| Embodying key notions of Confucianism and developing along a realistictradition since ancient times, classical Chinese poetry reached its climax achievementin Tang dynasty, incorporating the poetic spirit of Romanticism simultaneously.Against the background of frequent cross-cultural communication and rapidcultural globalization in the21stcentury, China Translation&Publishing Corporationpublished in2007the300Tang Poems (Classified by Theme) translated by XuYuanchong, aiming to display the enchanting beauty of classical Chinese poetry toEnglish readers, to promote brilliant Chinese traditional culture and to narrow downnational gaps between the East and the West.Xu Yuanchong, regarded as a most distinguished and most controversial Chinesetranslator, has translated and published a series of classical Chinese poems intoEnglish or French, and his translation works and thoughts keep attracting theresearchers’ attention in China. Xu’s career in translating classical Chinese poems intoEnglish could be roughly divided into three periods–the preparatory period, theprospering period, and the perfecting period.Research abroad on Xu Yuanchong and his translation is still rather fragmentaryand unsystematic, and the few criticisms available are different in opinions andsomewhat subjective in nature due to variant academic backgrounds and aesthetictastes of foreign scholars. By contrast, domestic research on Xu Yuanchong is muchmore prosperous, appearing frequently in forms of academic journal articles,monographs, theses or dissertations. These studies have made greater achievement inwidth of scope, depth of analysis and variety of perspectives; however, they still needpromotion in objectivity and systematicity as modern cases of translation studies. Asprescriptive translation studies aiming at value-judging and standard-setting prevailwell over descriptive translation studies, limitations such as illogicality inargument-reasoning, imbalance in perspective-choosing and monotony in the standardfor evaluation could now and then be found in these studies.Realizing the problems in present studies on Xu and his translations, the author decides to take a descriptive case study on one of his major translation work–300Tang Poems (Classified by Theme). By observing linguistic features of the translationand translating strategies adopted by the translator, the author tries to reconstruct thetranslational norms embedded in the translation, to investigate the forming causes andworking effects of those translational norms, and to evaluate the translator and hisworks in an objective and impartial manner. It is hoped that this dissertation couldprovide some inspiration and insight for the practice and research in the field ofclassical-Chinese-poetry translation.This dissertation applies such researching method as comparison, description,analysis, deduction, etc. to the reconstruction of translational norms in the book. Toimprove the validity and reliability of the dissertation, the author tries her best toreflect both the humanistic and scientific nature of the translation studies, byincorporating objective description with logical judgment, quantitative investigationwith qualitative analysis, and diachronic examination with synchronic comparison.Besides, to verify the actual communicative effects of the translational norms adoptedby the translator, the author refers to some authoritative data acquired by otherscholars in related empirical research.This dissertation adopts Toury’s theory on translational norms as the basictheoretical framework in reconstructing the translational norms embedded in300TangPoems. Toury’s theory is adjusted flexibly to situational needs while being applied tothe development of argumentation, and it is supplemented properly by relevantculture-oriented translation theories, which consolidate effectively the theoreticalframework of this dissertation.The concept “norm” is originally a sociological term, which refers to principlesor standards directing and regulating people’s social behavior to maintain propersocial order. Studies on translational norms virtually run through the whole history oftranslation studies, and after the development over two thousand years, the researchon translational norms has gradually changed its model from sporadic to systematic,from prescriptive to descriptive.Toury is generally counted as the first learner who made a systematical descriptive study on translational norms. After a study on large quantities of theHebrew translated literary works, he proposed that “Norms can be expected to operatenot only in translation of all kinds, but also at every stage in the translating event, andhence to be reflected on every level of its product”(Toury,2001:58).According to Toury, there are three basic kinds of norms operating in the wholeprocess of translation, namely: initial norm, preliminary norms and operational norms.Among them, initial norm concerns the translator’s fundamental choice betweenrequirements of source culture and target culture involved in translation. Preliminarynorms reflect and influence two different but related aspects: translation policies anddirectness of translation. And operational norms, which can be subdivided intomatricial norms and textural-linguistic norms, direct concrete decisions on translationstrategies in the process of translation. For a study on translational norms, aretrospective target-oriented approach is suggested by Toury. The researcher shouldpay special attention to regular “shifts” in translated versions, which usually betraythe inclination of the translator’s decision, and could be very valuable to normreconstructing.Toury’s thought on translational norms provides an inspiring perspective for theauthor to establish the theoretical framework and research approach of thisdissertation. Following the categorizing methods of Toury on translational norms, theauthor makes a descriptive case study on300Tang Poems translated by XuYuanchong, and tries to reconstruct the preliminary norms, operational norms andinitial norm embedded in the book of translation.1). Preliminary norms. The preliminary norms observed in this book conform tothe open translation policies in China，satisfy the global needs of cross-culturalcommunication，and reflect the necessity and feasibility of direct translation.Under a favorable global surrounding for translation, China Translation&Publishing Corporation has set proper translation objectives complying with statetranslation policies. The materials for translation are chosen to cater for doubleobjectives–promoting the influence of Chinese culture and arousing target readers’interests in reading Chinese classics. To ensure the quality of direct translation, China Translation&Publishing Corporation invited Xu Yuanchong as the responsibletranslator, who is credited with translation competence and mastery of both Englishand Chinese.2）Operational norms. Operational norms in this book are reflected in Xu’sconcrete translating strategies to solve translation problems.After a comparative study between the original text and translated text of asample poem, the author classifies typical problems in translating Tang poems into tentypes, which lie on two levels of the poetic language: form and meaning. Theserepresentative translation problems concern genre, arrangement of line, rhymingpattern, rhythm pattern, punctuation, cohesion， obscurity of meaning, image,culture-loaded noun, and symbolic use of number. Xu solves those translationproblems in flexible yet somewhat regular ways, and the operational norms he abidesby reflect double influences of Chinese and English cultures.Xu tries his best to make the genre, arrangement of line, musical effect, imageand holistic meaning of the translated version consistent with the original text,intending to convey the main poetic characteristics and overall artistic conceptions ofTang poetry. On the basis of achieving global stylistic similarity with Tang poetry, thetranslator incorporates literary features of English poems in his translation whensuitable, presenting the translated poems with smooth language, cohesive logic andclear connotation, yet without losing literary flavor of Tang poetry. In the translatingprocess, the translator makes flexible use of such skills as amplification, deletion,conversion, combination, division, negation, etc., giving full play to translator’ssubjectivity and creativity.3) Initial norm. The initial norm shows the translator’s primary inclinationbetween source culture and target culture and determines the macro-appearance of thetranslated poems.In Xu’s translation, great attention is given to show the peculiar beauty andflavor of Tang poems, and essential literary characteristics in genre, meaning and styleof Tang poems are conveyed to the greatest extent. This reveals the translator’sprimary inclination to the Chinese culture in translation, which could be attributed to the ultimate purpose of his translation–to introduce Tang poetry to western readersand promote the cultural status of Chinese literature. However, compromise in thetranslator’s choices between source culture and target culture can also be identified inmany details of the translated poems. For example, the handling methods onpunctuation, cohesion, diction, grammar, etc., help promote the readability oftranslated poems. The translator is source-oriented on a macro textual level, yettarget-oriented in a micro linguistic level, dealing with the influences of Chinese andEnglish culture in a balanced way.Reviewing the special cultural background against which Xu translates300TangPoems, the author holds that this book of translation is influenced by double culturesof Chinese and English, especially by Chinese cultural factors. To be specific, themain cultural factors influencing the shaping of translational norms in this bookinclude at least five categories: political and economic developing situation, aims oftranslation, mainstream poetics, prevalent notions on translation and translator’ssubjectivity.The target readers’ responses to Xu’s translated poems are observed and analyzedfor a just and reasonable evaluation. Research shows that Xu’s translation is generallyaccepted by target readers as fair or good, which demonstrates that his translation ofTang poems is effective in a degree for cross-cultural communication, and couldrealize the basic translation aims of the publisher.Yet through the case study on Xu Yuanchong, the author could still locate somedeficiencies in the field of translating classical Chinese poetry to English. Thereremains a long way for traditional Chinese culture to go to the world and to gainglobal recognition. On this account, the dissertation makes some tentative suggestionson the translators, the critics and the translation agents, calling on the three-sidedcooperation and efforts to improve cross-cultural communication between the Eastand the West through translation activities.By studying the translational norms embedded in300Tang Poems translated byXu Yuanchong, this dissertation initiate a unique research perspective in the field ofclassical-Chinese-poetry translation. Also the dissertation accumulates the new findings of descriptive translation studies and makes a beneficial try to apply thetheory of translational norms to practical analysis, hence acquiring both theoreticaland practical significance in a way. Besides, this dissertation chooses therepresentative translations of a representative Chinese translator as the object of study,the research methods and findings of which could be applied and extended to otherstudies in related field, shedding inspiration to general translators and researchers.As a tentative study on the translation of classical Chinese poetry, thisdissertation could not be devoid of some weaknesses in research, such as beingnarrow and limited in theoretical horizon, superficial and partial in analysis, indirectand insufficient in supporting data, etc., which affect the objectivity andcomprehensiveness of the conclusion. In further studies in the future, the author willtry her best to avoid these deficiencies, to improve research methods and to makegreater research achievements. |
PDF Full Text Request