《圍城》翻譯之淺見-精品文檔

1、圍城翻譯之淺見I . IntroductionQian Zhongshu ranks among the foremost and prominent twentieth-century Chinese novelist, and his novel Fortress Besieged ( Wei-cheng ) was an immediate success after its first publication in 1947, and has long been hailed as one of the greatest twentieth-century Chinese novels

2、. Lately, a piece of news written by Julia Lovell from Guardian ( 2005)has brought it back to the limelight of literaryworld, though not the way a classic should have expected.Fortress Besieged is a fairly uncontroversial choice.Ribald, sarcastic, set against the drop-curtain of wartime China, its p

3、ages populated by young westernized Chinese harried by their traditional families, Fortress Besieged has everything for a great novel. It ought to stand a better chance of reaching into the hearts of Anglophone readers than many other works of modern Chinese fiction. The truth is not so. Such a hurr

4、ah of modern Chinese literature stirs few ripples in the pond of Anglophone readers. As the report states, the translation which is, for the most part, competent hardly reproduces the dazzling, spiked wit for which the original is renowned; and dialogue, in particular, is wooden and unidiomatic ( Ju

5、lia Lovell 2005) . Through a brief analysis on the original text and the translation, a discerning and selective translator may get some inspiration, assimilating the good parts while casting aside the bad ones. t The Principles of TranslationLet us first look at the history of Western translation s

6、tudies. Up to the eighteenth century, Alexander Fraser Tyler ( 1790， P167) describes in Essay on Principles of Translation a good translation to be, that, in which the merit of the original work is so completely transfused into anther language, as to be a distinctly apprehended, and as strongly felt

7、, by a native of the country to which that language belongs, as it is by those who speak the language of the original work. The epitome of modern translation theories is represented by the theory of“ dynamicequivalence ” and “ functional equivalence ” , po inting out that the receptors of the messag

8、e in the receptor language ( Nida 1969 ) .Then, in retrospect to the history of Chinese translation, the well-known three-character principlesput forward by Yan Fu, faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance (“信、達(dá)、雅”) , has long been enshrined as the very motto of every Chinese translator. Fu Lei att

9、aches much importance to “ what is aimed for is not affinity in shape but likeness in spirit. ” In conclusion, as the genius and character of language is confessedly very different, it has hence become a common opinion, that it is the very duty for a translator to attend to sense and spirit of his o

10、riginal, to make himself perfectly master of his author s idea, and to communicate them in those expressions which he judges to be best suited to convey.ID . A Textual and Stylistic Comparison between the Original and Translation1 The Analysis of WordingOne basic way of looking at translation is lex

11、ical, so it is the chief concern for translators to get the words right first. As is illustrated in A Textbook of Translation, Peter Newmark ( 1988, p.73 ) makes this quite clear, “ All the same, we do translate words, because there is nothing else to translate; there are only the words on the page;

12、there is nothing else there. ” As a general point about translation is that, in principle, since corresponding SLand TL words do not usually have precisely the samesemantic range ( though many do in cognate languages ) , you are over-or under-translating most of the time. As is furtherexplained by P

13、eter Newmark( 1988, pp.34-35 ) that we must remember that the great number of words in one language include and overlap in varying degrees of meanings thewords they appear most obviously to translate into another language, and therefore more often than not they aretranslated by several different mor

14、e specific words. This illustrates one of the main problems in translation, theenforced shift from generic to specific units or vice versa. According to the said theory, deficiencies of this kind can be easily found in the book.Example 他那時(shí)窘得似乎甲板上人都在注意他，心里怪鮑小姐太做得出，恨不能說她幾句。方鴻漸從此死心不敢妄想，開始讀叔本華，常聰明地對(duì)同學(xué)們說

15、： “世間哪有戀愛？壓根兒是生殖沖動(dòng)。”(第一章，P78)At that momenthe was so embarrassed that it seemed tohim that everybody on deck was watching him. Inwardly he blamed Miss Pao for being too overt in her behavior andwished he could have said something to her about it. From then on, he buried his feelings and dared not in

16、dulge invain hopes. ¬He began reading Schopenhauer and would often say wisely to his classmates , “ Where is romantic love in the world? It s entirelythe reproductive urge. ”(Chapter 1 , P810)The word "說” (literally : say) shows up twice in the sameparagraph, and both times the translat

17、ors use the same word“ say” . Although it is grammatically and lexicallyadopted, non-Chinese readers can hardly tell the different emotional effects of these two “說” within the contexts, which can be easily discerned in the words of original works. In the first sentence, the word “說”( say) is actual

18、ly correlatively equivalent to the word "怪” (blame) , so it means expressing one s unhappy feelings; In the second sentence, it means preaching or haranguing one s idea to the public. So the following version satisfactorily reproduces both the literal meaning and the extended meaning：At the mom

19、ent he was so embarrassed that it seemed to him that everybody on deck was watching him. Inwardly he blamed Miss Pao for being too overt in her behavior and wished he could have complained to her about it He began reading Schopenhauer and would often preach presumptuously to his classmates, “ Where

20、is romantic love in the world?It s entirely the reproductive urge. ”2 The Analysis of StyleThe significance of style is clearly noted in TheTheory and Practice of Translation ( Eugene A. Nida & C.R. Taber 1969 )： though style is secondary to content, it is nevertheless important. In trying to re

21、produce the style of the original one must beware of producing something which is not functionally equivalent, which means that reproducing style, even on a formal level, may not result in an equivalence, and it is functional equivalence whichis required, whether on the level of content or on the le

22、vel of style.( 1) Classic ChineseThe author s knowledge of Chinese classics and Pidgin English unquestionably helps him to better caricature Mr. Fang Tung- weng, the protagonist s father, and Mr. Jimmy Chang, a Shanghai comprador. In the case of the former, his every thought is an allusion, a prover

23、b, or a quote from the classics, as evidenced in the following letter advising his son to pay more attention to school work:吾不惜重資，命汝千里負(fù)笈，汝埋頭攻讀之不暇，而有余閑照鏡耶？汝非婦人女子，何須置鏡？惟梨園子弟，身為丈夫而對(duì)鏡顧影， 為世所賤。吾不圖汝甫離膝下，已濡染惡習(xí)，可嘆可恨！且父母在，不言老，汝不善體高堂念遠(yuǎn)之情，以死相嚇，喪心不孝，于斯而極！（第一章，P8）Through the style of writing in this letter, it i

24、s self evident that Fang Tung-weng is the man himself: allusive, self-righteous, prejudiced, traditional, and pedantic.The success of the portrait of Fang Tung-weng is due, to a large extent, to the author s understanding of the empty posturings of the traditional country squire whose ideas are thos

25、e of the imperial past though he lives in the modern twentieth century. However, the way of expression in classic Chinese is not fully conveyed in the translation, in which the original flavor is largely lost.（ 2） Pidgin EnglishQian Zhongshu s portrait of the Chang s is precise, especially Jimmy Cha

26、ng. His speech has a special characteristic, he likes to sprinkle his Chinese with meaningless English expressions. It isn t that he has new ideas, which are difficult to express in Chinese and requires the use of English. The English words inlaid in his speech can not even be compared with the gold

27、 teethinlaid in one s mouth. A better comparison would be with the bits of meat stuck between the teeth-totally useless.And he imitates the American accent down to the slightest inflection. He uses American slang words and expression, such as headache for wife, States short for United States, dough

28、for money. By this it brings this little scene so splendidly to life is the way the author captures the pidgin English around him, so that Jimmy Chang becomes not a dim personification, not a stock figure of allegory, but a genuine flesh-and-blood comprador living in the great metropolis Shanghai:張先

29、生大笑道：“我不懂什么年代花紋，事情忙，也沒工夫翻書研究?？墒俏矣?hunch;看見一件東西，忽然 what d' you call 靈機(jī)一動(dòng)，買來準(zhǔn)O.K. 。他們古董客都佩服我，我常對(duì)他們說：不用拿假貨來fool我。Oyeah,我姓張的不是sucker , 休想騙我！"關(guān)上櫥門，又說：“咦，headache”便按電鈴叫用人。（第二章，P45）Mr. Chang laughed heartily and said, “ I don t know anything about period designs. I m too busy to have time to sit d

30、own and study it. But I have a hunch when I see something, and a sudden what d you call? inspiration comes to me. Then I buy it and it turns out to be quite OK.Those antiques dealers all respect me. I always say to them, Don t try to fool me! ” Heclosed the cupboard and said, “ Oh, headache” then pressed an electric bell to summon the servant. （ Chapter 2 ， P44）In such a short paragraph, Jimmy Chang intercepts five English words, and even American slangs, into the conversation. In the original version, Chinese and English are mingled together, and thus readers of the C