Language: Ambiguity of Chinese Language

==Ambiguity of Chinese Language== (e.g. Tang Poetry)

Introduction

Ambiguity is very common in natural language, especially in poetry. In Chinese, of course, there is ambiguity in different texts and times, and a lot of researchers have made various studies on this language phenomenon. Despite many discussions and clarifications, the definition of ambiguity is still not fixed, depending on when and where the concept is adopted and used. In this text, we are going to define ambiguity mainly from the perspective of Classical Chinese Poetry. Then, we will discuss different types of ambiguity, which work as a structure for analysis so that we can have a clear knowledge of ambiguity and recognize it in contexts. We further explore the impact of ambiguity in Chinese-to-English translation with translated Chinese Tang Poems as examples, because the differences in languages and cultures one must face during translating, in my opinion, would amplify the effects of ambiguity and strengthen its existence, making it easier to understand and grasp. And Tang poetry is definitely the gem of Chinese classical literature, with a vast volume of English-version translations provided to us to appreciate and analyze the effects of ambiguity in them. In conclusion, this text aims to provide some insight into Chinese language based on the analysis of ambiguity pervasive in it with Tang poems as examples.

Definition of Ambiguity

Rich and wide-ranging discussions have been held around the definition of ambiguity in different disciplines, covering linguistics, pragmatics, semantics and rhetoric. In his book Seven Types of Ambiguity, William Empson (1930) characterizes ambiguity in the poetry he discusses: “‘Ambiguity’ itself can mean an indecision as to what you mean, an intention to mean several things, a probability that one or other or both of two things has been meant, and the fact that a statement has several meanings.” It can be seen as a definition of ambiguity in broad sense. With more and more related researches conducted, scholars began to differentiate between ambiguity and other seemingly similar or related concepts, defining it in a stricter sense. R. Kempson (1977) distinguishes between ambiguity and vagueness in his book Semantic Theory. Gillon (1990) differentiates ambiguity from generality and indeterminacy. Shi Anshi (1993) explains why neither generality nor ambiguity can be counted as a kind of fuzziness or vagueness. Grace Qiao Zhang (1998) clarifies differences between fuzziness, vagueness, generality, and ambiguity, and defines ambiguity as “expressions which have more than one semantically unrelated meaning.” Song Yanyun (2007) expounds on the distinctions between ambiguity, polysemy, vagueness and generality, and defines ambiguity as “the phenomenon of speech understanding that listener has two or more interpretations on language meaning or speech meaning of phrase or sentence in the process of verbal communication.” It is worth noting that in traditional linguistic study, ambiguity is considered as some sort of negative and irregular phenomenon in language that impacts the accuracy of meaning and causes trouble in communication, and therefore should be avoided. However, in modern times, more and more scholars hold that ambiguity is not a deficiency of language; instead, it is a natural characteristic of language that enriches our expressions and allows the flexibility of meaning. Such view particularly gains prominence in the field of rhetoric. As I.A Richards (1936) remarked: “Where the old Rhetoric treated ambiguity as a fault in language, and hoped to confine or eliminate it, the new Rhetoric sees it as an inevitable consequence of the powers of language and as the indispensable means of most of our most important utterances—especially in Poetry and Religion.” In this text, we define ambiguity in a more general way: if an expression has more than one meaning, it can be seen as ambiguous. That is, no matter an ambiguous expression in a context is intentional or unintentional, and whether it is a device of rhetoric or not, as long as the expression has more than one meaning, we can define it as ambiguous. The definition can better serve our purpose of this text to appreciate Tang poems and understand the existence of ambiguity in Chinese language, as the title suggests. To better illustrate the concept, we still need a more detailed classification of ambiguity that works to dissect this language phenomenon.

Types of Ambiguity

William Empson classifies ambiguity into seven types : The first type of ambiguity is the metaphor, that is, when two things are said to be alike which have different properties. This concept is similar to that of metaphysical conceit. Two or more meanings are resolved into one. Empson characterizes this as using two different metaphors at once. 1. Two ideas that are connected through context can be given in one word simultaneously. 2. Two or more meanings that do not agree but combine to make clear a complicated state of mind in the author. 3. When the "author is discovering his idea in the act of writing..." Empson describes a simile that lies halfway between two statements made by the author. 4. When a statement says nothing and the readers are forced to invent a statement of their own, most likely in conflict with that of the author. 5. Two words that within context are opposites that expose a fundamental division in the author's mind.

However, his classification is rather general without a cover term for each specific kind of ambiguity (Quangong Feng, 2022). Besides, the classification is proposed based on his research on English poetry and cannot generalize the characteristics of ambiguity in Chinese. Therefore, in this text, we borrow the seven types of ambiguity in Classical Chinese Poetry summarized by Quangong Feng, which are more typical in Classical Chinese Poetry and include the unique features of Chinese language. Feng’s seven types of ambiguity are as follows:

1. Grammatical ambiguity: grammatical ambiguity mainly refers to an ambiguity that arises from a lack of inflection in Chinese. 2. Lexical ambiguity: lexical ambiguity occurs when Chinese characters have multiple meanings, especially when their modern usage is quite different from their meanings in ancient times. 3. Rhetorical ambiguity: rhetorical ambiguity is produced by certain rhetorical devices or figures of speech, such as metaphor, pun, hyperbole, synaesthesia, and euphemism. 4. Thematic ambiguity: thematic ambiguity occurs when the theme of a poem is uncertain or disputed or multiple, or the poem itself is a kind of contextual pun that says one thing literally while actually means another. 5. Logical ambiguity: logical ambiguity refers to the implicit or indeterminate nature of logic between different words, phrases, clauses or sentences in a poem. 6. Intertextuality ambiguity: intertextuality refers to “the relationship between a given text and other relevant texts encountered in prior experiences” (Neubert and Shreve, 1992:117). Intertextual ambiguity in the translation of Chinese Classical Poetry mainly arises from the reasons why the poet uses intertextual resources and which point(s) the poet wants to highlight. 7. Stylistic ambiguity: style essentially refers to the way how language is used and stylistic ambiguity mainly arises from the uncertainty or indeterminacy of modes of speech or point of view and so on.

4.1 Grammatical Ambiguity=

There are huge differences between Chinese and English, since the former belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family while the latter belongs to the Indo-European family. During Chinese-to-English translating, these differences will become source of ambiguity, especially regarding inflection, such as tense and aspect, number, and personal pronouns. Chinese has no inflectional markers for tense and aspect, that’s why ambiguity occurs when translating poems regarding this.

Example 1

君问归期未有期，巴山夜雨涨秋池。 (Excerpt from《夜雨寄北》by Li Shangyin) You ask when I’m coming: alas not just yet… How the rain filled the pools on that night when we met! Herbert A. Giles You ask me when I can come back but I don’t know. The pools in western hills with autumn rain o’er flow. Xu Yuanchong In the original text, “巴山夜雨涨秋池”depicts a scene to readers, but no one knows exactly when this should happen. Giles uses past tense of the verb to indicate the scene is in the author’s memory, while Xu uses present tense to show that the scene is before the author’s eyes when he was writing the poem.

Example 2

白头宫女在，闲坐说玄宗。 (Excerpt from《行宫》by Yuan Zhen) One white-haired dame, An Emperor’s flame, Sits down and tells of bygone hours. Herbert A. Giles Only some withered dames with whitened hair remain, Who sit there idly talking of mystic monarchs dead. W.J.B. Fletcher How many dames were there? No one know for sure. It depends on the translator’s understanding. Giles and Fletcher respectively rendered it into “One white-haired dame” and “some withered dames”.

Example 3

美人卷珠帘，深坐颦蛾眉。 但见泪痕湿，不知心恨谁。 (《怨情》by Li Bai) A fair girl draws the blind aside. And sadly sits with drooping head; I see her burning tear-drops glide But know not why those tears are shed. Herbert A. Giles My lady has rolled up the curtains of pearl, And sits with a frown on her eyebrows apart. Wet traces of tears can be seen as they curl. But who knows for whom is the grief in her heart? W.J.B. Fletcher Sentences without a subject is typical in Chinese. However, in English the absence of subject is grammatically wrong. Therefore, translators have to figure this out in their translation. Giles added “I” to function as a subject, which reminds readers of the existence of an observer. Fletcher translated the first half of the line in passive voice, and changed the second half from a statement into a question. 4.2 Lexical Ambiguity One Chinese character or word can carry various meanings, thus leading to lexical ambiguity during translating. This often occurs when the meaning of some character in the modern time has changed from that in ancient times.

Example 4

床前明月光，疑是地上霜。 (Excerpt from《静夜思》by Li Bai) I wake, and moonbeams play around my bed, Glittering like hoar-frost to my wandering eyes. Herbert A. Giles. Seeing the Moon before my couch so bright I thought hoar frost had fallen from the night. Ezra Pound What does “床” refers to in this line? Like Giles, most translators go to the word bed, and couch is also an option, as in Pound’s translation. However, some hold that “床” here should mean jingchuang (井床, the platform for fetching water around the well) (Jiang, 2019), and in this meaning the line can be better explained, because it’s more reasonable for frost to appear outside the house around a well than inside the room. That’s why Xu Yuanchong rendered “郎骑竹 马来， 绕床弄青梅” in Li Bai’s another poem Song of Chang’gan as “On hobby horse you came upon the scene / Around the well we played with mumes [= chrysanthemum] still green.” 4.3 Rhetorical Ambiguity As we have mentioned, Rhetorical ambiguity arises from certain rhetorical devices, and here we are going to analyze some typical ones: puns, metaphor, and hyperbole.

Example 5

思君如满月，夜夜减清辉。 (Excerpt from《自君之出矣》by Zhang Jiulin) My heart is like the full moon, full of pains, Save that’tis always full and never wanes. Herbert A. Giles. I yearn like the moon at full: Am duller day by day! W.J.B. Fletcher The original line is a pun: the woman is turning haggard day by day because of lovesickness, just as the full moon is waning night by night. However, Giles’s translation totally goes to the opposite side of the original meaning, though he tried to maintain the pun effect with the word “full”. Fletcher did better in retaining the original meaning, and also attempted to pun by using the word “duller”. Dull can mean a color or light is not bright, or someone is not lively or energetic. Therefore, it fits the context very well and maintains the pun through the method of polysemy.

Example 6

谁言寸草心，报得三春晖？ (Excerpt from《游子吟》by Meng Jiao)

Such life-long mother’s love how may One simple little heart repay? W.J.B. Fletcher But how much love has the inch-long grass For three spring months of the light of the sun? Witter Bynner. The theme of this poem is motherly love. From my view, the author expressed his gratefulness to mother in an indirect way, using the metaphor of the newborn grass that bask in the warmth brought by the sunshine in Spring (which can be seen as a symbol of motherly love). Fletcher makes it explicit and thus abandons the two images “寸草心” and “三春晖”. Bynner recognizes the metaphor, but his understanding seems to deviate from the original meaning. Metaphor turns out to be a hot potato in translation.

Example 7

忽如一夜春风来，千树万树梨花开。 (Excerpt from《白雪歌送武判官归京》by Cen Can) As when a genial breeze in early Spring Shakes open all the pear-trees’ blossoms white, And sombre-looking trees with leafless boughs Are decked with radiance in a single night. Charles Budd. (The snow) Is like a spring gale, come up in the night, Blowing open the petals of ten thousand pear-trees. Witter Bynner. The expression “千树万树” is a typical example of hyperbole. In Budd’s translation, he simply uses the word “all” to replace the original text, causing a loss of hyperbole effect, though he rightly understood the connection between snow and pear blossoms (both are white). Bynner’s version reproduces the hyperbole in the original text, which is advisable, despite that the analogy is lost in his translation.

Thematic Ambiguity

Thematic ambiguity often occurs when the whole poem is a pun, saying one thing literally while actually means another. In ancient China, bureaucrats often write poems about love between men and women. Those poems actually carry political intentions: often the female role in a relationship stands for the poet himself, and the male stands for the party that the poet wants to interact with, such as the emperor or the official at a level higher than the author. The poet’s political intention is dressed in the romantic story he tells, leaving room for both sides to manoeuvre. Such implicitness and dual meaning are very common in Chinese ancient poems.

Example 8

《节妇吟》 君知妾有夫，赠妾双明珠。 感君缠绵意，系在红罗襦。 妾家高楼连苑起，良人执戟明光里。 知君用心如日月，事夫誓拟同生死。 还君明珠双泪垂，恨不相逢未嫁时。 (by Zhang Ji) The Retort Courteous That I’m duly married, assuredly you know, And yet to me you send as gift twin pearls of mystic glow. For this your kind devotion my heart must grateful be. I hung within my red silk vest those pearls I might not show. My dwelling is a lofty one within a stately dome. My husband is a soldier who guards the Emperor’s home. I recognize your love as bright as shining sun or moon: Yet swear to serve my husband, and never from him roam. With your bright pearls I send again twin tears as crystal clear, Regretting that we had not met ere Fortune placed me here. W.J.B. Fletcher The poem itself is easy to understand as regards to its surface meaning: a woman, who is married, refuses the other guy’s love with pitiful feelings inside her. It requires some background knowledge to realize the true meaning of the poem. At that time, there were tensions between the then Emperor and commanders of local armies, for the power of the former is weakening while the latter is gaining strength. Li Shidao is one of the powerful warlords who wanted to draw Zhang Ji to his side. To refuse Li without causing trouble, Zhang wrote the poem to him, indicating in a soft way that he was a bureaucrat loyal to the Emperor and could not respond to his tempting gestures. This facet of meaning is blunted in Fletcher’s translation. Despite that, the wording and phrasing of the translated version is beautiful and express the surface meaning accurately.

4.5 Logical Ambiguity

Chinese is essentially an analytic language and the logic is usually hidden and ambiguous, especially in ancient poems which puts great emphasis on brevity. This allows interpreters to give different understandings of the logic as long as it’s reasonable. Example 9 劝君莫惜金缕衣，劝君惜取少年时。 （Excerpt from《金缕衣》by Du Qiuniang） Covet not a gold-threaded robe, Cherish only your young days! Witter Bynner. Spare not, my friend, the gold-embroidered gown, Miss not the years of you—enjoy them now. Lin Yutang Bynner’s translation draws a contrast between “金缕衣” and “少年时”, and is like the advice from an elder who told you to fulfil yourself in young days instead of hankering after material wealth. On contrary, Lin’s translation connects “金缕衣” with “少年时”, bringing to readers a carefree feeling: just enjoy your youthfulness and don’t spare those good things for late years! The two versions convey different attitudes and have varied poetic effects, but both are logical to read.

4.6 Intertextuality Ambiguity

Chinese Classical poems places great emphasis on intertextuality (similar to “用事” in classical Chinese poetics), and the poet Du Fu in the Tang Dynasty is a master of intertextuality, as Huang Tingjian commented: “The source of every character in Du Fu’s poems and Han Yu’s essays can be traced. It is because of limited reading of later generations that they say Du and Han have created words of their own.” The ambiguity lies in why the poet uses intertextual sources and what he tries to show to readers. Example 10 庄生晓梦迷蝴蝶，望帝春心托杜鹃。 （Excerpt from《锦瑟》by Li Shangyin） Master Zhuang woke from a dream puzzled by a butterfly, Emperor Wang reposed his amorous heart to the cuckoo. Dai Naidie & Yang Xianyi The sage of his loved butterflies day-dreaming: The king that sighed his soul into a bird: John A. Turner According to a fable story, Zhuang Zi (c.369-286 BC), a famous philosopher of the Warring States Period, dreaming of being a butterfly and when he woke up, he was so confused that he could not tell whether it was him that had dreamt of being a butterfly or it was a butterfly that was then dreaming of becoming him. Emperor Wang was a legendary king who had an affair with his prime minister’s wife and after his death his spirit changed into the cuckoo. Dai and Yang’s translation retains to a large extent the allusions, while Turner’s version are vague about the allusions, using “the sage” and “the king” to replace the two figures in Chinese culture. Also, we can find they have different understanding to the intertextuality. If we judge from a Chinese’s perspective, then Turner’s version is not that loyal to the original text, but there are creations and tact in his translation that contributes to our understanding of the poem.

4.7 Stylistic Ambiguity

This type of ambiguity regarding modes of speech and point of view is largely due to a lack of subjects in poems and thus it is also closely related to grammatical ambiguity. Example 11 下马饮君酒，问君何所之。 （Excerpt from《送别》by Wang Wei） Dismounted, o’er wine we had said our last say; Then I whisper, “Dear friend, tell me whither away.” Herbert A. Giles Quitting my horse, a cup with you I drank. And drinking, asked you whither you were bound. W.J.B. Fletcher In dealing with the text, Gile turns this line of the poem into a direct speech while Fletcher’s is an indirect speech. Both of them are logically acceptable because of the inherent ambiguity contained in the original line caused by the lack of pronouns as well as quotation marks. From the perspective of poetic effect, direct quotation can create a more vivid picture and inspire readers’ imagination in their mind. As for ambiguity in point of view, the question is often raised: who is the narrator? In Example 3, Giles added “I”, making readers feel that they themselves are the observer. Fletcher uses passive voice, indicating there is a third person as the narrator. The distance between readers and the main character in the poem will be longer if a third-person perspective is adopted.

5. Conclusion

In this text, we discuss the ambiguity in English translation of Tang poems from a general perspective, appreciate its literary value, and catch a glimpse at the mutual learning of cultures brought by English translation. When translation is not involved, the meaning of the words in the poetry text is basically static and stable. Once translated, the diversity of its connotations will appear immediately in the translated text, and new meanings that were previously unknown or imperceptible are highlighted, providing more interpretations to readers. We tend to believe that as native speakers of Chinese, we have the priority of interpreting Chinese texts, and are qualified to judge the correctness of the translation of sinologists. Nevertheless, the analysis of ambiguities in the translation process enlightens us that the original interpretation of native speakers may not be the only one. Moreover, we generally believe that the English translation of Chinese literature serves to promote Chinese culture overseas and thus only targets on foreign readers. However, we barely notice that it has another function–to help us re-understand our own literary works through ambiguity shown in their translated texts. German sinologist Wolfgang Kubin (2009) once said bluntly:

"I am German, and we have a long prevailing tradition. We learn foreign languages since childhood, and such learning helps us see the characteristics of German from another language system. My comments on contemporary Chinese literature and language today are all based on the languages I’ve learnt." Indeed, we need to learn more about our language through translation that works as a window to the view of people in other languages, and in doing so, we will have a broader and deeper understanding of a new, translated version of our own culture.

References

Lai Shixiong. (2011). Chinese Fuzzy Linguistics: Retrospect and Prospect. Foreign Language Teaching and Research 33(1): 7-14. Song Yanyun. (2007). On Ambiguity of Modern Chinese (Master's thesis). Available from CNKI. Gillon, B.S. (1990). Ambiguity, generality, and indeterminacy: Tests and Definitions. Synthese 85: 391–416. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Grace Qiao Zhang. (1998). Fuzziness --- Vagueness --- Generality --- Ambiguity. Journal of Pragmatics 29(1): 13-31. Friedrich Schlegel. A History of Ambiguity. Lyceum Fragmente 8, in KSA II, p. 148. Princeton University Press. Feng, Q. (2022). Translating Seven Types of Ambiguity in Classical Chinese Poetry. International Journal of Chinese and English Translation & Interpreting. Lv, Shuxiang (ed.). (2002). A Comparative Study on English Translation of Old Gems (《中诗英译比录》). Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. Zhao Juan. (2014). On the English Translation of Allusions in Li Shangyin's Poems—Taking "Jin Se" as an Example (论李商隐诗歌中典故英译的研究——以《锦瑟》为例). Journal of Mudanjiang University 23(11): 113-116 Wang Jiankai. (2017). A New Interpretation Elicited by the Translation: Reshaping the Meaning of the Original Text by the English Translation of Ambiguities in Ancient Chinese Poetry (译文引出的新解：中国古诗歧义英译对原文意义的重塑). New Perspectives in Translation Studies 9: 2-7.

Questions

1. What’s the definition of ambiguity in this text?

2. How many types of ambiguity are there in poetry according to William Empson?

3. Which kind of ambiguity occur in the translation of 《金缕衣》？