浙江农林大学本科生毕业论文
studies, namely the objectivity world (nature, society and thought), the author of the source text, the translator, the translation process, the target text, and the reader of the target text (杨自俭,2002:11).
3.1.2 Definition of the Translator’s Subjectivity
Many scholars tend to give a perfect definition to the translator’s subjectivity, but no
consensus has been reached. And I quote some of them, such as translator’s subjectivity refers to the subjective initiative displayed by the translator as the subject of translation, in order to fulfill his or her translation purpose under the prerequisite of respecting the translation object. The basic features of the subjectivity are the cultural consciousness, personal characters, styles, and aesthetic creativity of the translator as the subject of translation (查明建&田雨, 2003:22). The so-called translator’s subjectivity is the translator’s conscious awareness of his/her own personality and creativity. The existence and strength of the translator’s subjectivity influence the whole translation process and the value of the outcome of translation…In our opinion, the core of the translator’s subjectivity is the translator’ aesthetic pursuit and creativity (许钧, 2003:10). From their definition, we can say something in common is that they acknowledge that translator’s initiative and their cultural and personal awareness as well as the aesthetic creativity. However, initiativity and passivity are the main factors.
The translator’s subjective factors are composed of their values, purpose, knowledge, bias, even religion, among which their motivation of translation, aesthetic inclination and cultural attitude are of great importance. In fact, the embodiment of translator’ s subjectivity is not only on the basis of translation of the source text, but also of the selection of the source language, the translation strategies adopted and so on. In reference to the passivity of translator’s subjectivity including the features of the source and target language, such as the objective laws, the original culture, and the historical background.
3.2 Translator’s Subjectivity in Two English Versions
Just as we have mentioned, translator’s subjectivity are composed of two factors of initiativity and passivity. And translator’s cultural attitude, motivation of translation, aesthetic inclination is the three main factors that I will make further discussion in the following paragraphs. Furthermore, the three factors embodied in their translation versions will be involved.
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浙江农林大学本科生毕业论文
3.2.1 Cultural Attitude
Wang Zuoliang thinks that a translator should not only have bilingual knowledge, but also be familiar with the bilingual culture. Translation is Interlingua transformation of information on the surface, but intercultural conversation and communication looked from deep-seated meaning, language is the carrier of culture, while culture is the content of a language. As the subject between two languages, a translator should understand the culture of the two languages. “As far as a truly successful translation is concerned, being familiar with two kinds of culture is even more important than grasping the two kinds of culture is even more important than grasping the two language, because only words will not make sense without a cultural background” (郭建中, 2000:315). So we can see that translator’s subjectivity awareness has a great position in the translation. However, translation is not a process shifting one culture into another one, which is often restricted by the historical conditions either like people’s ideology, patronage and poetics in the manipulation theory, or the impact of context composed of political norms and cultural norms in the description and normative theory. We can see that some translator will more or less show his or her political and cultural inclination in the translation context.
Cultural attitude is the most stable culture deposits, cultural pursuits and cultural expectations of the social individuals in different cultural worlds. Translators should keep their own cultural attitudes. But translator’s subjectivity tends to require translators to promote communication between different cultural traits, to introduce and study foreign culture, to achieve deep understanding of it so as to promote our own culture (仲伟合, 周静, 2006:43)
Arthur Waley, the most outstanding British sinologist in the 20th century, enjoys great reputation in the aspects of Chinese literature, especially his English version of the Book of Poetry enjoys a high literary value which overwhelms those of James Legge and Bernhard Karlgren (洪涛，2008:57). His excellent translation works bring the oriental literature to the western world, making Chinese literature involved into western literature, and having a profound and everlasting influence on sinology in the west. Arthur Waley was fond of the literature and language study and dedicated to the study of the Chinese literature in his whole life. In his college, he approached the oriental culture, and had been attracted by the profound Chinese culture; therefore, he aimed to devote himself into studying and spreading oriental culture. To some extent, his culture attitude has greatly depended on his descent of German and Anglo-Jew. We know that Analects is the most representative work
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浙江农林大学本科生毕业论文
of the traditional Chinese culture, and Arthur brings the English version into the west, and achieve a great impact at that time compared with other versions. In the translation of the Analects, he holds on his own view “one period, one Confucius”. Another example is that benevolence(“Ren”) is the most essential in the Analects, but Arthur has not adopt the “goodness” to replace “Ren”,instead, he intends to combine the same connotation between them, which means that neither of them is equal to the other. And he prefers domestication due to his cultural identity, and we can know, to some extent, he has affected by the Chinese literature. As for the translations of Sun Dayu, are also successful, and he prefers to give preface when translating Chinese literature so as to help foreign readers. So we can find a great introduction of author in his works. 3.2.2 Motivation of translation
Motivation usually refers to the psychological feature arousing an organism to move forward a wanted goal, but objective means the goal intended to be attained. To some extent, translation is equal to translation purpose. When we talk about the purpose of translation, we have to mention Skopos theory. Skopos is a Greek word for “aim” or “purpose” and was introduced into translation theory in the 1970s by Hans-Venneer as a technical term for the purpose of a translation and of the action of translating. (Jeremy Mundy,2001:78). Usually we may say that translation is an objective process, however, it’s almost impossible to translate the whole text without involvement of personal feeling, purpose of translators, that’ s why we always can find out the difference between different kinds of translation works. For instance, some translators shed great light on the originality of the text, they may choose the literal translation, though, it’s obscure to understand, while others pursue the fluency and easy understanding of the original text, they may prefer free translation. In order to achieve the established goal, translators may adopt different methods in every translation activity.
Chinese literary translators have the responsibility of spreading our culture into the west world, enriching the world cultural system. Chinese poetry embodying the five-thousand-year Chinese culture occupies an important part in the East world. 3.2.2 Aesthetic Inclination
Translation, especially the poems translation, has to follow some certain aesthetic standards, because a good translation of poems will definitely give us an aesthetic enjoyment. Different translators, however, will meet different aesthetic standards, and their translation following different standards will produce different aesthetic effects, such as Xu
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浙江农林大学本科生毕业论文
Yuanchong’s art of beautifulization and creation of the best as in rivalry, Nida’s “dynamic equivalence and functional equivalence” and Yan Fu’s “faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance”. All these principles vary from each other, but each has their own taste. Arthur Waley pays more attention to the fluency and easily understanding of the target language, so his translation works are always simple and plain. Therefore, the translation of Arthur Waley inclines to be free translation, and Sun’s translation tends to be classical translation, because it is much beautiful, and sheds great lights on the artistic conception, style and form of the original text. In other words, we can say that reader is an important element in the Aesthetics of Reception Theory. Erwin Wolff put forward the conception of “intended reader”. (姚斯,1987:442). Terry Eagleton also proposed a similar concept the “implied reader”. He explained that every work is created for certain readers. (Terry Eagleton, 2010:105). In order to realize their translation, translator will take needs of his readers into consideration in the process of translation, just as those two translators have done in the translation.
4 Comparison on English Versions of Jiu Ge
Jiu Ge, a classical Chinese work, is difficult to translate due to its obscure meaning, rhyme, form and some culture-loaded items, which require translators mastering two kinds of cultures, some translating theory and strategies, moreover
r, their translation style is always different from each other. All in all, the problems may give rise to the mistranslation of the source text; therefore, it also influences the proper understanding and the spread of the Chinese cultures. Once some culture is denied by the whole world, it is a tremendous disaster to that nation.
4.1 Reproduction of Meaning
Translation is the way that helps readers get some new information from the source language, which means the reproduction of meaning is significantly essential. A faithful reproduction of meaning requires translators to have a complete and deep understanding of the source language as well as their cultures, some necessary skills like omission, adding.
In respect of re production of meaning, many differences of two English versions can be found. To a certain extent, Sun’s translation are more concrete and beautiful than that of Waley, such as the translation of “瑶席兮玉瑱，盍将把兮琼芳”. Sun’s translation: “with saffron jades to press the close knit mat, in his grasp are blooming twigs and bunched sweet
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浙江农林大学本科生毕业论文
herbs.” While Waley’s translation: “From the jeweled mat with its jade weight, why not now take the perfumed spary.” Personally I think Sun’s translation outweighs Waley’s, because Qu Yuan intends to describe the grand banquet. From their translation, we can find that Sun’s translation gives us an immersed sense because of the phrases like blooming twigs, sweet herbs. Another example is the translation of “灵连蜷兮既留，烂昭昭兮未央” in Yunzhongjun; Waley’s translation is “Now in long curves the Spirit has come down, in a blaze of brightness unending.”, while Sun’s translation is “His Divinity, coming down tall and slant, glowing with incessantly dazzling splendours.” When we analyze the two translations, we can know that Sun Dayu sheds more emphasis on the appearance of His Divinity by using words like tall, slant, splendours, which may help us to shape the image of His Divinity. While a sense of beauty cannot be found in Waley’s translation, to a certain extent.
4.2 Translation of Some Cultural-loaded Items in Jiu Ge
In fact, it’s acknowledged that it’s not easy to translate Jiu Ge because of some proper nouns, and culture-loaded items. In other words, those differences are caused by different cultures. Therefore, some words are untranslatable like plant-names, and mythological images, which are endowed with ample symbolic meanings. Being a culturally-laden text, the cultural components in Jiu Ge constitute great challenges to translators. It’s also worthwhile to mention that the language in Jiu Ge. Even for us, it’s not an easy thing to give a completely right explanation, let alone those foreign scholars knowing little about the Chinese traditional culture. 4.2.1 Translation of Plant Names
One characteristic of Jiu Ge is the figurative use of plants’ names, which have been embodied with great and meaningful meanings. The problem is that not all plants can be found in the western countries, even if there are the same plants whose endowed meanings are not completely equal to those in the East. For example, “香草” is considered as a kind of plant with magical function of driving away evil spirits. Moreoer, “香草” also symbolize those sweet love between young people like “杜若”. While other plants denote some bad implication, like“蘼芜”，which means the Feminine Querimony or separation of the couples.
When translating those plants, the two translators did not adopt those academic names but use some other easier words to replace them. And the plants involved in Jiu Ge
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