A Study Of Wang Zuoliang's Translation Style

Feng Ping (冯平) pointed out in his book On Evaluation (1995),"People have two different epistemic inclinations. One is to reveal the true colors of the world, which can be termed'cognition'; the other is to bring to light the value the world implies, which can be called'evaluation'. The former used to be the topic mainly covered by epistemology while the latter was always neglected by epistemology and somehow needs twice as much the attention of epistemology."The study of translation style is not only the translation criticism, but also a kind of evaluation. Mr. Wang Zuoliang, conversant with ancient and modern learning, is a learned scholar of tremendous accomplishment who enjoys high reputation in the academic circles both at home and abroad with many titles (an educator, a foreign literature critic, an expert of comparative literature, a translator, a translation theorist, a linguist as well as a writer and poet, etc.) simultaneously conferred on him, who is thus dubbed as"a versatile man of the Renaissance". This research aims, on the one hand, to analyze and clarify Wang Zuoliang's translation style resulting from the combination of his translation theory with his translation practice, and on the other hand, to find out how important and significant a role Wang Zuoliang plays in building China's translation theory and boosting our translation practice, especially in the literary translation cause. What a pity, however, that only a little has been done about the study of Wang Zuoliang's translation achievements, especially the study of his translation style, leave alone to study it comprehensively, systematically and scientifically.Under the guidance of the basic attributes of translation the present author proposes, Katharina Reiss & Peter Newmark's text type theory as well as Liu Miqing's theory of stylistic markers, this dissertation hereby attempts to make, by employing the contrastive analysis, quantitative and qualitative methods, a systematic and in-depth analysis of Wang Zuoliang's translation style as revealed in his translated works of verse, prose and drama in the light of the stylistic and translation features of the afore-mentioned three text types.This dissertation falls into eight chapters.Chapter One IntroductionStyle may include three aspects: (1) the theme, the genre as well as the technique the writer employs in dealing with them; (2) elegance of the writer's article (namely, the writer's style of writing including such features as being clear and novel, showy, meticulous or straightforward) and the keynote of article (i.e. the consistency of the writer's delivery, for instance, solemnness, glee, tediousness or melancholy ); (3) the writer's linguistic competence as well as his features of wording and phrasing, habitual usage, sentence structure, and even his particular way of saying things throughout his works. Consequently, the translation style, also known as"version style"(sometimes called"translator's style"), can be referring to the translator's artistic features and translating personality usually represented by his taste for the theme selection, his translation criteria, translation methods and his expression in target language, among which the translator's expression in target language is especially worth mentioning, because a translator, no matter what his translation theory and his artistic capability are, is inevitable to face the final harsh test of his target language competence. The translation style is usually determined by the translator's ideas for translation, creative personality, artistic inclination as well as his target language habit, and is then formed and developed through practice. Translators whose translation criteria and methods are different will by no mean have the same style of translation. And even if they had similar or same criteria and methods, their ways of saying things would also vary from person to person. Therefore, the translation style should be characterized with the translator's idiosyncrasy and persistence. The translator's idiosyncrasy, namely, the insubstitutability or inflexibility of style, is the core of translation style that the translator is certain to achieve in translating. The translator's idiosyncrasy consists of subjectivity and objectivity. The subjectivity refers to the personal discrepancies among translators; the objectivity is mainly reflected in the genre and the theme. The translator's persistence, however, refers to the relative stability of the translator's style resulting from his quantitative accumulation in the course of formation and development of his style to which he constantly contributes through his creative personality. If the translator's idiosyncrasy should represent his style qualitatively, his persistence as the means of the quantitative accumulation then would constitute the prerequisite for the qualitative representation. Consequently, the dissertation points out that owing to the diversified genres and themes pertaining to the original works, one's translation style is also likely to be diversified, for instance, translation styles of verse, prose, fiction and drama, provided that he maintains his persistence. Besides, the motivation, significance, methodology and scope of the study are also introduced in this chapter.Chapter Two The Study of Wang Zuoliang's Translation Theory and PracticeThis chapter begins with a summary about Wang Zuoliang and his accomplishment, pointing out that he is a famous educator, an authority on English literature, an inaugurator of comparative literature study in China, a noted translator and translation theorist, an outstanding linguist as well as an excellent writer and poet, because of which he earns the title of"a versatile man of Renaissance"and enjoys high reputation in the academic circles both at home and abroad. Then the chapter attempts to make a systematic and thorough analysis of Mr. Wang Zuoliang's translation theory, on the basis of which the present author holds that Mr. Wang's translation theory has already developed into a system that is made up of six ideas of stylistic translation, cultural translation, verse translation, translator's role, unity of translation theory with practice as well as translation study at a new age. In addition, Wang Zuoliang has an abundance of translated works, among which most are classical poems and essays, and some are short novels, drama etc. There are not only works of translation from English to Chinese but also works from Chinese to English. His translation is usually typical of clarity and novelty in terms of both language and meaning, and his art for translation is really perfect, especially, his art for E-C translation of verse, because poems are his favorite. As a result, he translated a large number of them, which have been mainly collected in his three books– Selected Poems of Robert Burns, Selected Poems and Essays of England and Selected Poems of Scotland. The poems he translated almost involve a large number of influential poets like John Milton (1608-1674), Robert Burns (1759-1796), George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Alexander Pope (1688-1744), Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), Hugh MacDiarmid (1892-1978) as well as the Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), etc. Selected Poems of Robert Burns, a book of making a name for himself, is the only verse anthology of a single poet Wang Zuoliang has ever translated, which can be said to have reached the acme of Robert Burns'translated poems and their studies in China, primarily reflecting Wang's ideas for translation. To sum up, Wang Zuoliang has translated quite a few of excellent English literary works (especially poems and essays) for Chinese readers and has thus made great contributions to the development of both literary translation and translation theory in China.Chapter Three The Literature ReviewIn this chapter, literature reviews of the stylistic translation studies and the researches on Wang Zuoliang's translation are made. In reviewing the stylistic translation studies, as for whether the translated works should reproduce the style of the original or it should reveal the translator's style, the present author of the dissertation first summarizes three major orientations towards it at present: (1) the style is translatable, and the translated works should reproduce the style of the original; (2) the style is untranslatable because the translated works usually reveals the translator's style only; (3) the question of style is rather tough to tackle, and the translator should leave the style as it is, regardless of whether it should be retained or not. Then he goes on by making a thorough and logical analysis of them one by one. Finally, he concludes that the style is translatable, but the translation could inevitably be tinged with the translator's own artistic cultivation and personality in translating because the translation style is typical of the translator's idiosyncrasy and persistence. Therefore, a qualified translator should learn to dim his own style by having his own personality properly integrated into the writer's as revealed in the source text, thus making the translation equivalent to the original in style.Having reviewed the literature regarding the researches on Wang Zuoliang's translation, this dissertation holds that some researches on Wang Zuoliang's translation have been made in China which mainly cover four categories: (1) The value assessment of Wang Zuoliang's translated works with some examples cited and appreciated or with others'versions contrasted on the basis of the researcher's direct experience. The value assessment with some examples cited and appreciated is of intuitive translation study with some traditional characteristics; the value assessment with others'versions contrasted, however, is the research usually made within the framework of contrastive linguistics. (2) Stylistic studies of Wang's translated works, or rather, studies of how the stylistic features of the original are reflected in Wang Zuoliang's translated works, which can be referred to as the studies of putting stylistics theory to practice. (3) Application of modern linguistic theory (e.g.: pragmatics) to the inspection or analysis of the quality of Wang Zuoliang's translated works. (4) Studies of Wang Zuoliang's translation theory as well as studies of Wang Zuoliang's translation practice relating to his theory. In other words, some researches are only rough analyses of Wang Zuoliang's translation ideas or thoughts, and some, starting from summarizing Wang Zuoliang's translation ideas or thoughts, intend to analyze, by means of exemplification, his translation practice.In closing, despite some achievements already made on the study of Wang Zuoliang's translation, more in-depth, more systematic and more comprehensive as well as more scientific studies of his translation contributions with theoretical framework, especially studies of his translation style, still need to be made with great efforts.Chapter Four The Theoretical Foundation of Translation Style StudyIn this chapter, based on the researching features of translation style, the present author puts forward, for the first time, five basic attributes of translation– linguistic heterogeneity, information transmission, translator's subjectivity, textual creativity, stylistic appropriateness– that could provide necessarily the theoretical foundation for the formation, development and even study of translation style.The text type theory, proposed either by German translation theorist Katharina Reiss or British translation theorist Peter Newmark, is the theory that classifies text types according to their linguistic functions. Though somewhat different, Reiss's classification and Newmark's classification are fairly similar. Therefore, both of them are combined and discussed as a whole in the dissertation to mean the text type theory in general. The text type theory is of great significance to the study of translation style. Both Reiss and Newmark attempt to establish, in the perspective of function of translation, a set of objective and systematic criteria for translation criticism by evaluating, after classifying them, different types of texts. Accordingly, as the text types are different, so translation principles and strategies differ, and criteria for the judgment of translation style differ as well. What really matters here in this case is to see whether the intention for translating and the expected function of the source text type can be properly carried out in the target text. Therefore, it shall be the starting point for the researcher of translation style to determine functions of both source text and target text. If functions of both texts are in agreement, the researcher then is able to determine, by employing the translation criterion of the text type, whether the target text and the source text have got the same communicative function. If they are not in line with each other, the researcher then should concentrate himself on finding out the motivation underlying and the impact on the target text made by, the alteration of style in the target text to see whether the target text has taken on any different function from the source text according to the specific background in which the translation is done instead of the criterion of"equivalence". In this respect, the text type theory could at least offer people a new perspective for the evaluation of the target text that translation criteria are relative rather than absolute, and that they are diversified instead of unitary. Differences of text types could bring about the abundance and diversity of translation style.The translation style theory proposed by Liu Miqing (刘宓庆) holds that the style is not the thing implied in manner of writing which is entirely imaginary, but something visible represented by a system of stylistic symbols– stylistic markers which can be identified by the translator from the linguistic form of source text. That is to say, the style of the original works is made up of a system of markers that can be identified, and the means of identification is to seize the system of stylistic markers. In order to seize the stylistic markers, it is far from enough, however, for the translator to resort to some fuzzy glossaries only in describing the formal structure of the original. A detailed analysis should be necessarily made in this case about the linguistic form of the original in terms of wording, phrasing and sentence-making, etc. The style of the original works can be clearly seen if only the translator is able to make the analysis and has it integrated into the aesthetic activity in which fuzzy glossaries are usually used as non-formal markers. Liu Miqing thinks that the system of stylistic markers can be divided into"form markers"(focusing on the phonetic and formal variations) and"non-formal markers"(laying emphasis on aesthetic effect). As a result, the stylistic markers theory can not only be applied to the translator's identification and analysis of style in the original works, but also to the identification and analysis of the translation style as well as the comparative analysis of stylistic differences between the source text and the target text. Under the guidance of this theory, the translation style could possibly be analyzed more explicitly and reasonably.Chapter Five The Study of Wang Zuoliang's Verse Translation StyleVerse is a genre of literature in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm. It is usually written according to some pattern of recurrence that emphasizes the relationships between words on the basis of sound as well as sense. The demands of verbal patterning usually make verse a more condensed medium than prose or everyday speech, often involving variations in syntax, the use of special words and phrases peculiar to poets, and a more frequent and more elaborate use of figures of speech, principally metaphor and simile. Verse is the natural product of the poet's ideas and wording entirely infused into his works and its form. Verse is usually typical of tuneful rhyme and rhythm, abundant imagination, multiple poem's meanings, special language style and perceptible images. Verse translation herein is the hard nut to crush at least in three aspects: (1) Verse form is hard to be retained in the target version; (2) poem's meaning is hard to be fully and properly explored; (3) verse style is hard to be reproduced. Nevertheless, the verse translator still has a lot to do although verse translation is so hard a job. He could be a successful verse translator if only he fully brought into play his creativity and tried to make as short as possible the distance between the original and the target provided that he is faithful to the original. The everlasting and flourishing verse translation cause as well as a large number of excellent verse translations (including Wang Zuoliang's verse translations) published both at home and abroad throughout the history could serve as a convincing evidence.Wang Zuoliang loves poems all his life. He wrote poems, studied poems, compiled books of poems, wrote papers on poems and translated poems. Verse translation is his favorite in the case of his translation work, which he did most and best as well. His verse translation theory of"translating verse as verse"and"poet as poetry translator"had been very well put into his practice. What he liked to do most with devoted efforts in terms of verse translations is of course the English poems of Great Britain. Selected Poems of Robert Burns, Selected Poems and Essays of England and Selected Poems of Scotland are the most famous, covering the poems of almost all the influential poets in Great Britain as well as the poems by Irish poet W. B. Yeats and the like. His verse translations such as My Luve Is Like a Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns and Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley are widely read as good versions in Chinese.Having made a stylistic analysis of the poem My Luve Is Like a Red, Red Rose in the original, this chapter, by means of multi-versions contrast and quantitative and qualitative methodology, attempts to make a detailed contrastive analysis of the three versions by Wang Zuoliang, Guo Moruo (郭沫若) and Yuan Kejia (袁可嘉) respectively. The analysis leads to the conclusion that Wang Zuoliang's version is the closest to the original in poem's meaning, poetic art and language use. Likewise, the contrastive analysis of the three versions of the poem Ode to the West Wind translated by Wang Zuoliang, Jiang Feng (江枫) and Yang Xiling (杨熙龄) respectively indicates that Wang Zuoliang's version is faithful to the original and expressive in ideas with a thorough understanding of poetic meaning; closest in poetic art to the original with some flexibility; vivid in language and easy to understand.To sum up, the study shows that Wang Zuoliang's verse translations are similar in rhyme and rhythm, faithful in meaning and close in style to the original but clear and novel in target language with some felicity, which is quite in agreement with what he advocated–"everything should be transferred according to the original, i.e. the target text should be tantamount to the original in elegance, depth, speaking tone and style."His verse translation, so to speak, is the very realization of his verse translation theory --"translating verse as verse"and"poet as poetry translator".Chapter Six The Study of Wang Zuoliang's Prose Translation StyleProse is the form of written language that is not organized according to the formal patterns of verse. It may have some sort of rhythm and some devices of repetition and balance, but these are not governed by a regularly sustained formal arrangement, the significant unit being the sentence rather than the line. A prose usually discusses a subject or proposes an argument without claiming to be a complete or thorough exposition. In this chapter, the present author summarizes five stylistic features of prose: (1) subjectivity in the angle of narration; (2) individuation in discourse style; (3) contextualization in discourse structure; (4) emptiness in narrative tactics; (5) aestheticness in linguistic expression. Accordingly, while translating prose, the translator should be able to (1) grasp the style of the original so as to reproduce the stylistic features in the target text; (2) place himself in the specific context of the original so as to restructure its aesthetic features of content in the target text; (3) weigh his word so as to reduplicate the aesthetic features of form in the target text.Wang Zuoliang has translated some essays (though not so many in quantity as verse translations), most of which are from English to Chinese. The originals he selected (such as Of Studies ) are so classical and his translations are so well-received and influential that he is recognized as one of the most outstanding translators in China. Having made a stylistic analysis of two original essays Of Studies written by Francis Bacon and A Shooter by William Cobbett, this chapter, by means of quantitative-qualitative methodology, makes a detailed contrastive analysis between Wang Zuoliang's version and other translators'versions. The analysis shows that Wang Zuoliang has extraordinary abilities and skills in understanding the original, weighing his word as well as expressing the feelings and ideas, and that his versions are faithful and felicitous with an appropriate, terse and precise diction, and a coherent and clear arrangement of discourse, and that he is sensitive to various styles and is really an expert of language. His prose translations not only faithfully transfer the original content or ideas, but also felicitously reproduce the stylistic features and aesthetic value pertaining to the original. That is to say, each of his prose translations -- the excellent version in both form and spirit -- is the very unity with form, content and style of the source text.Chapter Seven The Study of Wang Zuoliang's Drama Translation StyleDrama, a major genre of literature, is the general term for performances in which actors impersonate the actions and speech of fictional or historical characters for the entertainment of an audience. One of its striking characteristics is that the dialogue (or actor's lines) primarily written for being read aloud is a significant component of drama on which the plot development, the character creation and the idea delivery mainly rely. As a result, the style of drama language, according to Professor Feng Qinghua (冯庆华), could be described as having the characteristics of (1) attaching importance to the poetry-like meaning, (2) setting store by the use of rhetoric, (3) being true to life and (4) giving prominence to the character's personality.Consequently, while doing drama translation, the translator should primarily reproduce to the best of his ability the colloquial theatrical style of the original—the dialogue's poetry-like, artistic, daily-life and personal features. In order to reproduce them, the translator should not only be able to be loyal to the original writer but also take into consideration the principle of functional equivalence—the receptor's response to the target text equals the receptor's response to the source text. As a result, the present author suggests four points for attention in translating drama: (1) the translator ought to feel what the audience feels; (2) he should give prominence to the sound effect; (3) the translation must be easy to understand; (4) the version should be free of annotations. Thunderstorm, the maiden works by the noted playwright Cao Yu (曹禺) written in 1933, is one of the best-known theatrical plays in modern China. Its extraordinary artistic accomplishment and the important role it plays in the history of modern Chinese drama gave rise to the appearance of its English version by Wang Zuoliang and A.C. Barnes in 1958. In this chapter, the present author, based on stylistic markers theory and stylistic features of drama, makes an analysis of Wang Zuoliang's drama translation style as revealed in Thunderstorm in terms of its form markers and non-formal markers. The analysis indicates that the scenario of the English version is as twisty, vivid, intense and exciting as the original; that the language used in the target text is plain and clear, felicitous and natural, as well as terse and implicit, which very effectively keeps such features of drama discourse as colloquialism, characterization and poetic dramatization; and that the target text very successfully reduplicates the ideas and emotions as well as artistic taste of the source text by firmly grasping the plurality and diversity of the inner world of the characters. In other words, Wang Zuoliang has faithfully and felicitously conveyed the stylistic markers inherent in the original into the English version. Chapter Eight ConclusionIn the last chapter, the present author summarizes Wang Zuoliang's translation style in general, and brings the study to an end by discussing the value, limitation and further research of the study.Wang Zuoliang's translation style in general could be summarized as being faithful to the original, expressive in idea, felicitous in diction and flexible in principle and strategy."Being faithful to the original"can be regarded as the most direct embodiment in translation practice of his translation ideas like"everything should be transferred according to the original, i.e. the target text should be tantamount to the original in elegance, depth, speaking tone and style";"being expressive in idea"can be thought of as the product of implementing his translation thoughts such as"the language a translator uses should be alive, clear and novel","an emphasis must be placed on appropriateness of style"and"the target language shall fit into the specific social occasion in which it is spoken";"being felicitous in diction and flexible in principle and strategy"properly reflects his idea that the translation method shall vary from writer to writer, from works to works and from receptor to receptor, which he has long advocated. As far as Wang Zuoliang's translation accomplishment is concerned, he is at once a famous translation theorist and an outstanding translator. His theory originates from his ceaseless practice which is of great achievement and in turn guides his practice. He is creditably a prominent exemplary figure in the translation field of China.The study is of great significance to translation studies. The present author points out that there are at least three aspects worthy of people's special attention:(1) Translation theory and practice are two indispensable factors in building and developing translatology. Only if people unanimously had the theory and practice unified, would translatology develop more smoothly and rapidly in China. In this respect, Wang Zuoliang has set us a good example.(2) It can be seen clearly that many of Wang Zuoliang's famous versions are usually produced under three conditions. One is that the originals are usually masterpieces; another is that he likes them very much; another is that he translated them usually for the sake of his devoted research work. Under the circumstances, if a translator would like to produce good versions, one thing that is most likely to determine his success, in addition to selection of the originals, could probably be his interest and motivation underlying his translating.(3) If a person would really like to do well in literary translation and would be long remembered, he himself had better be a good writer or poet. If so, he is most likely to thoroughly understand the original, felicitously convey the original meaning and properly reproduce the original style. In this way, he could be able to translate verse as verse and prose as prose, just as Wang Zuoliang did.Finally, this dissertation points out that a more thorough and theoretical study still needs to be made of Wang Zuoliang's translation theory and practice, including"Wang Zuoliang's Stylistic Translation: A Modern Linguistic Perspective","A Study of Dialogues in Thunderstorm and Their Translation","A Study of Address Forms in Thunderstorm and Their Translation", etc. in order to further clarify the significance and academic value of Wang Zuoliang's translation achievements in building China's translation theory and boosting our literary translation. Besides, if a further theoretical exploration and description of multi-versions contrastive analysis as well as its principle, methodology and significance could possibly be made, it would then be a great contribution to the establishment of"Contrastive Studies of Versions"that some scholars in China are looking forward to.