A Journey To The West

Martial arts fiction is a particular genre in Chinese literature and a very unique chapter ofChinese culture. There is nothing quite like martial arts fiction in the Western literarytradition. Different from other literary forms of the rest of the world such as Japan'ssamurai bushido stories, England's knight chivalry traditions and America's gunslinger"Western" tales, martial arts fiction is uniquely Chinese and builds up a world calledjianghu, or Brotherhood of River and Lake in Professor John Minford's translation, analternative world of martial artists which has its own code of conduct, concepts of honorand loyalty as well as language of wisdom and hierarchy. Superb martial arts works are notliteral games for entertainment but great artistic productions for enjoyment andappreciation.However, martial arts fiction is little known in the West. For a very long period of time,except recent movies such as Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000 andZhang Yimou's Hero in 2003, there is no official literal translated version of any martialarts work ever known by the Western reading public. The particularities of this literarygenre and the corresponding difficulties in translation have made many translators flinch,and the great pleasure of reading martial arts fiction has been constricted within China andthe Chinese-speaking communities overseas. It is until fairly recently that the translation ofChinese martial arts fiction is making great process and official translations of somefamous martial arts works have made their appearance one after another, such as WaterMargin (or Outlaws of the Marsh) by Acacia Press in 2001, The Book and the Sword byOxford University Press in 2005 and The Deer and the Cauldron by Oxford University in1997. These translation works have provided the vast reading public who desires to seekworld-wide knowledge in fields ranging from literature and culture to science andtechnology but who lacks the facility and opportunity to read books in the originallanguage the chance to approach great works of martial arts fiction---a very distinctivetreasure in Chinese literature and culture.But, will martial arts fiction, with its Chinese origin and particularities, be accepted swiftly by the Western readers? Can we say the original works are fairly loyally translated ordevastatingly rewritten? Will martial arts fiction arouse a huge international interest? Withthese questions and the belief in that martial arts fiction, as a shining gem in Chineseliterature, should receive fair treatment and be introduced to the rest of the world, we,through this paper, try to find answers by exploring Professor John Minford's translationwork of Louis Cha's martial arts novel"鹿鼎记"in detail and candidly evaluate hiscontributions to the introduction of splendid Chinese literary works, especially martial artsfiction, to the Western world. In other words, this paper focuses on the translation ofChinese martial arts fiction, with Professor John Minford's The Deer and the Cauldron as acase study. Through probing into such fields as the translator's attitudes in language,culture and political purposes of translation and his translation strategies, we hope that thisstudy will both interest the general readers and contribute to the scholarly conversations onmodem Chinese literature and culture and the genre of martial arts fiction.Mainly the study adopts two research methods, namely the macro-perspective method andthe micro-perspective one, with the former referring to a broad-sense literary review of theexisting theories in translation studies, different translation strategies and techniques, thelinguistic and cultural factors in translation, the stylistic features of Louis Cha's martial artsworks, etc., while the latter one a detailed study and analysis on the concrete translationwork of The Deer and the Cauldron in different perspectives. The paper takes an objectiveview to study the translation work The Deer and the Cauldron as it is, account for itsnature and tries to avoid unreasoning value-judgments and subjective criticism. Our aim isnot to judge the translation work as definitely good or bad, but, through the evaluation of it,to provide certain academic reference and bring forward some thoughts on the translationof Chinese martial arts fiction. And the paper will be organized as follows.Chapter one is a general introduction of the whole dissertation, which gives a generaldescription of the translation of Chinese martial arts fiction, the author and the translator ofthe focus of this study, the motives and significance of the research, as well as the methodsand steps in which we carry out it. Chapter two focuses on the theoretical studies of translation, probes into the relationsbetween the general attitudes and translation strategies of translators and tries to see whatinfluence these factors can exert on the practical process of translation. A generalintroduction about translation strategies, like domestication and foreignization, and theirdevelopment both in China and abroad is presented. Meanwhile, this section provides ageneral introduction to the theories which are applied to the analysis of the factors thatinfluence a translator's adoption of translation strategies, namely the translators' attitudesof language, culture and even political purposes.Chapter three is a study on martial arts fiction in a broad sense, which mainly discusses thedifferences between Chinese and English in terms of linguistic systems and cultural beliefs,the stylistic features of Louis Cha's martial arts works and the techniques that might beemployed in literary translations.Chapter four investigates detailedly Professor John Minford's translation work The Deerand the Cauldron at different aspects such as the translations of the title of the work, thenames of various characters, the chapter titles, poetic expressions and abusive language.This section starts with an analysis of Professor John Minford as a translator and hisviewpoint on literary translation, by which we hope, would help in better understanding histranslation work.And then the last chapter is a retrospection and conclusion of the whole work. Itsummarizes the purpose and significance of this academic research and lists the limitationsand possibilities for further studies.We hope a case study like this would rouse the interest in the circles of literary translationstudies and provide certain academic value or perspectives to those English languagelearners, especially those who are at the same time obsessed by Chinese martial arts fiction,to master the languages better, and those translation majors and scholars to get a deeperunderstanding of this unique literary genre. We hope it can help elevate the practicaltranslation work to a higher theoretical level, as Professor John Minford's translation work, despite different opinions in appreciation or depreciation, provides both translationtheorists and practitioners a good reference to and an insight into the actual translationpractice of marital arts fiction. What is more, we believe that a study on this translationwork is valuable in the development of translated literature and the cultural communicationbetween China and the West, as the study of translation is, in a certain perspective, a studyof cultural interaction.