nida and Newmark have different research methods while their methods all are relevant to linguistics. More precisely, Nida used Chomsky's transformational generative grammar. Nida mentioned three stages of translation and said that "the second system of translation consists of a more elaborate procedure comprising three stages: (r) analysis, in which the surface structure (i.e., the message as given in language A) is analyzed in terms of (a) the grammatical relationships and (b) the meanings of the words and combinations of words, (z) transfer, in which the analyzed material is transferred in the mind of the translator from language A to language B, and (3) restructuring, in which the transferred material is restructured in order to make the final message fully acceptable in the receptor language. This approach may be diagrammed as in Figure 6". (Nida 1969, 33)

This figure in The Theory and Practice of Translation can prove his thinking pattern. And it is easily concluded that the concepts of surface structure and deep structure are involved in this picture. That certain features of this componential analysis require some explanation was written in his books. Nida divided a sentence into a combination of an object, a verb, the first goal, the second goal, and predicate phrase. The five elements were used to analyze a kind of sentence pattern. There are other types of elements used to analyze other sentence patterns. Componential analysis was adopted in his books. (Nida 1969, 33)

Newmark insisted that translation theory originated from comparative linguistics. In the context of linguistics, semantics was mainly involved. All semantic problems are related to translation theory. Newmark also paid special attention to semantic issues, and believed that meaning should be the first consideration of translation theorists. The meaning of the text is diverse. Newmark divided them into three main types: cognitive meaning, communicative meaning, and associative meaning. (Chen Jing 2004, 68-69)

In addition, Newmark talked about discourse analysis and case grammar, which showed that the prevailing linguistics at that time had traction in him. The unit of translation and discourse analysis as a chapter and the application of case grammar to translation as another chapter were introduced in his A Textbook of Translation. From Nida's and Newmark's books and passages, translators can see their thinking and some social influences from that century. They had some similarities in research methods of translation. But on a small scale, Nida mainly used surface structure and deep structure, componential analysis while Newmark talked about discourse analysis and case grammar, which Chomsky's student-Fillmore proposed to object to his teacher's idea. Both of them were in the grip of linguistics but the types of linguistics which they used are different. (Cui Jianzhou, Lu Jing 2006, 106)

Chapter 4 Translation of Texts

The part will talk about some problems that translators need to think about in translation. First, they should take the content and form of source texts into consideration. Second, the types of the texts have influence on the selection of translation methods, which translators should note.

4.1 The Content and Form in Translation

When it comes to content and form, it is easy to think of the long-standing debate of literal translation and free translation, and Nida and Newmark had their own answers respectively. It was a rigid stereotype that Newmark only used literal translation and Nida only used free translation. Actually their methods are inclined to combine literal translation and free translation. One different point between them is that Nida had an apparent transition in translation method and Newmark did not change his initial idea. (Zhang Jinghao 2005, 61)

The other different point is the different proportions of literal translation and free translation in their respective methods. Nida paid more attention to the free translation while Newmark is opposite to Nida. Nida has said that to preserve the content of the message the form must be changed. Nida held the view that functional equivalence of texts should be first considered and formal equivalence should be the second one. At the outset, formal equivalence was not vital in his opinion. But as time went by, he realized the limitations of his theory and tried his best to revise some ideas in his following works or theses. (Zhang Jinghao 2005, 61)

And he mentioned "the extent to which the forms must be changed in order to preserve the meaning will depend upon the linguistic and cultural distance between languages, which showed he did not ignore form of translation at all". (Nida 1969, 5) In contrast, Newmark did not jump to conclusions. The controversy of content and form is the argument of literal translation and free translation in essence. Nida ever said translating means translating meaning. But experiencing many years' inspection, he had some changes in his thoughts. （source missed） The formal equivalence should be preserved, and only when some conditions cannot be met can the form of the source text be altered. Nida pointed out five conditions under which translators must change the forms of texts and used free translation for the sake of achieving functional equivalence. The five conditions are that first, literal translation can lead to errors in meaning; second, the introduction of other languages to form a semantic blank and the reader may fill in the wrong meaning; third, formal equivalent can cause serious ambiguity; fourth, formal equivalence causes ambiguity that the author does not intend to; fifth, formal equivalence can cause grammatical errors and stylistic inconsistencies. From this aspect, it is easy to say that Nida's theory was constantly changing and developing and finally Nida proposed the combination of literal translation and free translation as the translation method. (Lao Long 1990, 52)

In contrast with Nida, Newmark at the beginning said that "I am somewhat of a "literalist", because I am for truth and accuracy. I think words as well as sentences and texts have meaning, and that you only deviate from literal translation when there are good semantic pragmatic reasons for so doing, which is more often than not...". (Newmark 1988, 1) The sentence was appeared in the preface of his A Textbook of Translation in 1988. And there is a quotation mark in the word-literalist, which means he is not a real literalist. Only when with the method of literal translation the meaning is still ambiguous can translators use the method of free translation.

However, at that time, Nida's theory was very prevalent, and most people ignored the importance of literal translation. Initially Nida insisted that form can arbitrarily be changed. Later, Nida improved his theory, so at last Nida's attention was working round from free translation to the combination of literal translation and free translation. Finally Newmark and Nida had the same idea about literal translation and free translation. But in a larger extent, Nida was more inclined to underline meaning and style while Newmark viewed that the importance of literal translation should not be neglected. There is no good or bad between literal translation and free translation. Nida and Newmark have their own different preferences. (Cui Jianzhou, Lu Jing 2006, 106)

Sometimes literal translation is better and sometimes free translation is better. For instance, for the proverb-When in Rome, do as the Romans do, Newmark might accept this translation "在罗马，照罗马人那样做" and Nida might prefer "入乡随俗". Both of the translations are good and nowadays people appreciate the brief version - "入乡随俗". There is another proverb, which is that all roads lead to Rome. Newmark might like "条条大路通罗马" and Nida was fond of this version - "不只有一个解决办法". The former translation also has definite connotations. People are likely to accept "条条大路通罗马". Nowadays, most of the translation methods should be based on the combination of literal translation and free translation. (source missed) Newmark realized the combination of literal translation and free translation and persisted in practicing his translation method all the time. On the deeper level, he who discharged the responsibility of the translation theorist to the very best of his ability, developed the idea of text classification, and wanted his theory to cover all types of text. But it is impossible to reach that goal, and there is no perfect translation theory. A common problem in the study of translation theory is that one is greedy for perfection or wants to involve various methods of translation in his own works, for fear of inadequacy, or to put forward a theory, always wishes it to be universally applicable to all translations. (Chen Jing 2004, 68-69)

In fact, it is unrealistic because a translator cannot be equally familiar with all kinds of styles, and it is only superficial for a translator to analyze some unfamiliar types of text. One of shortcomings of Newmark's theory is that a text may contain various functions, and it is hard to pick up all types of text and translate them according to various methods. Newmark presented semantic translation and communicative translation and many functions according to all kinds of texts. Nida's theory is not perfect. An important deficiency is that Nida tried to expand the scope of application of dynamic equivalence translation theory to become the criterion of all translations, which is somewhat biased. At this point, Newmark's theory is properer than Nida's. (Chen Jing 2004, 68-69)

4.2 Degree of Emphasis on the Texts

When it comes to texts, Nida considered that his translation method is available to every text while Newmark gave a classification of types of texts. Different types of texts should use different translation methods. The part about introduction of Newmark's translation theory has introduced the three types of texts, their definitions and suitable translation methods. According to text typology, translators should highlight the linguistic style of the author and be faithful to the content of the original author's thoughts when translating expressive texts. For example, there is a sentence - "I do not cough for my own amusement", (Austen 2009,17) which is from Pride and prejudice.

Wang Zuoliang translated it into "我又不是故意咳着玩儿". The style of Jane Austen is humorous and distinctive. The sentence was said by Lydia, who was capricious and Mr. Wang used a rhetorical question to express Lydia's rebuttal attitude toward his father. It can be seen that Lydia was a unruly person from this sentence. Mr. Wang mainly adopted the method of semantic translation, focusing on the lexical and syntactic structure of the sentence, so that the translation can be as close as possible to the original content, which the author wanted to express. Semantic translation attaches importance to source texts and the author and can be applied to the translation of expressive texts. This point is different from Nida's idea of readers-centered response.

The core of this kind of informative text is authenticity, which is the most important. The language of the author is secondary. People take the content of the text seriously and translators even revise the mistakes that the original texts have. For example, schools do not have fixed model to launch recruitment advertisements in Chinese brochures. But the English prospectus has the basic fixed structure pattern. "According to the introduction materials of more than 100 institutions in British Study Guide from 1999 to 2000, all schools adopt the following structure: profile, facilities, accommodation and welfare, location, etc". (Chen Jing 2004, 69) Newmark suggested that translators use communicative translation method to translate informative texts.

When translating the vocative texts, translators should put readers and intelligibility first. Translators can use communicative translation method, aiming to make readers fully understand. For example, when translating some common slogans about taking care of the grass such as "请不要吻我，我怕羞", translators should translate it into "keep off the grass", rather than translate it into "please don't kiss me, I am bashful", which is hard to understand for foreigners. There is no need to stick to the expression of source texts for translators. The translation of vocative texts and communicative translation and Nida's functional equivalence theory have some similarities in this point. (Chen Jing 2004, 68-69)

Chapter 5 Translation Evaluation Criteria

The previous parts have in detail introduced Nida's and Newmark's theory. When it comes to Nida's functional equivalence theory and his translation evaluation criteria, readers' response will appear before eyes of people. People think of this response as the evaluation criteria. When readers of translations have the same feelings as the readers of the source texts, translations can be called good translations. There is an important point that should be stressed. The readers who give responses should be a people. The readers from a people will give a holistic feedback. (Cui Jianzhou, Lu Jing 2006, 106)

Considering that different readers have different understanding, and different interests, Nida also divided the target readers into four categories, which are child readers, primary education readers, ordinary adult readers and experts. He believed that several different translations should be prepared for the same original text to meet the needs of different levels of readers. (Cui Jianzhou, Lu Jing 2006, 106)

As the previous part mentioned, Newmark's requirements about good translations varied according to the types of texts. For expressive texts, the good translation from his point of view is that the translation is faithful to the original author and the language style of the translation is in accordance with that of the source texts. For informative texts, an excellent translation depends on whether the translation completely conveys all the content of the original text to the readers, and the content is true and right. For vocative texts, it is easy for the readers to understand the content of the translation of the vocative text, which is a terrific translation. (Cui Jianzhou, Lu Jing 2006, 106)

Conclusion

Given that the purpose of the translating Bible is to spread doctrine and prompt most ordinary people to understand it, Nida attached importance to target language and its readers and advocated the translation of the Bible with daily and simple words. But because of these requirements, Nida's translation theory cannot help but have some limitations in the translation of other texts. Newmark used text types to subdivide translation methods, which is more accurate than Nida's theory. This work is very complex and difficult to implement for the distinction of small text types in a whole text. Although their theories are flawed, it is undeniable that they had great influence on the translation world at that time and even now. Their theories challenge the past translation theories which are mainly about empiricism, introduce theories such as aesthetics, communication into the translation field, and provide their answers to the long-standing debate over literal translation and free translation.

References

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Cui Jianzhou, Lu Jing. 崔建周,卢静. (2006) 尤金·奈达和彼得·纽马克翻译思想比较. [Comparison of Translation Thoughts between Eugene Nida and Peter Newmark]. 河南商业高等专科学校学报[Journal of Henan Business College] 106-108.

Eugene A. Nida and C R.Taber. (1982). The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: Brill.

Jane Austen. (2009) Pride and Prejudice. New York: Dover Publications.

J D. Waard and E A. Nida. (1986) From One Language to Another: Functional Equivalence in Bible Translating. Nashville, Tenessee: Thomas Nelson Inc.

Lao Long. 劳陇. (1990). "殊途同归"——试论严复、奈达和纽马克翻译理论的一致性. ["Treading Different Paths that Lead to the Same Destination"——A Discussion On the Consistency of Yan Fu's, Nida's and Newmark's Translation Theories.]. 外国语(上海外国语学院学报)[Foreign Language (Journal of Shanghai Institute of Foreign Languages)] 52-54, 64.

Liang Ge, Xianlei, Ren Chaoying. 梁戈,先蕾,任朝迎. (2016). 奈达功能对等理论在中国的接受. [Acceptance of Nida's Functional Equivalence Theory in China Modern Chinese]. 现代语文(语言研究版)[Modern Chinese(Language Studies Edition)] 15-19.

Peter Newmark. (1988). A Textbook of Translation. Prentice Hall International Ltd.

Peter Newmark. (2001). Approaches To Translation. Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

Shao Lu. 邵璐. (2007). 误译•无意•故意—评关于奈达理论的若干争议. [Misinterpretation Unintention Intention-A Review of Some Controversies on Nida’s Theory]. 外语研究[Foreign Languages Research] 62-65.

Wang Lu. 王璐. (2012). 从奈达功能对等理论的角度看隐喻翻译. [Metaphorical Translation from Nida's Functional Equivalence Theory]. 常州大学学报(社会科学版)[Journal of Changzhou University (Social Sciences Edition)] 101-104.

Zhang Jingha. 张经浩. (2005). 谈谈对奈达的所知和理解. [A Discuss of the Knowledge and Understanding of Nida]. 外语与外语教学[Foreign Languages and Their Teaching] 59-63.

Chinese Translation Theories

A breif introduction to Xu Yuanchong's translation theories

杨逸 Yang Yi, Student No.202020080660 法语语言文学

Abstract

Xu Yuanchong has been engaged in literary translation for more than 60 years and has published more than 120 translations in Chinese, English and French at home and abroad, almost half of his works focus on the translation of ancient Chinese poems. He was honored as "the best one who translated poems from Chinese to English and French" and was presented with "Aurora Borealis" Outstanding Literary Translation Award. And he has put forward his own translation theories summarized as: "art of beautifulization and creation of the best as in rivalry", which can be mainly divided into four parts：Three-beauty Theory, Three-Transformation Theory, Three-Purpose Theory and Three-Resemblance Theory. So this paper, based principally on his poetry translations, will introduce briefly Xu Yuanchong's translation theories.

Key words

Xu Yuanchong; Three-beauty Theory; Three-Transformation Theory; Three-Purpose Theory; Three-Resemblance Theory

摘要

许渊冲从事文学翻译工作超过六十年，已经在国内外出版中、英、法文著作一百二十多部。这其中中国古代诗词几乎占到了一半。他被誉为“诗译英法唯一人”，曾获“北极光”杰出文学翻译奖，是首位获此殊荣亚洲翻译家。他提出了自己的翻译理论体系：“美化之艺术，创优似竞赛”，其中包含四个部分：三美论，三化论，三之论和三似论。因此本论文主要将结合他的诗歌译本来浅析他的翻译理论。

关键词

许渊冲；三美论；三化论；三之论；三似论

Introduction

For translation, Xu Yuanchong always insisted that theory comes from practice. So Xu formed his own translation theories by unceasing translation practices, he said: "Translation practice contributes to the formation of the translation theory, which in turn guides the translation practice and is tested by the translation practice." (Xu Yuanchong, 1998:3) He is a prolific and outstanding translator, because he has translated a great number of masterpieces and was honored as "the best one who translated poems from Chinese to English and French" and was presented with "Aurora Borealis" Outstanding Literary Translation Award.

But he is also a excellent theorist who has put forward his own translation theories summarized as: "art of beautifulization and creation of the best as in rivalry", which can be mainly divided into four parts：Three-beauty Theory, Three-Transformation Theory, Three-Purpose Theory and Three-Resemblance Theory. So this paper will be parted into five parts, based principally on his poetry translations, to introduce briefly Xu Yuanchong's translation theories. Firstly, we will give a short introduction of Xu Yuanchong; Then, Xu Yuanchong's four theories will be introduced respectively; Lastly, we will take a look at Chinese scholars' different comments on Xu Yuanchong's translation theories.(Sun Tingting, 2015:6)

A brief Introduction of Xu Yuanchong

Xu Yuanchong was born in 1921, in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. His mother, a well-educated woman who was very good at drawing pictures, influenced him a lot and made him highly sensitive to beauty. In 1938, at the age of 17, he was admitted to the Department of Foreign Language and Literature of Southwest Associated University where he received the best education both in foreign language and Chinese literature and philosophy. In 1944, Xu Yuanchong went to further his study at Literature Research Institute of Tsinghua University and had a profound study of western culture there. In 1948, Xu went to study abroad in Paris University, where he studied a mass of Chinese literary works both in French and English versions.

After returning to China, he taught English at Pecking Foreign Language Institute in 1951. Later, he went to teach English at Zhangjiakou Foreign Language Institute in 1960. Then, he moved to Luoyang Institute of Foreign Language. In 1983, he went back to Pecking University and retired in 1991. Before his retirement, he has published 20 works in Chinese, English and French, and after retirement he has published 40 translated works in Chinese, English and French, and put forward his translation theories of literature.

As to Xu Yuanchong's achievements, Xu Yuanchong's first translation work is Don't cast away（别丢掉） of Lin Huiyin. Since then, he started to devote all his life to literature translation and made a lot of contributions in this field, especially in translation of poetry. Xu Yuanchong has been devoted more than 60 years to translation studies and has ever translated Chinese classical poetry into both English and French.

For example, his Chinese books include The Art of Translation (翻译的艺术), Literature Translation Theories (文学翻译谈), Literature and Translation (文学与翻译), etc. His English books include On Chinese Verse in English Rhyme - from the book of Poetry to the Romance of the Western Brower (中诗英韵探胜——从《诗经》到《西厢记》), etc.

The Chinese-English translated works include the Book of Songs (诗经), 100 Tang and Song Ci Poems (唐诗宋词一百首), Selected Poems of Li Bai (李白诗选), Romance of the Western Brower (西厢记), 300 Tang Poems (唐诗三百首), etc. The English-Chinese translated works include Dryden's All for Love (一切为了爱情), Scott's Quentin Durward (昆廷·杜沃德), etc. And his Chinese-French works include 42 poemes de Mao Zedong (毛泽东的42首诗) and Cent Poemes Lyriques des Tang et des Song (唐诗宋词一百首), etc.He also had translated many masterworks from French to Chinese, such as Maupassant's Sur L'Eau (水上), Flaubert's Madame Bovary (包法利夫人) and Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir (红与黑), etc.

Xu Yuanchong is also an excellent translation theorist. During the 60 years' translation career, Xu has has formed his own translation theories by practicing, he once said: "Translation practice contributes to the formation of the translation theory, which in turn guides the translation practice and is tested by the translation practice." (Xu Yuanchong, 1998:3) Just like Xu Jun said: "Translation practice provides practical, abundant and vivid materials for the theoretical study, which derives inspiration and motivation from the translation practice and experience." (Xu Jun, 2010:270).

As an initiative translation theorist, his translation theories can be generally concluded as: "Art of beautifulization and creation of the best as in rivalry" (美化之艺术，创优似竞赛), including "Three-beauty Theory" (beauty in sense, beauty in sound and beauty in form), "Three-Transformation Theory" (generalization, equalization and particularization)，"Three-Purpose Theory" (comprehension, appreciation and admiration),"Three-Resemblance Theory" (resemblance in sense, resemblance in sound and resemblance in form), "Neo-Three-Resemblance Theory" (resemblance in form, resemblance in meaning and resemblance in spirit), "Theory of Rivalry", etc.(Sun Tingting, 2015: 6)

As an initiative translation theorist, his translation theories can be generally concluded as: "Art of beautifulization and creation of the best as in rivalry" (美化之艺术，创优似竞赛), including "Three-beauties Theory" (beauty in sense, beauty in sound and beauty in form), "Three-Transformations Theory" (generalization, equalization and particularization)，"Three-Purposes Theory" (comprehension, appreciation and admiration),"Three-Resemblances Theory" (resemblance in sense, resemblance in sound and resemblance in form), "Theory of Rivalry", etc.(Sun Tingting, 2015: 6)--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Having such a rich and interesting experience, having translated so many masterpieces and putting forward these brilliant translation theories, Xu Yuanchong deserves our respect. So we will introduce briefly his core translation theories in the following paragraphs.

Having such rich and interesting experience, having translated so many masterpieces and putting forward these brilliant translation theories, Xu Yuanchong deserves our respects. So we will introduce briefly his core translation theories in the following paragraphs.--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Three-beauty Theory

The "Three-Beauty Theory", put forward by Xu Yuanchong in 1979, based on his own translation experience of ancient Chinese poems, is the most representative theory among his translation theories system and an very important theory in the field of poetry translation. Also, Xu Yuanchong cited the contents of the first article from Characters to Articles (自文字至文章) in Lu Xun's Compendium of The History of Han Literature (汉文学史纲要): "There are three beauties in it: Firstly, beauty in sense satisfies the heart; secondly, beauty in sound satisfies the ears; lastly, beauty in form satisfies the eyes."(Lu Xun, 1976)

The "Three-Beauties Theory", put forward by Xu Yuanchong in 1979, based on his own translation experience of ancient Chinese poems, is the most representative theory among his translation theories system and a very important theory in the field of poetry translation. Also, Xu Yuanchong cited the contents of the first article from Characters to Articles (自文字至文章) in Lu Xun's Compendium of The History of Han Literature (汉文学史纲要): "There are three beauties in it: Firstly, beauty in sense satisfies the heart; secondly, beauty in sound satisfies the ears; lastly, beauty in form satisfies the eyes."(Lu Xun, 1976)--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

In Xu Yuanchong's opinion, translation is the reproduction and creation of beauty, and the translation of poetry should be beautiful in sense, sound and form, the beauty in sense is the most important, followed by the beauty in sound and the beauty in form at last. And a good translator should convey the beauty of the sense of the original text as much as possible, and strive to gather these three beauties at the same time.(Xu Yuanchong, 2015)

In Xu Yuanchong's opinion, translation is the reproduction and creation of beauty, and translation of poetry should be beautiful in sense, sound and form, the beauty in sense is the most important, followed by the beauty in sound and the beauty in form at last. And a good translator should convey the beauty of the sense of the original text as much as possible, and strive to gather these three beauties at the same time.(Xu Yuanchong, 2015)--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Firstly, "Beauty in sense" is the beauty of artistic conception and the a kind of beauty of vagueness. It means that the translated versions should fully convey the ideas and emotions of the source works and that the translated works could move readers' heart as the original works, which is of primary importance among the three principles. Translators should try to keep these three beauties in harmony, if not, the sense should be given priority.

Firstly, "Beauty in sense" is the beauty of artistic conception and a kind of beauty of vagueness. It means that translated versions should fully convey the ideas and emotions of the source works and that the translated works could touch readers' heart the same as the original works, which is of primary importance among the three principles. Translators should try to keep these three beauties in harmony, if not, the sense should be given priority.--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

"Beauty in sense" can be sometimes produced by using some famous sentences or words of target language similar to the original text's meaning with the help of the beauty in sound in form. For example, When translating “西风烈” and “残阳如雪” in Mount Louguan of Mao Zedong from Chinese to English, we can borrow the words of the famous English poems: "wild west wind" in Ode to the West Wind and "the sunken sun" in To a Skylark, so as to convey the original sentences' "Beauty in sense" and make the translated text attain "Beauty in sense" at the same time.

Secondly, "Beauty in sound" ask translators to represent the beautiful sound of the original text, which includes meter，rhythm，alliteration and assonance, etc. Xu believed that, "beauty in sound in poetry lies in its rhythm, rhyme, smooth writing and melodious sound."(Xu Yuanchong, 2006:127) Because we can not eliminate differences among languages and cultures, it is almost impossible to make the two languages perfectly equivalent. Therefore, some people insist that we should translate the poetry into free verse regardless rhythm and rhyme of the original text, while others think that if free verse is used, it won't be called poetry any more. Xu said that "When translating Tang Poems,I would rather prefer to integrate the traditional practice of rhymed verse school as Giles, rather than the free verse school like Waley..." (Xu Yuanchong.2006:122)

Secondly, "Beauty in sound" asks translators to retain the beautiful sound of the original text, which includes meter，rhythm，alliteration and assonance, etc. Xu believes that, "beauty in sound in poetry lies in its rhythm, rhyme, smooth writing and melodious sound." Because we can not eliminate differences among languages and cultures, it is almost impossible to make the two languages perfectly equivalent. Therefore, some people insist that we should translate the poetry into free verse regardless rhythm and rhyme of the original text, while others think that if free verse is used, it won't be called poetry any more. Xu said that "When translating Tang Poems,I would rather prefer to integrate the traditional practice of rhymed verse school as Giles, rather than the free verse school like Waley..." (Xu Yuanchong, 2006:127; Xu Yuanchong.2006:122) --Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Xu Yuanchong suggested: "Chinese poetry mainly consists of seven words and five words. When translating Chinese seven-character poems, translators could consider the Alexandrine, and when translating five-character poems, the Mock-heroic could be considered. And when translating poems from Chinese to English, translators can use the rhymes used by British and American poets who are similar to the original sound, to convey original poem's "Beauty in sound" by means of double sound, overlap and repetition.(Baidu library 2011: 6-8)

Lastly, "Beauty in form" requires that the translated works should be consistent with the original text, which includes the layout of lines, line length, antithesis and parallelism, etc. Xu holds that if the translated version fails to be rhymed and antithesis, it will not retain the style and sentiment of the original poem, so the beauty in sound and in form will affect the beauty in sense. (Xu Yuanchong，2006: 130) On the other hand, beauty in form could also make contributions to the beauty in sense and sound to make the translated work more readable and beautiful. Therefore, it is necessary to be consistent with the original form.(Sun Tingting, 2015:26)

Lastly, "Beauty in form" requires that the translated works should be consistent with the original text, which includes the layout of lines, line length, antithesis and parallelism, etc. Xu holds that if a translated version fails to be rhymed and antithesis, it will not retain the style and sentiment of the original poem, so the beauty in sound and in form will affect the beauty in sense. (Xu Yuanchong，2006: 130) On the other hand, beauty in form could also make contributions to the beauty in sense and sound to make the translated work more readable and beautiful. Therefore, it is necessary to be consistent with the original form.(Sun Tingting, 2015:26)--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

For example, we can translate "多少事,从来急;天地转,光阴迫。" to "So many deeds, Bear no delay. Sun and earth turn, Time flies away.", these two sentence have the same words, the same line length and the same meaning.

Three-Resemblance Theory

"Three-Resemblance" is the basis of "Three Beauty". Because "Resemblance" is the necessary condition and the minimum requirements of translation, but "Beauty" is the highest requirement of translation. So Xu Yuanchong also proposed "Three-Resemblance Theory" : Resemblance in sense, Resemblance in form and Resemblance in sound. Generally speaking, "Three-Beauty" and "Three-Resemblance" should be consistent, but in fact, there are often contradictions between them.In order to convey "Beauty in sense, sound and form"of the original poem, the degree of "Resemblance in sense, sound and form" in the translation can be modified.(Peng Shuyu; Li Chengjing, 2020:1)

"Three-Resemblances Theory" is the basis of "Three Beauty". Because "Resemblance" is the necessary condition and the minimum requirements of translation, but "Beauty" is the highest requirement of translation. So Xu Yuanchong also proposed "Three-Resemblance Theory" : Resemblance in sense, Resemblance in form and Resemblance in sound. Generally speaking, "Three-Beauty" and "Three-Resemblance" should be consistent, but in fact, there are often contradictions between them.In order to convey "Beauty in sense, sound and form"of the original poem, the degree of "Resemblance in sense, sound and form" in the translation can be modified.(Peng Shuyu; Li Chengjing, 2020:1)--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

"Resemblance in sense" means that the translated version and the original one are similar in content. "Resemblance in form" generally refers to the literal or formal similarity between the translated work and the original work. And "Resemblance in sound" refers to the similarity between the translated text and the original text in rhythm, rhyme, metrical style, etc.(Peng Shuyu; Li Chengjing, 2020:156)

"Resemblance in sense" means that the translated version and the original one are similar in content. "Resemblance in form" generally refers to the literal or formal similarity between a translated work and the original work. And "Resemblance in sound" refers to the similarity between a translated text and the original text in rhythm, rhyme, metrical style, etc.(Peng Shuyu; Li Chengjing, 2020:156)--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Firstly,"Resemblance in sense means conveying the content of the original text, without mistranslation, omission or over-translation."(Xu Yuanchong,1984:52) "Resemblance in sense" is the most important, followed by "Resemblance in form" and "Resemblance in sound". If we can't attain these three resemblances at the same time, then take "Resemblance in sense" and give up the other two. Also,"When the Resemblance in sense and Resemblance are incompatible, we should give priority to Beauty in sense instead of Resemblance in sense. And Resemblance in sense just concerns the surface structure, but Beauty in sense touches the deep structure."(Xu Yuanchong,1984:64)

Firstly,"Resemblance in sense means conveying the content of the original text without mistranslation, omission or over-translation."(Xu Yuanchong,1984:52) "Resemblance in sense" is the most important rule, followed by "Resemblance in form" and "Resemblance in sound". If we can't attain these three resemblances at the same time, then take "Resemblance in sense" and give up the other two. Also,"When the Resemblance in sense and Resemblance are incompatible, we should give priority to Beauty in sense instead of Resemblance in sense. And Resemblance in sense just concerns the surface structure, but Beauty in sense touches the deep structure."(Xu Yuanchong,1984:64)--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Secondly,"Resemblance in form" generally refers to the literal or formal similarity between the translated work and the original work. In Xu Yuanchong's opinion, poetry translation must transmit the rhyme and metre of original poems."If the rhymes of the original poem are not used in the translated work, then there is no way to reproduce the image, poetic imagery, artistic conception and atmosphere of the original poem. Because the content and the form of the poem are inseparable."(Xu Yuanchong,1984:94) But it’s very difficult to achieve "Resemblance in form" because of differences languages. So "it is best to be resembled in form, or at least roughly tidy." (Xu Yuanchong, 1984:58)

Secondly,"Resemblance in form" generally refers to the literal or formal similarity between a translated work and the original work. In Xu Yuanchong's opinion, poetry translation must transmit the rhyme and metre of original poems."If the rhymes of the original poem are not used in the translated work, then there is no way to reproduce the image, poetic imagery, artistic conception and atmosphere of the original poem. Because the content and the form of the poem are inseparable."(Xu Yuanchong,1984:94) But it’s very difficult to achieve "Resemblance in form" because of differences in languages. So "it is best to be resembled in form, or at least roughly tidy." (Xu Yuanchong, 1984:58)--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Lastly,"Resemblance in sound" refers to the similarity between the translated text and the original text in rhythm, rhyme, metrical style."There are generally two method to attain Resemblance in sound: one is that we make the translated poem rhymes with the first, second, and fourth lines just like the original poem which rhymes with the first, second, and fourth lines; the other is that the sound of the words used in the translated poem should be similar to the sound of the words used in the original poem."(Baidu library 2020: 3)

Lastly,"Resemblance in sound" refers to the similarity between the translated text and the original text in rhythm, rhyme, metrical style."There are generally two methods to attain Resemblance in sound: one is that we make the translated poem rhymes with the first, second, and fourth lines just like the original poem which rhymes with the first, second, and fourth lines; the other is that the sound of the words used in the translated poem should be similar to the sound of the words used in the original poem."(Baidu library 2020: 3)--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

But later, Xu Yuanchong has proposed a "Neo-Three-Resemblance Theory": "Resemblance in form", "Resemblance in meaning" and "Resemblance in spirit"."Three resemblances means that the translated version should be similar to the original masterpiece in spirit, which is developed from Fu Lei's theory‘similarity in spirit'. It is the minor level of Three-Beauty, and it aims at the similarity between the two languages." (Sun Tingting, 2015: 23)

But later, Xu Yuanchong proposed a "Neo-Three-Resemblances Theory": "Resemblance in form", "Resemblance in meaning" and "Resemblance in spirit"."Three resemblances means that a translated version should be similar to the original masterpiece in spirit, which is developed from Fu Lei's theory‘similarity in spirit'. It is the minor level of Three-Beauties, and it aims at the similarity between two languages." (Sun Tingting, 2015: 23)--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Xu employed the math equation to express the "Three Resemblance" as follows:

Xu employed the math equations to express the "Three Resemblances" as follows:--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Resemblance in form: 1+1<2

Resemblance in meaning: 1+1=2

Resemblance in spirit: 1+1>2 (Xu Yuanchong, 2005:222)

Therefore,"Resemblance in spirit" is the highest level and the other two is the foundation of it. If the translated work respect only the form of the original but doesn’t convey the content of the original text, it just attain "Resemblance in form". If the translated text accurately conveys the meaning of the original text, but doesn't convey the spirit and flavor of the original text, it attain only "Resemblance in meaning". (Lv Xianlan, 2010:26)

Therefore,"Resemblance in spirit" is the highest level and the other two are the foundation of it. If the translated work respects only the form of the original but doesn’t convey the content of the original text, it just attain "Resemblance in form". If the translated text accurately conveys the meaning of the original text, but doesn't convey the spirit and flavor of the original text, it attains only "Resemblance in meaning". (Lu Xianlan, 2010:26)--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Three-Transformation Theory

"Three-Transformation Theory" is a further translation theory summarized by Xu Yuanchong based on his "Three-Beauty Theory" and "Three-Transformation Theory" provides the way to achieve three beauties. What means transformation (in China Hua-化)? Qian Zhongshu said: "The top state of translation is the state of Hua. To attain the‘state of Hua' means that translators can preserve the original's flavor and show no trace of stiffness caused by the differences between the source language and the target language at the same time."(Qian Zhongshu, 2002:77) Xu Yuanchong adopted Qian Zhongshu's idea, and proposed his own "Three-Transformation Theory" which includes "equalization, generalization and particularization".

"Three-Transformations Theory" is a further translation theory summarized by Xu Yuanchong based on his "Three-Beauties Theory" and "Three-Transformations Theory" provides the way to achieve three beauties. What means transformation (in China Hua-化)? Qian Zhongshu said: "The top state of translation is the state of Hua. To attain the‘state of Hua' means that translators can preserve the original's flavor and show no trace of stiffness caused by the differences between the source language and the target language at the same time."(Qian Zhongshu, 2002:77) Xu Yuanchong adopted Qian Zhongshu's idea, and proposed his own "Three-Transformations Theory" which includes "equalization, generalization and particularization". --Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Firstly, for equalization, Xu hold that translators should use equal words and expressions in the target language. But equalization doesn't consist in translating word for word, but it requires creation. Equalization refers to the adjustment of some sentence patterns and lexical structures when the meaning and artistic conception of the translated works are basically equivalent to the original text, so as to make the stylistic style of the translated text more natural and unified, and make it more fluent in reading.(Yao Ying; Fu Mingduan,2019(20):204-206)

Firstly, for equalization, Xu holds that translators should use equal words and expressions in the target language. But equalization doesn't consist in translating word for word, but it requires creation. Equalization refers to the adjustment of some sentence patterns and lexical structures when the meaning and artistic conception of the translated works are basically equivalent to the original text, so as to make the stylistic style of the translated text more natural and unified, and make it more fluent in reading.(Yao Ying; Fu Mingduan,2019(20):204-206) --Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Secondly, generalization refers to the abstraction of some concrete nouns, generalization of special nouns or proper nouns, or the deletion of some redundant words during translation, in order to convey the beauty in sense of the original text. Generalization required translators avoid the weakness in the original language by using the methods of abstraction, omission and combination.(Yao Ying; Fu Mingduan,2019(20):204-206)

Secondly, generalization refers to the abstraction of some concrete nouns, generalization of special nouns or proper nouns, or the deletion of some redundant words during translation, in order to convey the beauty in sense of the original text. Generalization requires translators avoid the weakness in the original language by using the methods of abstraction, omission and combination.(Yao Ying; Fu Mingduan,2019(20):204-206)--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Lastly, particularization, opposed to generalization, is the concretization of abstract nouns and the specialization of general nouns. When necessary, allusions and special imageries can be used to arouse readers' deeper emotional resonance. It means that not only the content of the poem but also the deep meaning should be conveyed by means of addition, specialization and concretization.(Yao Ying; Fu Mingduan,2019(20):204-206)

Lastly, particularization, opposed to generalization, is the concretization of abstract nouns and the specialization of general nouns. When necessary, allusions and special imageries can be used to arouse readers' deeper emotional resonances. It means that not only the content of the poem but also the deep meanings should be conveyed by means of addition, specialization and concretization.(Yao Ying; Fu Mingduan,2019(20):204-206) --Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

For example, proper nouns "秦汉"（qin and han dynasties) can be generalized to the common noun "ancient times". Common noun "关" (frontier juncture) can be particularized to a proper noun "the Great Wall". And, "人" (people) in the verse "万里长征人未还" (the long march people did not return) can be equalized to "guards" or "soldiers". (Baidu library 2011: 10)

Therefore,by using "Three-Transformation Theory", we should try to fully convey the original masterpiece, and make the reader not only understand the version but also en joy and delight in it.

Therefore,by using "Three-Transformation Theory", we should try to fully convey original masterpieces, and make readers not only understand the version but also enjoy the delight in it.--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Three-Purpose Theory

"Three-Purpose Theory" is the teleology of Xu's translation theories, which "originated from the Analects of Confucius. It includes comprehension, appreciation and admiration. Therefore, Xu believed that a good translated version should make the reader understand it first, then enjoy it and the highest level is to delight in it. So the aim of the translators is not just to convey the meaning of the works but to bring readers enjoyment and delight in the process of reading."(Sun Tingting, 2015: 22)

"Three-Purposes Theory" is the teleology of Xu's translation theories, which "originated from the Analects of Confucius. It includes comprehension, appreciation and admiration. Therefore, Xu believed that a good translated version should make the reader understand it first, then enjoy it and the highest level is to delight in it. So the aim of translators is not just to convey the meaning of the works but to bring readers enjoyment and delight in the process of reading."(Sun Tingting, 2015: 22) --Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

So to make the reader understand the text, translators need to express the meaning of the original text accurately, to make the reader enjoy it, translators need to convey emotion adequately, and to make people delight in it, translators need to move them, this is the trilogy of literary translation skopos theory. And for achieving these three purposes, we have to review "Three-Beauty Theory", "Three-Resemblance Theory" and "Three-Transformation Theory" that we have already talked about in the previous paragraphs.

So to make a reader understand a text, translators need to express the meaning of the original text accurately, to make the reader enjoy it, translators need to convey emotion adequately, and to make people delighted in it, translators need to move them, this is the trilogy of literary translation skopos theory. And for achieving these three purposes, we have to review "Three-Beauties Theory", "Three-Resemblances Theory" and "Three-Transformations Theory" that we have already talked about in the previous paragraphs.--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Different comments on Xu Yuanchong’s translation theories

Xu formed his own translation theories based on the predecessors' ideas and the his unceasing practices."Some regard his theories as the highest standards of translation and support it greatly, while others think his theories are impossible and doubt it."((Sun Tingting, 2015: 26) His theories aroused people's different reactions. His "Three-Beauty Theory" is the most famous one among all his translation theories in China, and we can see a lot of articles or theses use his "Three-Beauty Theory" to analyse the translated works on CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure). So What Chinese scholars discuss most is his "Three-Beauty Theory", followed by his "Three-Transformation Theory", "Three-Purpose Theory" and "Three-Resemblance Theory". And we will take a look at Chinese scholars' different comments on his translation theories from two sides.

Xu formed his own translation theories based on the predecessors' ideas and the his unceasing practices."Some regard his theories as the highest standard of translation and support it greatly, while others think his theories are impossible and doubt it."His theories aroused people's different reactions. His "Three-Beauties Theory" is the most famous one among all his translation theories in China, and we can see a lot of articles or theses use his "Three-Beauties Theory" to analyse the translated works on CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure). So what Chinese scholars discuss most is his "Three-Beauties Theory", followed by his "Three-Transformations Theory", "Three-Purposes Theory" and "Three-Resemblances Theory". And we will take a look at Chinese scholars' different comments on his translation theories from two sides.(Sun Tingting, 2015: 26)--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

On the one side, many Chinese scholars gave a lot of compliments to his translations theories. For example, Liu Chongde, a famous expert on translation, said in his Ten Lectures on Literary Translation: "Poems call for the beauty in form, sound and sense. A translator should not be satisfied with the mere reproduction of sense in the original, but strive for the reproduction of the original beauty .To achieve this, he ought to retain the original meaning and artistic conception, and then do his best to make his translation bear a certain form, rhyme and rime when necessary." (LiuChongde, 2003:129-130) Therefore Liu agrees with Xu's "Three-Beauty Theory" and his viewpoint to reproduce the beauty of the original poems.

On the one hand, many Chinese scholars gave a lot of compliments to his translations theories. For example, Liu Chongde, a famous expert on translation, said in his Ten Lectures on Literary Translation: "Poems call for the beauty in form, sound and sense. A translator should not be satisfied with the mere reproduction of sense in the original, but strive for the reproduction of the original beauty .To achieve this, he ought to retain the original meaning and artistic conception, and then do his best to make his translation bear a certain form, rhyme and rime when necessary." Therefore Liu agrees with Xu's "Three-Beauties Theory" and his viewpoints to reproduce the beauty of the original poems. (LiuChongde, 2003:129-130)--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Also, Professor Guo Zhuzhang, thinks highly of Xu's "Three-Beauty Theory" in his On Famous Translators:"Xu Yuanchong's renditions of poetry combined beauty in sense, sound and form into a whole. He applied perfectly his own Three-Beauty principle into his practice in poetry translation. His highly skilled translation techniques are worth learning and taking as a reference." (Guo Zhuzhang,1999:12) And Some other scholars including Qian Zhongshu，Yang Zhenning, Zheng Hailing, etc, all of them gave Xu Yuanchong highly praises, and regard his theories as the supreme goal of translation.(Sun Tingting, 20:37)

Also, Professor Guo Zhuzhang, thinks highly of Xu's "Three-Beauties Theory" in his On Famous Translators:"Xu Yuanchong's renditions of poetry combined beauty in sense, sound and form into a whole. He applys perfectly his own Three-Beauties principle into his practice in poetry translation. His highly skilled translation techniques are worth learning and taking as a reference." And Some other scholars including Qian Zhongshu，Yang Zhenning, Zheng Hailing, etc, all of them gave Xu Yuanchong highly praises, and regard his theories as the supreme goal of translation.(Guo Zhuzhang,1999:12; Sun Tingting, 20:37)--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

On the other side, there are still many scholars who disagree with Xu Yuanchong's translation theories. For example, Liu Yingkai attacked his theories greatly. Liu put raised two questions to doubt Xu's theories in his A Second Discussion on the Theory of Beauty in Sound : "Isn't verse to be regarded as verse if it is without rhyme?" and "Are there more advantages or disadvantages to translate verse in rhyme." (Liu Yingkai,1989:36) He believed that it is impossible to use rhyme without sacrificing sense for sound.

On the other hand, there are still many scholars who disagree with Xu Yuanchong's translation theories. For example, Liu Yingkai attacked his theories greatly. Liu raised two questions to doubt Xu's theories in his A Second Discussion on the Theory of Beauty in Sound : "Isn't verse to be regarded as verse if it is without rhyme?" and "Are there more advantages or disadvantages to translate verse in rhyme." He believes that it is impossible to use rhyme without sacrificing sense for sound.(Liu Yingkai,1989:36)--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Then, in Xu Jun's article The transformation or Mistake -- Thoughts on Xu Yuanchong's translation of "le Rouge et le Noir" , he pointed out that: "Xu Yuanchong's translation has its own style. He believed that as long as the translated works can make people understand it well, enjoy it and delight in it, we don’t have any scruple about the original text."(Xu Jun 1996A :44) and "It exists often only a step from truth to falsehood."(Xu Jun 1996:47).

Then, in Xu Jun's article The transformation or Mistake -- Thoughts on Xu Yuanchong's translation of "le Rouge et le Noir" , he points out that: "Xu Yuanchong's translation has its own style. He believes that as long as the translated works can make people understand it well, enjoy it and delight in it, we don’t have any scruple about the original text."(Xu Jun 1996A :44) and "It exists often only a step from truth to falsehood."(Xu Jun 1996:47).--Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

In addition, Xu Jun also proposed that Xu Yuanchong's "transformation method" had no definite meaning and was not easy to master. It seems that "Three-Transformation Theory" can't be used by those who are novices of translation or who attach great importance to "micro-details" and couldn't get rid of the shackles of the original text. (Zhu Yishu,2019,27(04):71-75.) So Xu Jun doesn's think that it's very hard to apply to practice Xu Yuanchong's "Three Transformation Theory" which can't be generally used by all of the translators and this theory may distort the original text because of it's vagueness.

In addition, Xu Jun also proposed that Xu Yuanchong's "transformation method" had no definite meaning and was not easy to master. It seems that "Three-Transformation Theory" can't be used by those who are novices of translation or who attach great importance to "micro-details" and couldn't get rid of the shackles of the original text. So Xu Jun doesn's think that it's very hard to apply to practice Xu Yuanchong's "Three Transformations Theory" which can't be generally used by all of the translators and this theory may distort the original text because of it's vagueness.(Zhu Yishu,2019,27(04):71-75.) --Xu Pengfei (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Conclusion

Xu Yuanchong has created and translated numerous masterpieces and has won a lot of honors and awards. Xu, based on his own translation practice and experience, has also put forward many outstanding theories. His "Three-Beauty theory" and "Three-Resemblance Theory" offer us translation methods and increase our ability of appreciating the translated works. Then his "Three-Transformation Theory" provides us with the way to achieve three beauties that he proposed. And his "Three-Purpose Theory" show us what translation pursues, and let us more understand the previous three theories. His translation theories are unique with rich and profound connotation, concerning all aspects of literary translation, and forming a systematic framework of theory to guide translating activity.

Xu Yuanchong has created and translated numerous masterpieces and has won a lot of honors and awards. Xu, based on his own translation practices and experiences, has also put forward many outstanding theories. His "Three-Beauties theory" and "Three-Resemblances Theory" offer us translation methods and increase our abilities of appreciating the translated works. Then his "Three-Transformations Theory" provides us with the way to achieve three beauties that he proposed. And his "Three-Purposes Theory" show us what translation pursues, and let us more understand the previous three theories. His translation theories are unique with rich and profound connotations, concerning all aspects of literary translation, and forming a systematic framework of theory to guide translating activity.--Xu Pengfei (talk) 06:59, 19 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

He was praised by many Chinese expert scholars, but also has been refuted by some translators. But in any case, he has really made a great contributions to Chinese Translation Theory System. And besides what we have already presented in this paper, there are lot of other theories, like "Theory of rivalry", "Theory of advantage", "Theory of art", "Theory of recreation of beauty", etc. As he said, translation theory comes from practice, so his translation theories are always various and keep pace with the times.

He was not only praised by many Chinese scholars, but also has been refuted by some translators. But in any case, he has really made a great contribution to Chinese Translation Theory System. And besides what we have already presented in this paper, there are lots of other theories, like "Theory of rivalry", "Theory of advantage", "Theory of art", "Theory of recreation of beauty", etc. As he said, translation theory comes from practice, so his translation theories are always various and keep pace with the times.--Xu Pengfei (talk) 06:59, 19 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

References

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Ji Xianlin’s view on translation 马淑雅 Ma Shuya

摘要

季羡林先生是中国著名的文学翻译大家，学贯中西的东方学者。虽然季羡林并没有深入研究过翻译学理论知识，但是在其长期又丰富的翻译实践中逐渐形成很多具有重要意义的翻译观点。季先生严格遵守“信达雅”的翻译原则，主张直译，反对转译，这些始终贯穿于他的翻译生涯。就翻译思想而言，季羡林主张翻译是为促进中外文化交流而服务的。

关键词

季羡林；信达雅；直译；传译；文化交流

Abstract

As a translator, Ji Xianliin is highly reputed in the translation domain. He creates numerous of translation works of immortality, although without any systematic translation theories. The present study explores Ji Xianlin’s translation thoughts which includes the criteria of translation and the purpose of translation. “faithfulness”, ”expressiveness” and “elegance”.

As a translator, Ji Xianliin is highly reputed in the translation domain. He creates numerous immortal translation works, although without any systematic translation theories. The present study explores Ji Xianlin’s translation thoughts which includes the criteria of translation and the purpose of translation. “faithfulness”, ”expressiveness” and “elegance”.--Meng Ying (talk) 14:25, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

Key Words

Ji Xianlin; translation thoughts; faithfulness; expressiveness; elegance; literal translation

Introduction

Mr. Ji Xianlin is a well-known linguist, oriental scholar and literary translator in China. He is fluent in twelve languages, including modern foreign languages such as English, German, French, Russian, Latin, and Arabic, as well as Sanskrit, Pali, Tocharian and many other ancient Eastern languages.

Mr. Ji Xianlin is a well-known linguist, oriental scholar and literary translator in China. He speaks fluently twelve languages, including modern foreign languages such as English, German, French, Russian, Latin, and Arabic, as well as Sanskrit, Pali, Tocharian and many other ancient Eastern languages.--Meng Ying (talk) 14:25, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying --Meng Ying (talk) 14:25, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

He is committed to cultural exchanges between China and India, and has made outstanding achievements in many academic research fields such as the history of Sino-Indian Buddhism, the history of Sino-Indian cultural exchanges, comparative literature, literary theory, Eastern culture, Dunhuang studies, and sugar history.

He is committed to cultural exchanges between China and India, and has made outstanding achievements in many academic research fields such as the history of Sino-Indian Buddhism, the history of Sino-Indian cultural exchanges, comparative literature, literary theory, Eastern culture, Dunhuang studies, and sugar history.(note the citation please)--Meng Ying (talk) 14:25, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

As an outstanding literary translator, his main works include Indian poet Klidsa’s "Shakuntala" (1956) and “Vikraorvasiya”(1962) , Indian classical masterpiece "Panchtantra" (1959), the Indian epic “Ramayana” (1980-1984), and the “Anna Segher Short Story Collection” by the German female writer Anna Segher, etc.

As an outstanding literary translator, his translation works include Indian poet Klidsa’s "Shakuntala" (1956) and “Vikraorvasiya”(1962), Indian classical masterpiece "Panchtantra" (1959), the Indian epic “Ramayana” (1980-1984), and the “Anna Segher Short Story Collection” by the German female writer Anna Segher, etc.(note the citation please)--Meng Ying (talk) 14:25, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

Especially as one of the two major epics in India "Ramayana", Mr. Ji Xianlin, who is over 60 years old, spent ten years on translating it. The original text of Ramayana is more than 20,000 slokas and more than 3 million words after being translated into Chinese. Its translation is of great significance in the history of Sino-Indian cultural exchanges.

Especially for one of the two major epics in India "Ramayana", Mr. Ji Xianlin, who is over 60 years old, spent ten years on translating it. The original text of Ramayana is more than 20,000 slokas. The target text that is translated by him is composed of more than 3 million characters. Its translation is of great significance in the history of Sino-Indian cultural communication. --Meng Ying (talk) 14:25, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

Mr. Ji Xianlin has accumulated a lot of translation experience through long-term translation practice, summed up many translation viewpoints and thoughts, enriched traditional Chinese translation theory, and has important theoretical value and practical significance. And this paper is mainly introduced his translation theory, especially his agreement and development with Yan Fu’s translation criteria “faithfulness”, ”expressiveness” and “elegance”.

Mr. Ji Xianlin has accumulated a lot of translation experience through long-term translation practice, summed up many translation ideas and thoughts, enriched traditional Chinese translation theory, and has important theoretical value and practical significance. And this paper is mainly introduced his translation theory, especially his agreement and development with Yan Fu’s translation criteria “faithfulness”, ”expressiveness” and “elegance”.--Meng Ying (talk) 14:25, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

The Translation Goal: Culture Communication

Mr. Ji Xianlin once wrote, “As long as the language is different, whether it is in one nation or ethnic group (China includes many ethnic groups.), or between many nations or ethnic groups, translation is necessary. Otherwise, thoughts cannot be communicated, and culture is difficult to communicate, it is also difficult for human society to move forward.” (Ji Xianlin 2007,8)

Mr. Ji Xianlin once wrote, “As long as the language is different, whether it is in one nation or ethnic group (China has many ethnic groups.), or between many nations or ethnic groups, translation is necessary. Otherwise, thoughts cannot be communicated, and culture is difficult to communicate, then it is also difficult for human society to move forward.” (Ji Xianlin, 2007,8)--Meng Ying (talk) 15:30, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

Based on this, we can infer that Mr. Ji thinks that translation activities exist to meet the needs of ideological and cultural exchanges between nations and ethnic groups of different languages.

Based on this, we can infer that Mr. Ji thinks that translation activities'purpose is to meet the needs of ideological and cultural exchanges between nations and ethnic groups of different languages. --Meng Ying (talk) 15:30, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

"Cultural exchange is one of the main driving forces to promote the progress of human society. We can even say that without cultural exchange, human beings would not have progressed, and there would be no such a prosperous society in the world today."(Ji Xianlin 2007,151)

"Cultural exchange is one of the main driving forces to improve human society. We can even say that without cultural exchange, human beings would not have progressed, and there would be no such a prosperous society in the world today."(Ji Xianlin 2007,151)--Meng Ying (talk) 15:30, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

It is said that culture exchanges id of great importance to human society progress. Without the exchanges and collisions between different cultures, the entire human society will be difficult to advance, and the exchanges between different nations and countries will be restricted due to differences in languages. This requires translation activities to communicate and understand.

It is said that culture exchanges is of great importance to human society progress. Without the exchanges and collisions between different cultures, the entire human society will be difficult to develop, and the exchanges between different nations and countries will be restricted due to differences in languages. This requires translation activities to communicate and understand mutually.--Meng Ying (talk) 15:30, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

All cultures in the world have stagnant times, but Chinese civilization has never stopped despite some twists and turns. A large part of the reason is the benefits brought by cultural exchanges.

All cultures in the world have stagnant times, but Chinese civilization has never stopped despite some twists and turns. the main reason is the benefits brought by cultural exchanges. --Meng Ying (talk) 15:30, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

"If you compare it with a river, the long river of Chinese culture has times when water is full or not, but it has never been dried up. The reason is that there is new water inflowing for many times. There are two biggest ones, one is water from India, and the other is water from the West. And these two times culture inflow rely on translation. The reason why Chinese culture can keep energetic is translation. Translation is so useful!"(Ji Xianlin 2007,10)

"If you compare it with a river, the long river of Chinese culture has periods when water is full or not, but it has never been dried up. The reason is that there is new water infusing for many times. There are two biggest ones, one is water from India, and the other is water from the West. And these two times culture inflow rely on translation. The reason why Chinese culture can keep energetic is translation. Translation is so useful!"(Ji Xianlin 2007,10)--Meng Ying (talk) 15:30, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

The reason why Chinese civilization did not die out like other ancient civilizations in the world is precisely because there is a steady flow of water inflowing, and each time is completed through translation.

The reason why Chinese civilization did not die out like other ancient civilizations in the world is precisely because there is a steady flow of water inflowing, and is completed through translation each time.--Meng Ying (talk) 15:30, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

“The Water from India" mentioned by Mr. Ji mainly refers to the introduction of Buddhism from India to China. The spread of Buddhist scriptures in China has had a huge and far-reaching impact on Chinese language, culture, literature, art, and religion. And one very important step in this process is the translation of Buddhist scriptures and related classics.

“The Water from India" mentioned by Mr. Ji mainly refers to the introduction of Buddhism from India to China. The spread of Buddhist scriptures in China has had a huge and far-reaching impact on Chinese language, culture, literature, art, and religion. And one very important step in this process is the translation of Buddhist scriptures and related classics.(Add citation)--Meng Ying (talk) 15:30, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

"The Water from the West" refers to the Westernization Movement in the late Qing Dynasty and the subsequent May Fourth Movement. Many modern Western thoughts were introduced into China. During this period, Chinese translators translated a large number of books on literature, science, law, agriculture, engineering, medicine and other subjects.

"The Water from the West" refers to the Westernization Movement in the late Qing Dynasty and the subsequent May Fourth Movement. Many modern Western thoughts were introduced into China. During this period, Chinese translators translated a large number of books on literature, science, law, agriculture, engineering, medicine and other subjects.(Add Citation) --Meng Ying (talk) 15:30, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

These translations played an incalculable role in promoting Chinese culture and education and enlightening the people. Mr. Ji attributed the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization to the historical role of translation.

These translations played an important role in promoting Chinese culture and education and enlightening the people. Mr. Ji attributed the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization to the historical role of translation.--Meng Ying (talk) 15:30, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

Not only in China, translation activities have also promoted the progress of human society worldwide. "If the "Bible" written in ancient Hebrew and the "Gospel" written in Aramaic were not first translated into Greek and Latin, and later translated into the languages of the Middle Ages and modern times, the Judeo-Christian culture for two thousand years would not exist, and therefore European culture would not appear either. " (Ji Xianlin 2007,1)

At the same time, he pointed out that the "Bible" translation activities in the past 2000 years have helped lay the foundation for the languages of many countries."(Ji Xianlin 2007,1)

Translation Criteria: Faithfulness, Expressiveness and Elegance

Mr. Ji Xianlin agrees with Yan Fu's translation criteria of "faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance": I think that the sentence of Yan Youling (Yan Fu) that some people criticized, "the three difficulties in translation are faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance", can still be kept. The reason is very clear and relevant. These three words are indispensable and also one more seems unnecessary. To achieve these three words can also be said to be a matter of translation.(Ji Xianlin 2007,22)

Mr. Ji Xianlin agrees with Yan Fu's translation criteria of "faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance": I think that the sentence of Yan Youling (Yan Fu) that some people criticized, "the three difficulties in translation are faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance", can still be kept. The reason is very clear and relevant. These three words are indispensable and also no one seems unnecessary. To achieve these three criteria can also be considered as a matter of translation.(Ji Xianlin 2007,22)--Meng Ying (talk) 15:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

I personally think that among the three characters, the first "faithfulness" is the basis and the fundament. If this word cannot be done, there will be no translation at all. When I discuss translation issues and comment on translated works, the first thing I do is to see whether it is faithful or not, that is, whether he is faithful to the original text. If this is not, then it cannot be called translation. “Expressiveness” and ”elegance” is like the tree without roots.(Ji Xianlin 2007,21-22)

I personally think that among the three characters, the first "faithfulness" is the basis and the foundation. If this cannot be achieved, there will be no translation at all. When I discuss translation issues and comment on translated works, the first thing I do is to see whether it is faithful or not, that is, whether it is faithful to the original text. If this is not, then it cannot be called translation. Without “faithfullness”,“Expressiveness” and ”elegance” is like the tree without roots.(Ji Xianlin 2007,21-22)--Meng Ying (talk) 15:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

The First Criteria: Faithfulness

It can be seen that Ji Lao believes that "faithfulness" is the most important principle in translation, and the first criteria for evaluating the quality of all translated works. Mr. Ji strictly abides by this criteria in translating “Ramayana”.

It can be seen that Mr.Ji believes that "faithfulness" is the most important principle in translation, and the first criteria for evaluating the quality of all translated works. Mr. Ji strictly abides by this criteria in translating “Ramayana”.--Meng Ying (talk) 15:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

In some chapters there are lots of boring lines, which are mainly piles of the names of people, countries, flowers, trees and weapons. Though these lines are too eccentric and dull for readers to read, Mr. Ji spent the most effort on it to achieve the faithfulness to the origin text. There are some examples:

In some chapters there are lots of boring lines, which are mainly piles of the names of people, countries, flowers, trees and weapons. Though these lines are too eccentric and dull for readers to read, Mr. Ji spent the most effort on it to achieve the faithfulness to the origin text. There are some examples: (add citation)--Meng Ying (talk) 15:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

罗摩这样说了以后， 大牟尼毗奢蜜多罗。 这纯洁、忠诚、聪慧的人， 就把神秘的兵器来解说： 萨哆也漫多和萨哆也吉哩底， 还有提湿吒和罗婆萨， 名交钵罗底诃罗多罗的， 钵朗牟迦和阿凡牟迦。 罗刹那、阿罗刹那、毗沙摩， 提吒那婆和苏那婆戈、 陀舍刹和舍多婆伽罗、 达舍湿哩沙和舍杜多罗。

This part is all about the names of weapons. In addition to trying his best to translate these names, Mr. Ji also made a lot of notes indicating that they are weapons and attached the original Sanskrit text to help readers distinguish.

This part is all about the names of weapons. In addition to trying his best to translate these names, Mr. Ji also added a lot of notes indicating that they are weapons and attached the original Sanskrit text to help readers understand.--Meng Ying (talk) 15:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

The Second Criteria: Expressiveness

The second is the “expressiveness", which is in the process from the translation to the reader. In the first half period of the translation of Ramayana, Mr. Ji adopted the folk song style based on Mr. Lu Xun’s opinion on new poem: “First, there must be a tune and a similar rhyme, which is easy to remember and speak even sing it out.”

The second is the “expressiveness", which is in the process from the translation to the reader. In the first half period of the translation of Ramayana, Mr. Ji adopted the folk song style based on Mr. Lu Xun’s opinion on new poem: “First, there must be a tune and a similar rhyme, which is easy to remember and speak even sing it out.”(add citation) --Meng Ying (talk) 15:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Meng Ying

So, Mr. Ji uses a poem style with almost the same number of words per line. Such as Chapter. 42 The Ganges Down to Earth in Childhood : 有成群的海豚和蛇， 还有来回游泳的鱼， 天空里好像布满了， 闪闪发光的这些东西。 天空里又像是布满了， 像天鹅一样飞翔的秋云， 颜色灰白，水气极重， 忽然间就会四散飞奔。 有的地方，水流得弯曲迅速， 有的地方，水流又被阻住， 有的地方，水流的弯曲摇荡， 有的地方，水又缓缓流出。 有的地方，水流同水流， 互相撞击，碰在一起， 一刹那间，流上天去， 但一转眼，又落下平地。 This translated poems are strict in form, graceful in tune and rigorous in rhyming. Especially for the use of parallel sentences, on the one hand it increases the momentum of the poem and retains the style of the original work. On the other hand, it makes the target readers catchy and impressed. When translating to the second half of the sixth chapter, Mr. Ji switched to using seven-character quatrains and five-character quatrains: 山溪中水缓缓流， 流水清澈似天空； 山头像大蟒蛇信， 吐出清水似水晶。 好像喜马拉雅山， 此山辉煌多洞穴， 罗波看那宾阇耶， 就走向那摩陀河。 圣水朝着西海流， 此河水流石上头； 公牛、小鹿和狮子， 豹子、熊罴和大象， 来到河中激起浪。 Once Mr. Ji wants to change its form, he changed it. This reminds us of Mr. Ji's other identity: a famous prose writer. The prose written by him is free and easy and the quotations of ancient prose and poems seem to be easy to come by without a trace. Writing skills are embodied in the translation of epic poems, which makes us feel that every ode in his translated poem is as if it were from Mr. Ji’s original. Mr. Ji's translation has reached the highest level of expressiveness. (Liu Ting, Luo Chunpeng 2017,95)

The third Criteria: Elegance

Finally, we will discuss the” elegance” in “faithfulness, expressive and elegance”. The first two words are generally agreed and accepted by later generations. Only the third word is quite controversial and everyone has their own opinions.

Some people think that” elegance” is not about beautification and not about translating an article that was originally not elegant, but an effort to convey the original author’s writing style and spiritual characteristics. Others believe that “elegance” is to use the most appropriate word in the article.

In the pursuit of “elegance“, Mr. Ji not only strives to translate poems to poems, but also mainly embodies the conversion of rhyme:

罗摩说：“真是这样“， 他心里非常舒畅。 那些天上的光辉精灵， 有了形体，多福多幸， 对罗摩拱手说话， 声音甜蜜又动听: “虎般的人！下命令， 我们将何去何从？”

In this ode, the first two lines and the last six lines belong to different parts. To divided this, Mr. Ji change its rhyming word from “ang” to “ing”. That is, in the first two lines the rhyming words are the same “ang” and in the last six lines the rhyming words are the same “ing”. Through this, readers could easily understand the change of its meaning without separating the original ode.

There is one more example:

那一位弥提罗的国王， 把自己的住处弥提罗城进。 那一位阿逾陀的城主， 也带着高贵尊严的儿子们。 跟在所有的仙人们的后面， 带着随从和兵卒向前奔。 虎般的人在前面走着， 带着一群仙人和罗摩。 这里和那里，成群的鸟， 对他大声唱出了悲歌。 所有大地上的鹿群， 都向着男方拼命奔波。

In these three odes (Four lines is one ode.), the first two lines in the middle ode belongs to the previous ode from the meaning aspect. So, Mr. Ji used the same rhyming word ”en” with the previous ode(“奔“ to “们”). And the last two lines in the middle ode belongs to the next ode. So, Mr. Ji used the same rhyming word with the next ode. (“着” to ”歌” and “摩” to “波”）

"Faithfulness" is the basis of "expressiveness" and "elegance". Without "faithfulness" there is no "expressiveness" and "elegance". Mr. Ji also pointed out in the article "Translation" in cooperation with Mr. Xu Guozhang: "Faithfulness" is loyal to the original work. "Expressiveness" is for the reader and "elegance" is for literary language.

“Faithfulness, Expressiveness, and Elegance“ are only three characters, but they reflect the relationship between works, readers, and literary language. That is, a good translation work should be faithful to the original text, be able to be understood by the readers, and also the words should be elegant enough to convey the readers a sense of beauty.

Mr. Ji also classified the pros and cons of translations according to "faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance": translations can be roughly divided into three categories: the first grade, "faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance" are all up to standard. The second grade is to meet the requirement of "faithfulness" and "expressiveness", but without "elegance". The third grade is fail to achieve faithful, expressive and elegant. (Ji Xianlin 2007,23)

With the continuous accumulation of translation practice and the continuous deepening of thinking, Mr. Ji once stated in an interview in 2005: "I have not studied translation theory in depth. Based on my own experience, different categories of translation have different requirements. Some strict correspondence is required. Some do not need or are difficult to correspond to, in which reaching its meaning is enough. Therefore, it is difficult to have a unified standard for translation. Even if it is Yan Fu's "Faithfulness, Expressiveness, and Elegance", or new ones proposed by later generations, it cannot be regarded as a translation standard. They can only be the request for translation or a kind of expectation.”(Li Jingrui 2005)

In particular, literary translation involves different understandings of the author, work, background, etc. Therefore different comprehensions and different expressions should be allowed. Of course, these are required to be based on in-depth research, rather than the translator's arbitrary desires.（Li JingRui 2005）

Some people think that Mr. Ji's statement in his later years is a partial denial of his previous opinions, but it is actually a revision and improvement of previous translation ideas based on the diversity of the text.

Advocation of Literal Translation

Literal translation generally means that if the language conditions permit, both the original content and the original format are preserved in the translation as completely as possible. The principle of word-by-word should be followed. Mr. Ji agrees with Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Mao Dun and others in advocating literal translation and believe that "literal translation is the overriding principle." (Ji Xianlin 2007,6)

When Mr. Ji was translating the Indian epic "Ramayana", faced with a huge workload of more than 20,000 slokas (means verses). He decided not to translate in the form of prose, but adhere to the principle of literal translation- translating poems into poems to be faithful to the original text style.

Although the poetry genre was determined, it took Mr. Ji a lot of hard work to choose the poetry style. "Popular vernacular poetry does not have a fixed genre or metric. Poets write poems as they like. I don't think all the forms are appropriate. … It is also difficult to translate completely with old poems. One is that it cannot be faithful, and the other is most people cannot understand. After thinking about it, I decided to translate it into a jingle-like folk song. The number of words in each line should not vary too much, and the rhyme should be generally catchy.” Ji Xianlin 1984,598）

From these words we can see that Mr. Ji is strict to the principle of literal translation. There is also an example to show this through the comparison of the translation between Mr. Ji and another translator named Shai Zena towards the same text from an American writer Logan Pearsall Smith’s Rose

It was one of miniature Italian cities with a high church, a pretentious piazza, a few narrow streets and little palaces, perched, all compact and complete, on the top of a mountain, within and enclosure of walls hardly larger than an English kitchen garden.

这城是意大利小城之一，有高耸的礼拜堂，有虚设的广场，有几条仄狭的街道和小宫殿，都丛踞在山的顶上，外面绕着一围墙，不比一个英国的菜园大。（Ji Xianlin） 那是个典型的意大利小城，一座耸立的教堂，一个虚华的市场，一些狭窄的街道，几座小小的宫殿，围墙围着，在山顶上密集而完整的分布着，这座小的城市并不比英国人的菜园子大多少。（Shao Zena）

Towards “It was one of…”, Mr. Ji translated into “这是…之一”，while Shao Zena translated into “那是个…”. Faced with “with…”, Mr. Ji translated into “有…”, while Shao Zena omitted “with” and directly described the things behind “with”. Through analyzing these two different translations, we can see clearly that Mr. Ji prefer literal translation than another translator.(Liu Jin, Hua Xianfa 2015,114)

But the literal translation mentioned by Mr. Ji goes beyond the translation methodology in the general sense. As a linguist with profound knowledge of linguistics, he is not only concerned about how to be as close to the original text as possible in translation and how to convey the original text as faithfully as possible in translation, but also to further consider how to promote target language through translation, which is also an significant problem about the development and perfection of our mother tongue Chinese. (Xie Tianzhen 2006,)

He reviewed the history of the development of Chinese language and specifically pointed out the role of foreign words in the evolution of Chinese language: "A large number of new words have been borrowed from the Western Regions in ancient time, especially from India ···Sanskrit, which is dense and abstract, but sometimes expressions that have been overdone too much so that the meaning is not clear also left traces in Chinese. For example, the famous litterateur of Song Dynasty Su Shi's articles were somewhat influenced by the translation of Buddhist scriptures." (Ji Xianlin 1989,578)

Mr. Ji also cited the influence of our numbers of translations of European, American and Japanese books in modern times on our country’s language, characters, fonts and expression techniques. He also quoted some words from Mr. Lu Xun to discuss the benefits of literal translation, “Gradually import a little European grammar. Come in."

At the same time, Mr. Ji is quite tolerant of Europeanized syntax in literal translation. One of the reasons is that he hopes to gradually import some Europeanized syntax into China through these translations that are close to the original text. This can gradually refine our rough grammar more rigorous step by step. This is of great benefit to the development of our country's language and literary style.

The literal translation mentioned by Mr. Ji is not a rigid translation from word to word. He said that the result of this can only make the reader confused, puzzled and unable to understand anything. Therefore, he does not advocate such literal translation.

Mr. Ji's literal translation is to gradually introduce some more rigorous foreign grammar expressions within the scope of Chinese habits, so that our thousand-year-old Chinese could be richer, more vital, and more adaptable to our needs.（Xie Tianzhen 2006）

He believes that in the history of Chinese language, the translation of Buddhist scriptures over a thousand years ago and the translation of Western books over the past 100 years have already played such a role in our language. (Ji Xianlin 1989,581)

Opposition to translation through a third language.

It refers that due to the limited condition, the translation version is translated not through the original text but through a third language’s translated version. That is to say, between the source language and the target language there is a third language in the translation process. Opposing this kind of translation for literary works is also one of Mr. Ji 's important translation thoughts.

This kind of translation is a popular way from the early 20th century to the 1930s and 1940s, and it was the method of "more than nothing" in a specific historical period. Mr. Ji opposes it because the translation from one language to another is already separated from the original.

If the translated language is used as the original and translated again, the taste of the original will be greatly changed.

Mr. Ji once cited a sentence from " the Inner Chapter of Yanzi Chunqiu" as an example: "Oranges born in the south of the Huaihe River are oranges, while those born in the north of the Huaihe River are hazelnuts. Their leaves may be similar, but in fact they taste quite different. Why? The water and soil are different." After oranges moved to the north of the Huaihe River, the leaves can still be similar. As for article, especially a literary work, is translated into another language. Even the form can't be similar, not to mention its meaning. （Ji Xianlin 2007,11）

This passage clearly shows Mr. Ji’s translation thoughts against this kind of translation. Mr. Ji once said that science and philosophy works can be translated when necessary, but he still emphasized that literary works cannot. There are two main reasons for Mr. Ji's insistence.

Translation through a third language tend to produce low-quality translations.

As we all know, translation, especially for literary works, although many excellent translators work very hard subjectively, the result of the translation, that is, the translation, will still have a certain difference from the original. This is what is called creative treason in translation studies.

In the 1920s and 1930s, there were a group of translators who published a large number of very popular works at that time, such as literature and art theory books of Plekhanov, Lunacharski and so on, which were supposedly translated from Russian. But at that time, the readers were puzzled and confused when they were reading these books.

Mr. Ji found out the reason at once: The reason is simple. Whether the translators translated them clearly or not, these books are all translated from Japanese rather than Russian. It can be seen that what Mr. Ji is opposed to is this kind of rough translation style.(Chinese Translators Dictionary 1988,15)

Originally, translation already has a series of inevitable problems such as "distortion", "information loss", and "information distortion". Translators who cannot figure out the meaning of the original text translated other’s translated version again. The result is bound to be a huge gap with the meaning of the original. Readers will also be mystified by these translation when reading. (Xie Tianzhen 2006)

Pursue an ideal state.

Another reason why Mr. Ji opposes this kind of translation is that he pursues an ideal state in the field of foreign literature translation. As a foreign literal writer who has studied foreign literature and a translator with a rigorous translation style, Mr. Ji is well versed in the deformation characteristics of literary works in the translation process. He took the Dream of Red Mansions as an example:

"For example, we have all read the Dream of Red Mansions. I don’t think anyone will be amazed by the delicate and profound charm described in it. If we read the English translation version now, no matter how good its English level is, everyone would shake his or her head. Because this is just a retelling of the story in another language, but the meaning between the lines in the original text is completely lost. “ (Chinese Translators Dictionary 1988,14)

Translation, especially for literary works, is just like that. No matter how hard the translator tries to get close to the original work and strive to faithfully and completely show the original style, the translation process will inevitably produce some loss, addition or distortion of information.

This is true for the translation of the original text directly. For those who are translated through a third foreign language, especially those who are crudely crafted, we can imagine the deviation and distortion of the original text in their translation version.

Mr. Ji is disappointed at this phenomenon. So he appeals to that literary works should not be translated through a third language. He asked the translator to summon the courage to learn the language of the translated work honestly. He once said：

"If you don't even have this courage, you should walk away from translation and go where you should go. Don't overdo it here! We only need people with courage!" (Chinese Translators Dictionary 1988,15)

In fact, Mr. Ji himself did exactly this. In order to study ancient Indian literature, he not only learned Sanskrit, but also learned ancient Indian languages such as Pali and Tocharian, which are difficult to master and little known. He directly knew, understood, and studied ancient Indian literature through these languages, and directly introduced the translation of ancient Indian literature to Chinese readers from these languages. (Xie Tianzhen 2006)

Conclusion

Mr. Ji Xianlin is not a translation theorist, but he is a translation practitioner. He has devoted his life to the study of India and the translation of Sanskrit literature. And he has made great achievements in many cultural and academic fields. He summarized translation experience from his decades of translation practice, and gradually formed his own translation thought suitable for China, which has extremely important guiding significance for Chinese translation.

Reference

[1]季羡林：季羡林谈翻译[M].北京:当代中国出版社，2007. [2]刘婷,罗春朋.季羡林的翻译原则与翻译思想[J].南通大学学报(社会科学版),2017,33(04):93-98. [3]王秉钦.季羡林翻译思想“三论”[J].中国外语,2009,6(05):89-92. [4]吴光亭.季羡林翻译思想初探[J].周口师范学院学报,2011,28(06):60-65. [5]许先文.季羡林译学思想述评[J].学海,2010(02):213-216. [6]肖志清,谢少华.季羡林的翻译观探究[J].重庆文理学院学报(社会科学版),2011,30(03):102-107.

Application of Multimodal Translation Theory in Tourism Text-Lei Fangyuan 雷方圆, 202070080593 MTI

摘 要

当今世界，多媒体技术和国际化的旅游业要求旅游翻译必须要与时俱进，运用新模式，新手段和新方法。传统的旅游翻译从根本上忽视了这一点，而多模态翻译恰好就给旅游翻译提供了一个较新的视角。（Li Jian 2013,121）

由此视角展开，旅游翻译可以不再局限于传统的口笔译，而是可以借助多媒体技术和多种感官的配合来完善和发展旅游翻译，并可将多模态理论运用于旅游翻译这一模式发展成为一种趋势，进而提高本国的国际旅游质量。除此之外我们还需要了解多模态翻译理论对于未来旅游领域的翻译创新所具有的重要影响。（Li Jian 2013,121）

关键词：多模态理论；旅游翻译；翻译策略--Lei Fangyuan (talk) 14:27, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Abstract

In today's world, Multi-media technology and internationalized tourism require that tourism translation must keep pace with the times and use new models, new methods and new ways. Traditional tourism translation basically ignores this point, and multimodal translation just provides a new perspective for tourism translation.（Li Jian 2013,121） From this perspective, tourism translation can no longer be limited to traditional interpretation and translation, but can use multimedia technology and the cooperation of multiple senses to improve and develop tourism translation. That multimodal theory can be applied to this model will develop into a trend, which in turn improves the quality of international tourism in that country. In addition, we need to understand the important impact of multimodal translation theory on translation innovation in the field of tourism in the future.（Li Jian 2013,121）

Key words: multimodal theory; tourism translation; translation strategies.--Lei Fangyuan (talk) 14:52, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Introduction

The rapid development of modern science and technology has provided a more convenient way for people to obtain, retrieve, analyze and process information, and has also accelerated the breakthrough of the linguistic cognitive barrier. The theory of multimodal discourse analysis emerged in the West in the 1990s. Prior to this, linguistic research was mainly based on text, while multimodality regarded all communication modalities as resources for meaning generation.（Liu Yan 2011,108）

It is believed that in daily life people often use one or more other symbols in addition to language. Resources participate in the construction of meaning, so as to achieve the purpose of communication. In other words, the construction of meaning is achieved through the form of multimodal discourse. Whether it is text, sound, image, color, facial expression, limb movement, etc. each modality in multimodal discourse is a meaning-generating resource. We can discover and formulate the grammar of each mode, and draw the law of the meaning of the mode.（Liu Yan 2011,109)

With the rapid development of globalization and the internationalization of China’s tourism, tourism translation has become an important factor that directly affects the quality of overseas tourists' Chinese tours. Many problems in the practice of tourism translation reflect the current status of China’s inbound tourism industry. Due to the neglect of the tourism industry and related departments, China's tourism translation has always lacked scientificity and innovation. In addition, the extensiveness of tourism resources and the diversity of tourism translation audiences also increase the difficulty of tourism translation practice. （Liu Yan 2011,110)

In recent years, some domestic scholars have begun to pay attention to academic theory and industry practice research in the field of tourism translation, but mainly based on the perspective of pure linguistics or pure translation. From a narrow perspective, the target of tourism translation includes text translation of various tourist attractions and on-site oral translation of foreign-related tourism practitioners; From a broad perspective, tourism translation should include foreign-related translation materials and behaviors of all tourism industry sectors. It includes both text and oral translations, as well as other forms of translation such as images and movies.（Liu Yan 2011,111)

This article analyzes the characteristics of tourism translation from the perspective of multimodal discourse, discusses the strategies of multimodal tourism translation and some issues that need to be paid attention to during the translation process and looking forward to the development prospects of multimodal tourism translation.--Lei Fangyuan (talk) 06:53, 19 December 2020 (UTC)--Lei Fangyuan (talk) 14:57, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

1. The Background of Multimodal Theory

1.1. The Definition of Multimodal Theory

With the continuous development of high-tech such as digital and internet, language and social communication no longer rely on traditional single text as a media carrier but tend to rely on more different types of modalities and media for multisensory communication. Only in this way can the construction and transmission of discourse meaning be more convenient and accurate. This is Multimodality. Zhang Delu believes that Multimodal discourse is the phenomenon that uses multiple senses such as hearing, sight, and touch to communicate.（Zhang Delu 2009,15）

Multimodal discourse is essentially a compound discourse which contains not only the traditional text symbol system but also includes previously unrecognized symbol systems such as images, sounds, colors, and actions. Multimodal discourse reflects the interactivity and unity of symbol resources in social communication. Systemic functional linguistics provides theoretical foundation for multimodal discourse analysis and research. Multimodal discourse can be studied at multiple levels from culture, context, discourse meaning, grammar, form, and media.（Zhang Delu 2009,16）

From a media perspective, various non-verbal media, especially modern technology media, provide a large number of new options for discourse communication. They can realize the meaning of discourse through different modalities and in multimodal utterances, different modal utterances are interconnected. Linguistics and translation studies have always complemented each other. Cutting into translation practice and research from the perspective of multimodality, we can obtain more new discoveries and gains, thereby enriching and improving the branch of translation studies, and also developing and expanding the linguistic theory of multimodal discourse analysis.（Zhang Delu 2009,17）--Lei Fangyuan (talk) 15:01, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

1.2. Present Research Situation and Existing Problems at Home and Abroad

In order to interpret and use other discourse phenomena outside the language in multimodal discourse, Kress and Van Leeuwen explored the "grammar" of certain symbolic modalities in comparison with the functional grammar of a language. They proposed modal analysis methods and theories such as visual grammar, color grammar and sound grammar. Among them, the visual grammatical framework constructed by them with "representative meaning", "interactive meaning" and "constitutive meaning" as the core content provides a theoretical basis for multimodal discourse analysis(Kress 1996, 78). Besides, Royce T investigated the complementarities and synergy of different symbols in multimodal discourse. (Royce 2002, 191)

O’Halloran used multiple modalities for theoretical analysis and practice who proposed the combination of language, visual images and other symbolic resources to build paper and digital media and daily life texts, things and events. It can be seen that some foreign scholars' research on multimodality is based on functional linguistics and visual grammar functions in social semiotics.Domestic research on multimodal discourse is still in its infancy. Some scholars have imported and introduced the theory of multimodal discourse analysis. Some scholars have used multimodal discourse theory to interpret and analyze symbols other than PPT texts and emblems. (O’Halloran 2008，231)

This shows that the development of multimodal theory and multimedia technology has begun to affect people's thinking and the reconstruction of meaning. More scholars are studying how to apply the theory of multimodal discourse analysis to teaching to improve class teaching effect. In addition to the use of visual grammar theory to study specific symbolic systems other than text, domestic scholars have mostly focused on multimodal applied research goals in foreign language teaching. It mainly includes the content of graphic representation, multimodal reading ability, multimedia technology application, and multimodal collaboration. (Borodo 2015,22）

But for tourism translation, which includes both on-site interpretation and written modalities, few scholars have studied it from a multimodal perspective. Looking at recent research results, Chinese scholars have achieved gratifying results both in terms of theory and application of theory. Some scholars have improved the theoretical framework of multimodal discourse analysis based on previous studies. At the application level, its scope has covered multiple types of multimodal discourse. These helpful attempts have played a significant role in improving the theory of multimodal discourse analysis and broadening the scope of its application. (Borodo 2015,23）

At the same time, we should also see that there are still a lot of deficiencies in our research in this area.First of all, multimodal translation has not yet received widespread attention and recognition in the academic community, mainly reflected in the small amount of literature, not professional enough, and its influence needs to be improved. Secondly, the current multimodal discourse analysis still focuses on the study of images or "text + images". The coordination and synergy between various modalities have not been clearly studied, and there are still many uncertain factors. (Borodo 2015,24）

However, the perspectives of these research areas are relatively single. Most of them adopt the theory of multimodal discourse analysis to discuss subtitle translation in film and television works from the four levels of culture, context, content and expression. It is similar that the analysis is fragmented and lacks depth and theoretical contributions. Fourth, the subjectivity of text analysis is too strong. Differences in analysts' personal knowledge structure, cultural background or interpretation motivation, in addition, grammatical analysis in multimodal discourse analysis lacks strict grammatical basis, so when facing the same component, the situation that benevolent sees benevolence and wise sees wisdom. (Zhu Yongsheng 2007,82）

So the meaning of multimodality is not clear enough, and the specific manifestations are: 1. Multimodality has a tendency to be abused; 2. Many authors do not have working definitions of "modal" and "multimodal", leading to unclear concepts and lack of pertinence in discussions; 3. Some authors confuse the concepts of multimedia and multimodality. Finally, at present, linguists, especially systems functional linguists, are mainly engaged in the study of multimodal discourse analysis. However, multimodal discourse analysis is interdisciplinary. From the perspective of linguistics alone, it is not enough. Only by integrating different disciplines can we fully interpret multimodal texts. These are the issues that need to be further explored in future research.（Zhu Yongsheng 2007,83)--Lei Fangyuan (talk) 15:06, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

2. Multimodal Translation Theory and Tourism Translation

The differences between Chinese and English are self-evident, and the cultural differences are reflected in history, aesthetics, religion, customs and habits in tourism English translation. The medium of tourism translation has both language modality and other modality such as image, performance and action. Therefore, it is a multimodal communication behavior. Compared with other types of translation, tourism translation is more direct, more prominent, more typical, and more comprehensive in terms of cross-temporal, cross-cultural, and cross-psychological communication.（Zhu Yongsheng 2007,84）

2.1. Definition of Tourism Translation

Tourism translation is a translation practice for tourism activities, tourism professions and industries, and belongs to professional translation. In a nutshell, tourism translation is a cross-lingual, cross-social, cross-temporal, cross-cultural, cross-psychological communication. It is more direct, prominent, typical and comprehensive in the characteristics of cross-cultural and cross-psychological communication. (Chen Gang 2004,59)

Tourism translation includes dynamic and static tourism information translation. Dynamic tourism interpretation mainly includes on-site interpretation, attraction translation, conference negotiation, tourism consulting, tourism shopping guide and other tourism interpreting activities. While static tourist translation mainly includes tourist guidebooks, guide maps, tourist signs, tourist product introductions, tourist contracts, hotel and catering information, tourist traffic instructions, tourist websites and tourist posters, etc. Tourism translation belongs to the field of applied translation, and its texts are practical, extensive and cross-cultural. It embodies multiple functions such as information transmission, marketing and call induction. And it is a compound text that integrates expression (from the original author), information (respect for the facts), and calling (inspires the reader). (Zeng Dan 2006,36)

The content of tourism translation is all-encompassing and the information contained covers all aspects of society and culture, from historical archeology to local customs, from sociopolitics to folk customs, everything is possible. Whether it is a broad translation or a narrow translation, it includes the conversion and information transfer of multiple symbol systems, so as to achieve the purpose of information transmission. Therefore, the translation activity itself contains the content of multimodal information transmission. We refer to the theories and results of multimodal discourse analysis to examine translation products and processes. As a new perspective of translation research, it has its inherent rationality and feasibility.(Zeng Dan 2006,37)

Tourism translation, as a cultural interpretation and industry practice, has a clear purpose of tourism communication. On the one hand, it has a tourist business purpose that is to obtain certain economic benefits by persuading overseas tourists to buy products from tourism companies. On the other hand, tourism translation also has the purpose of cultural transmission. It aims to attract overseas tourists' interests by explaining and promoting the tourist culture of the destination country, such as geographical and historical background and cultural characteristics, to the purpose of spreading local culture. (Zeng Dan 2006,38)

At present in China's tourism industry, in addition to the language level of tourism translation text materials and tourism interpretation services, there are also problems in the dimension of tourism translation, which manifested in tourism translators and institutions often only focus on the single modality and media in translation. Integration modes include text mode with print media, speech mode with sound media and so on. Traditional tourism translation subjectively ignores the multimodal and multi-media collaboration and complementary functions, objectively greatly weakens the comprehensive effect of tourism translation. In the long run, it will hinder China's strategic development goals of tourism internationalization.--Lei Fangyuan (talk) 01:13, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

2.2. The Necessity of Multimodal Tourism Translation

Literary work is the most important carrier of culture. As mentioned in Chapter One, we will focus on the personal names in literary works, for literary works often embody much cultural information. Culture is the sum of a nation’s knowledge, experiences, beliefs, sense of values, division of classes, and the attitude toward time and space. Cultural information in literary works means the elements reflecting the culture of a nation or nations in literary works. It is rather simple at first sight; however, without being paid attention, a great deal of cultural information will escape the readers or the translators. (Xu Mianjun2017, 40)--Lei Fangyuan (talk) 01:14, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

3. Application of Multimodal Translation Theory in Tourism Text

The differences between English and Chinese are reflected in every aspect. Therefore, the method of tourism translation also shows different characteristics. Only by mastering the correct translation method can we better attract the interest of foreign tourists, and only in this way can the main content of the original text be correctly presented to the readers. (Xu Mianjun 2017,41)

3.1. Performances of Multimodal Tourism Translation

Multimodal tourism translation can be analyzed and understood from both modal and media perspectives. From the modalities involved in tourism translation, the main mode of translation is text, and other auxiliary modes may include symbol modest. The main mode of tourism interpretation is speech. In tourism translation, whether it is the main mode or the auxiliary mode, they are both independent symbol systems that convey meaning to overseas tourists in a specific tourism context to complete the purpose of tourism cultural communication. However, these symbolic systems cooperate directly or indirectly to complete the communicative significance of tourism. (Xu Mianjun 2017, 42)）

From the media involved in tourism translation, it mainly manifests in two categories. One type of media is based on people, including all parts of the body.These human organs can be used as a modal technology carrier in tourism translation and communication, and jointly realize the meaning of the main modal. Sometimes, these media can also construct their own. The other is environmental media other than humans, which can be divided into static one and dynamic one. In the context of tourism translation, static media mainly includes text, pictures, clothing, religion, hairstyle, etc. They are traditional ordinary expression media in tourism translation which used to be ignored by translators. Dynamic media are mainly sound, screen, animation, music, etc. They have emerged with the development of science and technology and information technology, which are more prominent symbolic modal resources than language modalities.(Xu Mianjun 2017, 43)

3.2. Strategies for Multimodal Translation

The starting point of the translator's work is the original text, the ending point is the translated text, and the process is the conversion of language and text, but it does not mean that the object he has to consider and process is only language and text. They must not only convey the original language and text information in the translated works, but also excavate the multimodal information attached to the original language and text in the original works, and try their best to restore and reproduce them in the translated works. Therefore, when performing multimodal translation, translators must master and apply the correct translation methods to achieve more results with less effort.(Xu Mianjun2017,44)

3.2.1 Relying on Modern Multimedia Technology

With the continuous improvement of software and hardware facilities of various tourist attractions, the media means on which tourism translation depends must be continuously shifted from the previous text and pictures to modern media means such as animation, video, audio and stage. Multimodal tourism translation requires more non-verbal media and we need properly translate tourism culture and present it directly in front of overseas tourists, to facilitate their understanding of the culture of the destination country. In tourism translation and interpretation, translators can rely on a variety of modern media methods to guide and mobilize the various sensory systems of overseas tourists to achieve a good tourism translation effect. (Xu Mianjun2017,45)

For example, Sanya's travel trailer is 3 minutes and 20 seconds long. It presents Sanya's local customs in the form of narrative reproduction through images, text and video. The picture quality is clear and beautiful, the English pronunciation is authentic, the English subtitles are accurate, the background music is cheerful, and the color contrast is bright. It fully borrows modern technology to display the image of Sanya in front of the viewer. Many tourist attractions use modern technologies such as light, shadow, lights, etc. to help tourists understand the local culture in order to better play the role of attraction translation.（(Xu Mianjun2017,46）

When translating the of the Hubei Provincial Museum, in addition to using conventional texts, pictures and media, you can also rely on modern media such as live performances and stage lights. Through unconventional media such as choreography, performance, sound, and spatial layout, the culture is vividly displayed in front of overseas visitors. The senses of sight, hearing, and touch of overseas visitors are used to make the interpretation of Warring States Period Bell culture more intuitive and easier to understand. This kind of translation effect is unmatched by the translation of text and language modalities.（Zhang Delu 2009,18）

Zhangjiajie Scenic Spot utilizes the traditional tourist translation signage combined with the modern technology of QR code, which makes tourism translation more vivid and easy to understand. Visitors can scan the QR code to listen to audio commentary and translation.

3.2.2 Choosing a Reasonable Main Mode

To carry out multimodal tourism translation, the choice of main mode must be adjusted at any time according to the specific content. Translating different tourism content and different overseas tourists should choose different main methods and auxiliary modes. For tourist translation of natural landscapes, it can be “to the point”, using the principle of image mode, supplemented by text or speech mode. The picture below uses a combination of oversized text and images to give viewers a very shocking visual conflict. As shown in Figures, both from ZhangJiajie, a combination of subtitles, videos, and pictures is used. （SR Roberts 2006, 209)

All take the image mode as the main mode and subtitle translation as the auxiliary mode. The pictures adopt a perspective view of overlooking the mountains of ZhangJiajie from a high altitude. Tourists can see that it is different at a glance. This is also the biggest highlight of ZhangJiajie. This will help attract the attention of tourists and get closer to tourists, so that the translation effect is more prominent and intuitive.

For humanistic landscape tourism translation, reasonable multimodal symbols can be used to mine the cultural connotation behind it. Adopt the principle of text or speech mode, supplemented by images or other modes. (SR Roberts 2006, 210)）

The picture above is from Feitian Mountain in Chenzhou. The translation of the scenic spot combines certain background cultural knowledge with natural geographical factors. The translation uses a combination of text, pictures and cultural knowledge, coupled with the natural landscape, making the scenery and passengers into one, adding a good sense of travel experience. In this way, the information transmission effect of cultural landscape tourism products from the aesthetic perspective is improved, and the tourism translation is transformed from a shallow translation of introduction sightseeing to a deep translation of cultural leisure.（SR Roberts 2006, 210--Lei Fangyuan (talk) 03:09, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

3.2.3 Improving Multimodal Internal Integration

Whether it’s written travel translation or spoke none, translators should improve the coordination and cooperation within various modalities, and strive to improve the effectiveness of tourism translation. The various models are independent and interconnected, and serve the general principle of "integration" together. Try to avoid and weaken the untranslatability of words or languages in tourism translation. For this reason, other symbol systems other than text can be appropriately used for replacement or supplementation, such as image, posture and other symbol modal resources. （SR Roberts 2006, 211）

On the one hand, it is necessary to do as much internal collaboration as possible during tourism translation. When selecting different modes, we must fully consider the compatibility and complementarity between the different modes to ensure the best modal matching. On the other hand, modal abuse should be avoided and eliminated to the greatest extent. If too many modalities are used at the same time in tourism translation, or if the modalities used are not suitable for the scene, it will make overseas tourists confused and interfere with the normal understanding of overseas tourists. （SR Roberts 2006,212)

Therefore, the modal choice in tourism translation should be based on the evaluation index that helps overseas tourists understand and be satisfied. In this way, we can ensure that tourism translation practice with multimodal perspective has good dynamics and systemicity. It is hoped that by adjusting the integration and optimization of the tourism translation structure, the advantages within and between the modalities will complement each other, and the value and advantages of various modalities will be organically and effectively combined into one to maximize the goals and tasks of tourism translation. So, the tourism translation will be greatly developed.（SR Roberts 2006, 213)--Lei Fangyuan (talk) 02:25, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

3.2.4. Multimodal Intersemiotic Translation

In multimodal discourse, different modalities interact to construct meaning together. González proposed that with the rapid development of science and technology and the translation of mainstream cultural products, multimodality is bound to become the focus of future translation. She divides translation into intralingual translation, interlingual translation and intersemiotic translation. The former is subordinated to the system within the system, while the latter two are subordinate to the cross-system interpretation system. (Li Zhanzi 2003,1)

It can be seen from this that inter-symbol translation involves translation between two different media, such as the translation of a language medium into an image medium, so the image of "illustration" can be regarded as a translation form of text. Symbols contain three types of iconicity, indication and symbol, which correspond to the first attribute (essence), second attribute (fact) and third attribute (association) of the symbol. These symbol types can be interpreted as symbols, objects and interpretations. Intersemiotic translation is a process in which iconic symbols depend on the goal and interpretation.(Li Zhanzi 2003,2)

Multimodal intersemiotic translation is an important part of multimodal translation. It refers to the use of non-verbal symbol systems to interpret linguistic symbols in the context of multimodal discourse or use foreign language symbols to explain non-linguistic symbols for tourism. Such as transforming body language or tourism culture images into foreign languages. Tourism translation practitioners often translate typical tourist cultural symbols such as text, architecture, and literature into foreign languages for overseas tourists. This not only requires translators to have strong foreign language grammar and pragmatic skills, but also must have good foreign language spoken and communicative skills.(Li Zhanzi 2003,3)

Tourism translators must continuously improve their inter-symbol translation capabilities, and strive to perceive and understand the common symbol systems in tourism, such as text, pictures, poetry, literature, history, painting, sculpture, etc. And reasonably use symbol resources outside the text to perform intersemiotic translation and interpretation between all symbols. Especially they used to perform intersemiotic translation between foreign language modalities and various tourism cultural symbol resources. In this way, the tourism culture and resource information of the country can be better converted into words that overseas tourists can understand.(Li Zhanzi 2003,4)--Lei Fangyuan (talk) 02:24, 21 December 2020 (UTC) --Lei Fangyuan (talk) 02:32, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

4. Development prospects of Multimodal Tourism Translation

With the rise of multimodal discourse studies, image, music, color, and other visual symbols of paralanguage gradually become the center of discourse analysis. Whether it is the study of multimodal discourse translation or the re-examination of translation practice and translation teaching based on the theory of multimodal discourse analysis, multimodal translation research has greatly broadened the concept of translation. Translation is not just a language conversion, but a system of meanings constructed by multiple modalities. Therefore, multimodal translation research not only brings revolutionary changes to translation practice and translation research, but also brings new challenges to translators. (Chen Xinren, Qian Yonghong 2011, 89)

Firstly, strengthen the theoretical construction of multimodal translation research. At present, the definition, content, and methods of multimodal translation studies have not formed a unified understanding. No scholar has combed the overview of domestic multimodal translation studies and has not published a mature research monograph. Multimodal translation practice calls for mature multimodal theory guidance.(Chen Xinren, Qian Yonghong 2011, 90)

Secondly, strengthen empirical research on multimodal translation. Domestic research has mostly stayed at the stage of text analysis and theoretical speculation, and empirical research is lacking. The survey found that the public hopes that the translation industry will conduct multimodal translation research from the following aspects: quality, business-related issues, cognitive research, speech recognition, automatic translation, descriptive research, reverse translation, etc.(Chen Xinren, Qian Yonghong2011,91)

Thirdly, strengthen the construction and research of multimodal interpretation corpora. Shanghai Jiaotong University has opened a new path for scholars at home and abroad to carry out related research. However, the construction and research of multimodal interpretation corpora require the participation and support of more scholars.(Chen Xinren, Qian Yonghong2011,92)

Fourthly, strengthen Chinese and foreign comparative studies on multimodal translation studies. Chinese-foreign comparative research and the promotion of foreign related research results are conducive to understanding the frontiers of academic research, complementing each other, avoiding unnecessary repetitive research, and promoting the results of multimodal translation practice and research faster and better.(Chen Xinren, Qian Yonghong 2011, 93)

Fifthly, strengthen the cognitive process of multimodal discourse translation. Cognitive research on multimodal discourse translation can be combined with the latest achievements in the field of cognition. It can also compare the difference in time spent by translators when reading monomodal discourse and multimodal discourse. It can also compare reading time of reading with pure translation and pure translation. (Hu Zhuanglin 2007, 1)

Traditional tourism translation only focuses on the impact of communication on the communication, regardless of symbol information other than the language which is used. There is generally a lack of consideration of non-verbal factors such as images, music, mood, and expression, and ignores the important role of non-verbal modalities in the construction of meaning together with language. Thus have greater limitations in the process of meaning construction. (Hu Zhuanglin 2007, 2)

Tourism translation should use all symbolic means to ensure the acceptability and multi-sensory nature of translation to stimulate overseas tourists' interests in China's tourism resources and culture. Therefore, from the perspective of modalities, China's future tourism translation must develop in a direction that satisfies the sensory modalities of hearing, seeing, touching, and smelling of overseas tourists as much as possible, which places higher demands on practitioners of tourism translation. Especially for front-line practitioners in tourism translation, tourism intersemiotic translation ability is often more important than tourism Interlingua translation ability. In this context, non-linguistic knowledge can improve the practical effect of multimodal tourism translation than language knowledge. (Hu Zhuanglin 2007, 3)

From the perspective of the media, in addition to focusing on the use of traditional human organs, tourism translation will pay more attention to using modern high-tech media to mobilize and infect overseas tourists.This places higher requirements on tourism planning and business investment arrangements for tourism administrations and attractions. Therefore, in the future, tourism translation will introduce more multimodal tourism translation modules based on modern technologies such as screen, audio, and video on the basis of traditional text modal and spoken modalities, and gradually establish multimodal. A multi-media, multi-dimensional, multi-language, interactive, and prompt and propaganda integrated tourism translation system.( (Hu Zhuanglin 2007, 4)--Lei Fangyuan (talk) 03:15, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Conclusion

It also makes the interpretation of discourse meaning more comprehensive and accurate in the context of tourism translation. Based on the theory of multimodal discourse, this thesis analyzes and discusses the characteristics, strategies and development prospects of multimodal tourism translation. Explains that the multimodality study of tourism translation has important industrial reality and academic theoretical significance and it should be a research direction in the field of future languages and tourism. It will greatly promote research innovation in the field of language translation and tourism.（Sun Zheng 2010, 54）

As a new discipline, multimodal discourse analysis has challenged the definition of traditional discourse and methods of discourse analysis, and put forward new requirements in the field of dialogue and research. The development of everything requires a process. In theory, multimodal discourse analysis still needs innovation and reference. The method still needs to be improved. Its improvement and development require the joint efforts of several generations. It is foreseeable that the research team of multimodal discourse analysis will continue to grow, and its application prospects will become wider and wider.（Sun Zheng 2010, 55)--Lei Fangyuan (talk) 03:17, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

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Chen Xinren, Qian Yonghong陈新仁,钱永红. (2011). 多模态分析法在语用学研究中的应用［The Application of Multimodal Discourse Analysis in Pragmatic Research ]. 中国外语Foreign Languages in China, ( 5) 89 -93．

Hu Zhuanglin胡壮麟. (2007). 社会符号学研究中的多模态化［Multimodalization in Social Semiotic ]. 语言教学与研究Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies, ( 1) 1－9.

Li Jian黎健. (2013). 多模态视域下的旅游翻译初探［Exploration of Tourism Translation from the Perspective of Multi -modality]. 四川文理学院学报 Journal of Sichuan University of Arts and Science, (03)121-125.

Li Yan刘燕. (2011)多模态话语分析研究在中国的发展 [Multimodal Discourse Analysis in China]. 晋中学院学报Journal of Jin Zhong University, (05)108-111. Li Zhanzi李战子. (2003). 多模态话语的社会符号学分析［Social Semiotic Approach to Multimodal Discourse]. 外语研究Journal of Foreign Language Research, ( 5) 1-8.

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Zhu Yongsheng朱永生. (2007). 多模态话语分析的理论基础和研究方法 [Theory and Methodology of Multimodal Discourse Analysis]. 外语学刊Journal of Research , (5)82-86.--Lei Fangyuan (talk) 14:48, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Comparison between the History of Chinese and western Translation 张佩闻 Zhang Peiwen

Abstract: The development history of Chinese and Western translation has gone through a long development process. In the history of thousands of years, Chinese and Western translation will have certain laws and their own characteristics. Analyzing the similarities and differences of these laws and characteristics can better help us understand the history of translation development, and at the same time guide the development of current practice and theory. This article first introduces the development history of China and the West, then compares the similarities and differences, and finally summarizes the general rules. Keywords: Chinese and Western translation theory, history similarity, difference

摘要：中西方翻译发展史都经历了漫长的发展过程，在几千年的发展历史中，中西方翻译都会有一定的规律和各自的特点。分析这些规律和特点的异同能更好的帮助我们了解翻译发展史，同时指导如今的实践和理论的发展。本文先介绍中西方的发展历史，然后从相似和差异两个方面进行对比，最后总结大致规律。 关键词 中西译论 历史 相似性 差异性

                                                           A Comparison of Chinese and Western Translation History
                                                                               中西文化史比较

Introduction

Translation, as an important activity aimed to reach cross-culture communication, has a long history. As the development of the human society and fast process of globalization, translation plays an increasingly important role in promoting the understanding and communication of people around the world. However, the history of translation, which is a part of great importance in the study of translation, often been underestimated when compared to the study of the translation theory and the translation techniques. In fact, it is just like a process of building a house, what we should do first is to construct a framework so as to grasp the main idea and the main trend of the development of translation and then we can pay more attentions to the details like the development or improvement of one theory, one school of thought. And we also can spend time to analyse the similarities and differences among various opinions of the translators. The study of translation is a huge system deserves not one persons effort, here the author just make her effort and write something of the understanding of herself.

Translation, as an important activity aimed to reach cross-culture communication, has a long history. As the development of the human society and fast process of globalization, translation plays an increasingly important role in promoting the understanding and communication of people around the world. However, the history of translation, which is a part of great importance in the study of translation, often been underestimated when compared to the study of the translation theories and the translation techniques. In fact, it is just like a process of building a house, what we should do first is to construct a framework so as to grasp the main idea and the main trend of the development of translation and then we can pay more attention to the details like the development or improvement of one theory, one school of thought. And we also can spend time analysing the similarities and differences among various opinions of the translators. The study of translation is a huge system deserves not one person's efforts, here the author just makes her efforts and writes something understanding of herself.--Zhang Yujie (talk) 03:23, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Western Translation History

Western countries have a profound and time-honored history of translation. To some extent, the spread western culture(even the culture of the whole world) attributes to the work of translator. No matter it is in western countries or in China, translation begun thousands of years ago and it is nearly as old as the language itself. The history of the western counties translation begun at the 3rd century. And it now has a history of around 2000 years. Throughout the whole process of translation, there have been six climaxes in the history of western translation, which can be divided into six stages: the initial stage, the late Roman Empire to the early Middle Ages, the middle ages, the Renaissance, the second half of the 17th century to the first half of the 20th century, and the translation activities since the end of the Second World War. In addition to the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the western ancient translation mainly includes the Latin translation in ancient Rome. It started from the middle of the Republic in the third century B.C. to the end of Rome in the fifth century.（Tan Zaixi 2004, 34）

Western countries have a profound and time-honored history of translation. To some extent, the spread of western culture(even the culture of the whole world) attributes to the work of translator. No matter it is in western countries or in China, translation begun thousands of years ago and it is nearly as old as the language itself. The history of the western counties translation begun at the 3rd century. And it now has a history of around 2000 years. Throughout the whole process of translation, there have been six climaxes in the history of western translation, which can be divided into six stages: the initial stage, the late Roman Empire to the early Middle Ages, the middle ages, the Renaissance, the second half of the 17th century to the first half of the 20th century, and the translation activities since the end of the Second World War. In addition to the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the western ancient translation mainly includes the Latin translation in ancient Rome. It started from the middle of the Republic in the third century B.C. to the end of Rome in the fifth century.（Tan Zaixi 2004, 34）--Zhang Yujie (talk) 05:08, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Medieval history generally begins with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and ends at the Renaissance in the 15th century. As far as translation theory is concerned, there are three major marks: the early translator Manlius Boethius , the middle Toledo "Translation Institute" and the late national language translation.（Tan Zaixi 2004, 36-39）

Medieval history generally began with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and ended at the Renaissance in the 15th century. As far as translation theory is concerned, there are three major marks: the early translator Manlius Boethius , the middle Toledo "Translation Institute" and the late national language translation.（Tan Zaixi 2004, 36-39）--Zhang Yujie (talk) 05:08, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

The central figure in this period was Manlius Boethius, who not only made contributions to the introduction of Greek philosophy to translation, but also had his own views on translation theory. His views can be summed up as follows: (1) content and style are antagonistic to each other, either pay attention to style or preserve content.（2）Translation focuses on objective affairs and translators should give up subjective judgment. Overall, there are five major phases of the history of western translation, the first one begins at the decline of Greece, after which the Roman Empire grasp the change and thrived. At that time ,Greece had a fantastic culture resources which is attracting.（Luohui 2017, 199)

The central figure in this period was Manlius Boethius, who not only made contributions to the introduction of Greek philosophy to translation, but also had his own views on translation theory. His views can be summed up as follows: (1) content and style are antagonistic to each other, either pay attention to style or preserve content.（2）Translation focuses on objective affairs and translators should give up subjective judgment. Overall, there are five major phases of the history of western translation, the first one begun at the decline of Greece, after which the Roman Empire grasped the change and thrived. At that time ,Greece had fantastic culture resources which are attracting.（Luohui 2017, 199)--Zhang Yujie (talk) 05:08, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

The translations in the Middle Ages were the earliest translations of Arabic and Western works. Among them, Baghdad was the most active. The main works were scientific works by Aristotle, Plato and others, which earned it the title of the Arab Academy of Translation. Toledo is a place in central Spain. The ancient city, at that time, many Western scholars came here to engage in translation activities, forming a translation climax. The significance of this activity is that it allows many Greek originals to be directly translated, without the need to translate through several languages, but this period did not have anyone who proposes some translation theories, just a translation practice. At the end of the Middle Ages, the people's requirements for national languages are becoming more and more urgent. National language translation is first related to the Bible, but the translation process is not smooth because there are many cultural differences. (Tan Zaixi 2004，33-35)

The translations in the Middle Ages were the earliest translations of Arabic and Western works. Among them, Baghdad was the most active. The main works were scientific works by Aristotle, Plato and others, which earned it the title of the Arab Academy of Translation. Toledo is a place in central Spain. The ancient city, at that time, many Western scholars came here to engage in translation activities, forming a translation climax. The significance of this activity is that it allowed many Greek originals to be directly translated, without the need to translate through several languages, but this period did not have anyone who proposed some translation theories, just a translation practice. At the end of the Middle Ages, the people's requirements for national languages were becoming more and more urgent. National language translation was first related to the Bible, but the translation process was not smooth because there were many cultural differences. (Tan Zaixi 2004，33-35)--Zhang Yujie (talk) 05:08, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Toledo is a place in central Spain. The ancient city, at that time, many Western scholars came here to engage in translation activities, forming a translation climax. The significance of this activity is that it allows many Greek originals to be directly translated, without the need to translate through several languages, but this period did not have anyone who proposes some translation theories, just a translation practice. At the end of the Middle Ages, the people's requirements for national languages are becoming more and more urgent. National language translation is first related to the Bible, but the translation process is not smooth because there are many cultural differences. The problem of cultural differences, such as the translation of the Bible into Germanic, is a big crush on their morality and because of this, after the translation of the Bible, the grammatical structure of the languages of Western European countries has also become more similar. But large-scale national translation started with the emergence of the middle bourgeoisie and the rise of nationalism. At the same time, translation activities in various countries are moving forward, but the development of the United Kingdom is particularly slow, mainly because of the translators. The status of translation is low, and the selection of translation materials is also a problem. Despite this a group of well-known translators have also emerged: John Trevisa and William Caxton. During this period, another major type of translation is the translation of religious documents, the most famous of which are Osborn Boklam and Wickliffe. In general, the study of Western translation theory in this period of the Middle Ages did not form a system, and the real leap began in the Middle Ages.(Tan Zaixi 2004，37-40)

Toledo is a place in central Spain. The ancient city, at that time, many Western scholars came here to engage in translation activities, forming a translation climax. The significance of this activity is that it allowed many Greek originals to be directly translated, without the need to translate through several languages, but this period did not have anyone who proposed some translation theories, just a translation practice. At the end of the Middle Ages, the people's requirements for national languages were becoming more and more urgent. National language translation was first related to the Bible, but the translation process was not smooth because there were many cultural differences. The problem of cultural differences, such as the translation of the Bible into Germanic, was a big crush on their morality and because of this, after the translation of the Bible, the grammatical structure of the languages of Western European countries had also become more similar. But large-scale national translation started with the emergence of the middle bourgeoisie and the rise of nationalism. At the same time, translation activities in various countries were moving forward, but the development of the United Kingdom was particularly slow, mainly because of the translators. The status of translation was low, and the selection of translation materials was also a problem. Despite this a group of well-known translators had also emerged: John Trevisa and William Caxton. During this period, another major type of translation was the translation of religious documents, the most famous of which were Osborn Boklam and Wickliffe. In general, the study of Western translation theory in this period of the Middle Ages did not form a system, and the real leap began in the Middle Ages.(Tan Zaixi 2004，37-40)--Zhang Yujie (talk) 05:08, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

The Renaissance was not only the rapid development of new ideas, but also a major milestone in the history of translation. People’s demand for translations of ethnic languages is getting stronger and stronger. For example, Erasmus provided a new linguistic method for the translation of the Bible. The main points are as follows: 1. The original work must be respected. No translation can completely replace the original. 2. The translator must have a wealth of language knowledge. 3. Every translation has his own style. The style depends on the needs of the reader.Amiou of France translated Lives of Artist. The criteria in the translation process are: 1. The translator should thoroughly understand the original text. 2. The translation should be simple and natural. In the United Kingdom, especially during the Elizabethan period, translation activities flourished and the content was extensive. The Renaissance was an important turning point in the history of Western translation. At this time, the translation of ethnic languages was already very stable, and the translation practices and theories of various countries. The translation before the Renaissance mostly refers to the translation of Latin, and after that, the use of Latin is only a tributary.(Tan Zaixi 2004, 55-68)

The Renaissance was not only the rapid development of new ideas, but also a major milestone in the history of translation. People’s demand for translations of ethnic languages was getting stronger and stronger. For example, Erasmus provided a new linguistic method for the translation of the Bible. The main points are as follows: 1. The original work must be respected. No translation can completely replace the original. 2. The translator must have a wealth of language knowledge. 3. Every translation has his own style. The style depends on the needs of the reader.Amiou of France translated Lives of Artist. The criteria in the translation process are: 1. The translator should thoroughly understand the original text. 2. The translation should be simple and natural. In the United Kingdom, especially during the Elizabethan period, translation activities flourished and the content was extensive. The Renaissance was an important turning point in the history of Western translation. At this time, the translation of ethnic languages was already very stable, and the translation practices and theories of various countries. The translation before the Renaissance mostly refers to the translation of Latin, and after that, the use of Latin is only a tributary.(Tan Zaixi 2004, 55-68)--Zhang Yujie (talk) 05:08, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

After the Renaissance, from the second half of the seventeenth century to the first half of the twentieth century, the translation of Western countries continued to develop, and excellent translations still appeared. But in terms of its scale and influence, the translation in this period is far behind the Renaissance. What constitutes the fifth climax of Western translation is the translation since the end of the Second World War in the middle of the twentieth century.(Tan Zaixi 2004, 86-88)

After the Renaissance, from the second half of the seventeenth century to the first half of the twentieth century, the translation of Western countries continued to develop, and excellent translations still appeared. But in terms of its scale and influences, the translation in this period was far behind the Renaissance. What constituted the fifth climax of Western translation was the translation since the end of the Second World War in the middle of the twentieth century.(Tan Zaixi 2004, 86-88)--Zhang Yujie (talk) 05:08, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

After the Second World War, the West entered a period of stability and peace, society developed on a large scale, the scope of translation was further expanded, and translations in new fields such as business and technology began to appear. The role of translation is not only the communication between cultures, but also extends to the exchanges of science and technology, trade, tourism, and biomedicine. Translation has gradually become a profession for some people, becoming organized and planned, and there are specialized translation agencies. Translation tools have also been further developed. Machine translation has strong vitality. It is the biggest challenge to traditional manual translation for thousands of years, and it is a revolution of far-reaching significance in the history of translation.(Tan Zaixi 2004, 176)

After the Second World War, the West entered a period of stability and peace, society developed on a large scale, the scope of translation was further expanded, and translations in new fields such as business and technology began to appear. The role of translation is not only the communication between cultures, but also extends to the exchanges of science and technology, trade, tourism, and biomedicine. Translation has gradually become a profession for some people, becoming organized and planned, and there are specialized translation agencies. Translation tools have also been further developed. Machine translation has strong vitality. It is the biggest challenge to traditional manual translation for thousands of years, and it is a revolution of far-reaching significance in the history of translation.(Tan Zaixi 2004, 176)--Zhang Yujie (talk) 05:08, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Chinese Translation History

There are almost two thousand years in China's translation history. Chinese translation has gone through these stages. The Sui and Tang Dynasties ushered in the first climax of Chinese ancient translation. During this period, most of the translators engaged in translation activities were monks. They were mainly engaged in the translation of Buddhist scriptures. The eminent monk in the early Tang Dynasty, Xuanzang, was one of the famous translators of this period. Xuan Lei followed the original side of "faithful and easy to understand" in its translation practice, and tried to make the most of the advantages of literal and free translation. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the translation of Buddhist scriptures began to decrease; in the Yuan Dynasty, there were fewer translation activities.(Chen Fukang 2000, 5-18)

There are almost two thousand years in China's translation history. Chinese translation has gone through these stages. The Sui and Tang Dynasties ushered in the first climax of Chinese ancient translation. During this period, most of the translators engaged in translation activities were monks. They were mainly engaged in the translation of Buddhist scriptures. The eminent monk in the early Tang Dynasty, Xuanzang, was one of the famous translators of this period. Xuan Lei followed the original side of "faithful and easy to understand" in its translation practice, and tried to make the most of the advantages of literal and free translation. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the translation of Buddhist scriptures began to decrease; in the Yuan Dynasty, there were fewer translation activities.(Chen Fukang 2000, 5-18)--Zhang Yujie (talk) 05:18, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

The second stage began in the late Qing Dynasty. During the early Qing Dynasty, the number of translators gradually increased. They are mainly engaged in translation activities aimed at translating Western science and technology, and their translation works have greatly promoted the development of science and technology in China. However, the focus of this period was on translation practice, and the discussion of translation theory was ignored. However, the focus of this period was on translation practice, while ignoring the discussion of translation theory.At the end of the Qing Dynasty, a large number of Western translations had a great influence on our country.(Chen Fukang 2000, 63)

The second stage began in the late Qing Dynasty. During the early Qing Dynasty, the number of translators gradually increased. They are mainly engaged in translation activities aimed at translating Western science and technology, and their translation works have greatly promoted the development of science and technology in China. However, the focus of this period was on translation practice, and the discussion of translation theory was ignored. However, the focus of this period was on translation practice, while ignoring the discussion of translation theory. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, a large number of Western translations had a great influence on our country.(Chen Fukang 2000, 63)--Zhang Yujie (talk) 05:18, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

These translation works have not only enriched our country’s literary forms, but also expanded our people's horizons, making them more aware of Western lifestyles, customs, etc; more importantly, Western ideology and concepts introduced through translation, especially Western The democratic ideology of my country has greatly affected our country’s intellectuals and radicals, making them devote themselves to reforming the aging and decadent society at that time.(Yan Fu (1853-1921) was a famous translator of this period. He translated a large number of excellent European political and social science works, including "Heavenly Evolution". He put forward the translation standard of "faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance" in the preface of the translation. This standard has still had a great influence on translation practice and theoretical discussion in our country. During this period, the discussion of translation theory in the translation world was mainly based on the three-character standard of Mr. Yan Fu. But the core of the debate was the issue of literal translation and free translation.(Chen Fukang 2000,66)

These translation works have not only enriched our country’s literary forms, but also expanded our people's horizons, making them more aware of Western lifestyles, customs, etc; more importantly, Western ideology and concepts introduced through translation, especially the democratic ideology of western countries has greatly affected our country’s intellectuals and radicals, making them devote themselves to reforming the aging and decadent society at that time.(Yan Fu (1853-1921) was a famous translator of this period. He translated a large number of excellent European political and social science works, including "Heavenly Evolution". He put forward the translation standard of "faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance" in the preface of the translation. This standard has still had a great influence on translation practice and theoretical discussion in our country. During this period, the discussion of translation theory in the translation world was mainly based on the three-character standard of Mr. Yan Fu. But the core of the debate was the issue of literal translation and free translation.(Chen Fukang 2000,66)

The third stage: The May Fourth Movement in 1919 marked a new historical period for my country's translation activities. Translations during this period were mainly related to Marxist-Leninist works and Western literary works, which greatly promoted the development of Chinese literature. The translation world mainly focuses on many issues of literary translation. For example, translatability and untranslatability, translation and literary creation, etc., carry out in-depth discussions. But the core is still the issue of literal translation and free translation.(Wang Xiaoqin 2009，85)

The fourth stage: The founding of New China pushed our country's translation industry into an unprecedented period of rapid development. The establishment of specialized translation agencies has made translation activities in various fields more scaled and organized. During this period, a large number of translations of Marxist-Leninist works and various scientific and technological works had a positive impact on my country's political and economic development. In addition, new breakthroughs have been made in the study of translation theory: literary translation principles have come out, such as Fu Lei’s theory of "similarities", Qian Zhongshu’s theory of "transcendence", and Liu Chongde’s translation standards of "faithfulness, expressiveness, and thoroughness". (https://www.sohu.com/a/58131849_348845)

The fifth stage: Since the reform and opening up in 1978, China's political, economic and other fields have required a large number of qualified interpreters and translators. Therefore, most translation activities focus on business, science and technology. In the past two decades, translation has made a large number of Western modern linguistic theories, translation theories, and many other related subject theories used by Chinese scholars, and Chinese translation practice and translation theorists have also benefited from it. They try to interpret translation from different respects.(Wang Xiaoqin 2009，86)

Similarities

Whether in China or the West, the scale of development of translation theory is always not as large as translation practice, but the two complement each other and form an indivisible whole. Although in the early stages of Chinese and Western translation, and these principles and rules were not summarized at the beginning, there was no clear and specific theory to guide practice, translation practice was guided by certain principles at the beginning. For example, when An Shigao and others were engaged in the translation of Buddhist scriptures around the third century in China, due to their limited knowledge of Chinese, they could not translate the original purpose of the Buddha into Chinese, so they unknowingly followed the "no text decoration" translation rule. In the West, when the Romans defeated the Greeks, they believed that their words could be "slaughtered" at will, so they had the translation principle of "comparable to the original" and "surpassing the original". On the other hand, due to the sublimation of the theory, the translation practice also has a more direction. For example, since Cicero, Zhi Qian started the theory of “literal translation” and “free translation”. In later translation practice, these two This translation method became dominant.(Yang Xiaoru 2013, 162)

Whether in China or the West, the scale of development of translation theory is always not as large as translation practice, but the two complement each other and form an indivisible whole. Although in the early stages of Chinese and Western translation, these principles and rules were not summarized and there was no clear and specific theory to guide practice. For example, when An Shigao and others were engaged in the translation of Buddhist scriptures around the third century in China, due to their limited knowledge of Chinese, they could not translate the original purpose of the Buddha into Chinese, so they unknowingly followed the "no text decoration" translation rule. In the West, when the Romans defeated the Greeks, they believed that their words could be "slaughtered" at will, so they had the translation principle of "comparable to the original" and "surpassing the original". On the other hand, due to the sublimation of the theory, the translation practice also has a more direction. For example, since Cicero, Zhi Qian started the theory of “literal translation” and “free translation”. In later translation practice, these two translation method became dominant.(Yang Xiaoru 2013, 162)--Zhang Yujie (talk) 05:31, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

The development model of translation theory is similar: from incidental discussions on translation issues, to conscious comments, to systematic conclusions.(Liang Dan2016, 103-104) Similarity of translation methods: Since ancient times, Chinese and Western translation theories have distinguished between "literal translation", "free translation", "dead translation" and "live translation". It's just that they differ in their expressions. For example, Cicero, the pioneer of Western translation theory, proposed that translators should become "speakers" rather than "stiff interpreters" when translating ancient Greek speech works. Similarly, the pioneers of translation theory in our country also proposed expressions with similar meanings. These views are essentially the concepts of "literal translation" and "free translation". Including later, many western translators put forward some supplementary points to make theoretical concepts more boundary and more detailed. For example: "imitation/paraphrase" proposed by Dryden in the United Kingdom, "dynamic equivalence/functional equivalence" and "formal equivalence" proposed by Nida in the 20th century, "communicative translation" and "semantic translation" proposed by Newmark, etc.They all revolve around the contradiction between "literal translation" and "free translation".(Tan Zaixi 1999，25)

The development model of translation theory is similar: from incidental discussions on translation issues, to conscious comments, and then to systematic conclusions.(Liang Dan2016, 103-104) Similarity of translation methods: Since ancient times, Chinese and Western translation theories have distinguished between "literal translation", "free translation", "dead translation" and "live translation". For example, Cicero, the pioneer of Western translation theory, proposed that translators should become "speakers" rather than "stiff interpreters" when translating ancient Greek speech works. Similarly, the pioneers of translation theory in our country also proposed expressions with similar meanings. These views are essentially the concepts of "literal translation" and "free translation". Including later, many western translators put forward some supplementary points to make theoretical concepts more boundary and more detailed. For example: "imitation/paraphrase" proposed by Dryden in the United Kingdom, "dynamic equivalence/functional equivalence" and "formal equivalence" proposed by Nida in the 20th century, "communicative translation" and "semantic translation" proposed by Newmark, etc. They all revolved around the contradiction between "literal translation" and "free translation".(Tan Zaixi 1999，25)--Zhang Yujie (talk) 05:31, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

When discussing translation issues, translators like to use figurative metaphors. For example, China has: Virgin and Matchmaker (Mao Dun) "Shensi" (Fu Lei) and so on. In the West there are: "beautiful and unfaithful woman" (Menar Day), "translator is a slave" (Dreiden), "dancing on a rope wearing shackles" (Dreiden )and many more. These metaphors are very vivid and easy to understand. It shows from the side that Chinese and Western translators are similar or similar in thinking.(Tan Zaixi 1999, 27)

"Faithfulness" is a concept that has been discussed in Chinese and Western translation history for more than two thousand years. This is another common feature of them. In China, the earliest concept of "faithfulness" originated from Zhi Qian's "Faju Jingxue". Lao Tzu said "beauty without faith, faith without beauty". In the West, this view can be traced back to Hera's poetry. When he wrote his poems, he told people that it was impossible to translate word for word. The "faithfulness" mentioned by these two scholars is actually different from the standard we are talking about now. The "faithfulness" that people understand now is semantic faithfulness.(Gao Jinlin 2012, 68)

"Faithfulness" is a concept that has been discussed in Chinese and Western translation history for more than two thousand years. This is another common feature of Chinese and Western translation. In China, the earliest concept of "faithfulness" originated from Zhi Qian's "Faju Jingxue". Lao Tzu said "beauty without faith, faith without beauty". In the West, this view can be traced back to Hera's poetry. When he wrote his poems, he told people that it was impossible to translate word for word. The "faithfulness" mentioned by these two scholars is actually different from the standard we are talking about now. The "faithfulness" that people understand now is semantic faithfulness.(Gao Jinlin 2012, 68)--Zhang Yujie (talk) 05:31, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

In addition, there are some similarities in the several climaxes of Chinese and Western translation: The first climax was called the period of classical translation theory in China, and it also appeared in the beginning of translation in the West. This stage is centered around the translation of the Bible and Buddhist scriptures. Luther's first The People's Bible laid the foundation for modern German; the King James Bible, which was also translated by 47 people in the early 17th century, promoted the development of modern English in Britain. So much so that the language is still unclear what Germanic language was like before the publication of the "Bible" translation. This shows that religious translation has a strong penetration of language and culture. Buddhist scripture translation has an even stronger influence on Chinese culture. It directly promoted the creation of Taoism and promoted the formation of "Neo-Confucianism" in the Song Dynasty. In terms of language, a large number of Buddhist words entered Chinese, even the word "translation" is from Buddhist scriptures. In literature, many metaphors and language are derived from Buddhism, such as reincarnation. Nowadays, Buddhism is still one of the main religions of Chinese people, and the good ideas it promotes have had a good influence on many believers. This shows that the translation of Buddhist scriptures has a profound impact on Chinese culture.(Li Xuan 2012, 131） In addition, there are some similarities in the several climaxes of Chinese and Western translation: The first climax was called the period of classical translation theory in China, and it also appeared in the beginning of translation in the West. This stage was centered around the translation of the Bible and Buddhist scriptures. Luther's first The People's Bible laid the foundation for modern German; the King James Bible, which was also translated by 47 people in the early 17th century, promoted the development of modern English in Britain. So much so that the language was still unclear what Germanic language was like before the publication of the "Bible" translation. This shows that religious translation has a strong penetration of language and culture. Buddhist scripture translation has an even stronger influence on Chinese culture. It directly promoted the creation of Taoism and promoted the formation of "Neo-Confucianism" in the Song Dynasty. In terms of language, a large number of Buddhist words entered Chinese, even the word "translation" is from Buddhist scriptures. In literature, many metaphors and language are derived from Buddhism, such as reincarnation. Nowadays, Buddhism is still one of the main religions of Chinese people, and the good ideas it promotes have had a good influence on many believers. This shows that the translation of Buddhist scriptures has a profound impact on Chinese culture.(Li Xuan 2012, 131）--Zhang Yujie (talk) 05:31, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Urgent communication needs are always the inducement of translation climax. Translation essentially exists for communication among people in different languages. Therefore, whether it is actively learning translation or passively accepting translation, as long as the demand for communication at that time suddenly becomes urgent, it will trigger a climax of translation. And this kind of period not only exists in a period of peace and stability, but also has an urgent need for communication in a period of social turmoil and change. In the West, we can see the stimulation of social demand for translation activities. In the third century BC, when ancient Rome conquered Greece and was also shocked by the splendid civilization of Greece, it translated a large number of ancient Greek works with an attitude of "matching the original", in order to make its own cultural level worthy of military status. . Another example is the many upsurges of Bible translation in Western history, and societies in different periods have different needs. During the Renaissance, people advocated the revival of ancient Greek and Roman cultures, and naturally there would be a wave of translation climax. After the Second World War, the desire of various countries to communicate with each other became stronger, which made the translation industry develop rapidly. In China, Xu Guangqi, a translator in the Ming Dynasty, wanted to learn advanced Western science and technology. He pioneered the learning of Western science and technology in the late Ming Dynasty and used it to "enrich the country and strengthen the army." As a result, this wind of learning did not open up too much, unable to awaken the full-name clan. Later, the Qing dynasty shut down the country and finally awakened all the people. The demand for people to learn science, culture, and systems from the West has never been so urgent. This formed the largest translation climax in Chinese history.（Li Xuan 2012, 131）

Urgent communication needs are always the inducement of translation climax. Translation essentially exists for communication among people in different languages. Therefore, whether it is actively learning translation or passively accepting translation, as long as the demand for communication at that time suddenly becomes urgent, it will trigger a climax of translation. And this kind of period not only exists in a period of peace and stability, but also has an urgent need for communication in a period of social turmoil and change. In the West, we can see the stimulation of social demand for translation activities. In the third century BC, when ancient Rome conquered Greece and was also shocked by the splendid civilization of Greece, it translated a large number of ancient Greek works with an attitude of "matching the original", in order to make its own cultural level worthy of military status. Another example is the many upsurges of Bible translation in Western history, and societies in different periods have different needs. During the Renaissance, people advocated the revival of ancient Greek and Roman cultures, and naturally there would be a wave of translation climax. After the Second World War, the desire of various countries to communicate with each other became stronger, which made the translation industry develop rapidly. In China, Xu Guangqi, a translator in the Ming Dynasty, wanted to learn advanced Western science and technology. He pioneered the learning of Western science and technology in the late Ming Dynasty and used it to "enrich the country and strengthen the army." As a result, this wind of learning did not open up too much, unable to awaken the full-name clan. Later, the Qing dynasty shut down the country and finally awakened all the people. The demand for people to learn science, culture, and systems from the West has never been so urgent. This formed the largest translation climax in Chinese history.（Li Xuan 2012, 131）--Zhang Yujie (talk) 05:31, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Differences

Because of the differences in culture, language types and thinking methods , the differences between the two in translation are self-evident. Compared with similarity, I think there are more differences with profound research value. First, there are differences in the degree of attention paid to the practicality of translation theories. Chinese translation theory has always focused on practicality. Before any theory is proposed, people will first consider whether this idea or theory can guide translation practice. Because of this idea, Chinese translation theory studies pay more attention to research methods and translation skills. For example, Yan Fu put forward the Three-Character Principle of "faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance", originally to describe translation difficulties, not as a translation standard. What he cares about is translation practice, not theory. For another example, Qian Zhongshu puts forward "sublimation". Such a theory does not have a complete system. In contrast, it is more like a method of guiding practice. In China, since ancient times, translators and translation theorists have been most concerned about how to use theory to guide practice. In the early stages of the development of Chinese translation, there was almost no systematic study of translation theories. In the early days, the explanations of translation theories were only a few words, only appearing in the introduction, or in the form of lecture notes, which were not popular to the outside world.(Tan Zaixi 2000, 13)

There is another example. Since China has never liked to talk about theory separately from reality, in the 1980s when the call for "establishing translation studies" was soaring, many people opposed the construction of translation theory, and they believed that translators should focus on practice. As for the theory, one or two simple and incisive ones are enough. The West is different. Although they also value practical application, they are more willing to develop translation theory into a logical, scientific, and systematic system. For example, Jerome and others clearly distinguish between literal translation and free translation, while Duoley and Tettler clearly put forward the principles and rules of translation. Especially in the Renaissance, Bruni, Vives, HumPhrey, Maneiit, Sebastino, Dubeli, etc. saw translation as a special study. They try to dig out the essence from the theoretical aspect through the facts. Therefore, from the beginning of the Renaissance to the 20th century, the West has conducted more research on translation theory than on actual operations. In the Renaissance, there was an in-depth explanation of the nature of translation and the concept of translation. In the 20th century, a large number of translation theoretical works appeared, such as Mounin's "Theoretical Issues of Translation" (1963), Nida's "Science in Translation" (1964), and Catfodr's "The Linguistic Theory of Translation" (1965). Compared with how to do it in practice, Western theorists seem to be more concerned about the study of various relationships in translation, which makes it difficult to understand and not easy to operate. This has also made it difficult for many Western theories to have a wide impact on the outside world.(Tan Zaixi 2000, 15)

The second difference in Western translation is the difference in thinking form. The difference between thinking mode. One focus on the comprehension and another pay more attentions to rational thinking.It is precisely because of the differences in thinking modes that lead to differences in the field of translation studies. In Chinese thinking habits, "enlightenment" is emphasized, and things can only be understood but not spoken. Therefore, in China, especially before the 20th century, translators did not have a systematic elaboration when discussing translation issues; while in the West, such as Aristotle’s thinking emphasized human rational thinking. People can give an exact explanation for everything that can be sensed. This is why there are so many translation factions in the West. Then some results of this difference are that in China, the quality of translation is often directly attributed to the talent and ability of the translator, and there is no set of objective and specific standards to restrain the translator. When discussing translation issues in the West, they often pay attention to "subject" and "object". For example, in Cicero's "On the Best Speakers", anyone who wants to translate the essays of the eloquent master De Mossini must first imitate his proficiency in speaking style. At the same time, it should benefit readers. Among them, De Mossini's speech style is the "object", and the beneficiary students are the "recipients."(Tan Zaixi 2000, 16)

The third difference is the expression of translation theory between China and the West. China is more implicit, while the West is more explicit. Generally speaking, the Chinese translation theory is vague and implicit in the expression of translation theory or translation thought. The meaning of a theory or thought is often not in the definition of the theorist himself, but in the understanding and interpretation of it by others, as the so-called "everything is silent". After Yan Fu put forward the epoch-making theory of "faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance" in "Tian Yan Lun", apart from elucidating this in the first half of the article, he never mentioned anything further for himself in other places. Explanation or follow-up supplement. What exactly does the word "faith" in the three-character principle of "faith, express, and elegance" mean? What do "da" and "ya" mean? What is the relationship between the three? For such issues, Yan Fu has almost nothing Give any rigorous and clear explanations. This is also because the expression of Chinese characters in China is inherently more concise. If such translation theories appear in the West, they will be considered lacking in logic and unclear definitions.(Yang Xiaoru 2013, 163)

The fourth difference is the conservative aspect of translation theory. Chinese translation theory will be more conservative, while the West generally focuses on seeking novelty. Because the traditional thinking of the Chinese makes them pay more attention to authority. From ancient times to the present, the views of the king or superior on the stage have been regarded as correct, at least not dare to question it easily. In the tradition of Western translation theory, authority is advocated rather than new and conservative. Ideological tendency has also existed since ancient times, and people have always been more superstitious about the authority of translation theory. For example, since Cicero, Horace and others put forward the idea of ​​paraphrase and not literal translation, many translators have regarded this idea as an authority. However, every kind of dogmatic and conservative behavior will not Lasts a long time. Taitler's "On the Principles of Translation" published in the eighteenth century more systematically discussed the principles and rules of translation, and thus brought new breakthroughs to Western translation studies in a sense, but people were far from Taitler or the principles set forth by him are regarded as insurmountable authority. In terms of content, his "Three Principles of Translation" are exactly the same as Yan Fu's "Faithfulness, Expressiveness, and Elegance" for a whole century later. However, his status in Western translation theories is far less. Yan Fu's position in Chinese translation theory.(Tan Zaixi 2000，17)

Conclusion

Translation is an activity closely related to language, and both Chinese and Western translation history have their own characteristics. Chinese translation has experienced five climaxes and is now in the fifth. And Western translation also has several different stages. In these historical processes, the history of Chinese and Western translation has converged points and sometimes developed in different directions. Many excellent translators emerged during these periods, such as Zhi Qian and Yan Fu in China, Dryden and Nida in the West, and so on. Throughout the history of translation development in China and the West, we can see the similarities between them. For example, they all start with translation practice and then explore translation theories; the core of their translation methods is the same, all around "literal translation." and "free translation". At the same time, their mode of thinking makes the history of Chinese and Western translation present many different characteristics. For example, Western translation theories pay more attention to systems and rigorous definitions, while China pays more attention to practical translation methods. Comparing the history of translation between China and the west, we can see their respective characteristics, and at the same time we can understand our own strengths and weaknesses so as to better guide the future development of translation.

Reference

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