A Research On Sidney Shapiro As A Translator

Sidney Shapiro(1915-2014)is a contemporary famous American-born Chinese translator.In 1947,he came to China and devoted his rest life to the Chinese revolution and translation.More than 20 Chinese works were translated in his whole life,among which the most profound were the"Daughters and Sons","Annals of a Provincial Town","Outlaw of the Marsh" and "Dengxiaoping and the Cultural Revolution-A Daughter Recalls the Critical Years",These translated works have become popular with worldwide readers once published,and remained on the bestseller list to date.His success in translation should be attributed to his pursuit of translation ideals,as well as his bicultural background and diligence.His translation thoughts comply with the criteria of"faithfulness,expressiveness,elegance"(Zhang Jinghao,Chen Kepei:321),which is his lifelong pursuit and practice.This translation thought based on "the thought of harmony" in Chinese philosophy,has brought about his translation strategies,the incorporated employment of domestication and foreignization.In Sidney Shapiro’s translation thoughts,the "faithfulness" is embodied by the harmony between the translator and the writer,and between the source text and the translated text;the"expressiveness" indicates the harmony between the translator and the target reader,and between the translated text and the target reader;the "elegance" is the harmony between the translated works and poetics and the harmony among language styles.By freely using the translation strategies of domestication and foreignization,Sidney Shapiro relatively perfectly realized his translation thoughts about "faithfulness,expressiveness,and elegance".Therefore,his translation into English shows his distinctive characteristics,amidst which three are central.Firstly,Sidney Shapiro’s translation is of creativity in language.When translating on the strength of his advantages as a native English speaker and with the precondition of being faithful to the source text,he freely and skillfully created China English abiding by authentic English norms,bringing English embodying the Chinese culture to target language readers._Secondly,Sidney Shapiro’s translation displays the essence of "spirit" and"meaning" in terms of the form and content in the translated text,by the vivid translation between the source text lines,his works agrees with the source texts in both content and form,displaying the beauty of the artistic conception and language of the source texts;Thirdly,Shapiro’s translation focused on domestication,supplemented by foreignization.When translating,he centered on the acceptability to target readers,adjusted the ways that culture were shown in the source text,and worked out corresponding cultural forms and customs acceptable to western readers.Meanwhile,he strove to keep the culture with Chinese characteristics in the source text,and made his translation"China-flavored",transmitting Chinese culture to the world.These characteristics make his translation unique,inspiring,and appealing to scholars in the translation field.In recent years,the domestic translation field has cast its eye to Shapiro’s translation,and embarked on research on him and his works.However,the current research,still in its infancy,has had relatively simplex perspectives,and limited findings with limited depth and breadth.Therefore,the dissertation makes comprehensive research on Shapiro’s literature translation from the perspectives of philosophy,linguistics,and sociology.By analyzing his translated works in different eras and from different types of translated texts,it explains his translation thoughts,studies his translation strategies,and describes his translation characters.The dissertation aims to explore how translators’ translation thoughts and qualities can influence their translation achievements,the relationship between their translation thoughts and strategies.Moreover,it concludes his translation modes about "red" literature,"Zhanghui" novels,and "leader" biographies,addresses his translation’s implications for nowadays translation of Chinese culture,and finds the factors about translators’success and the thoughts about how to foster translators,shedding light on the enriching of translation theories and practice.The thesis can be divided into seven parts as follows:Chapter 1 is the introduction part.It introduces the research background,and the research significance and objectives,describes the research content and methods,and concludes the research’s innovation and thesis structure.Chapter 2 is the literature review part.It reviews the domestic and foreign research about Sidney Shapiro’s literature translation.The part sums up previous research in three major aspects:his written books,translation thoughts and translation works,and points out their achievements and weakness.Chapter 3 is the part about Sidney Shapiro’s life and translation thoughts.It firstly introduces Sidney Shapiro ’s life and its contributions to translation,discusses the philosophy basis of Sidney Shapiro’s thoughts,and reveals his translation practice with his "harmony" translation culture thoughts.Then the part studies the reasons for the formation of his translation thoughts from the perspective of the translator’s subjectivity and summarizes his literature translation strategies.Finally,the thesis gives a conclusion to Sidney Shapiro’s translation behavior,by making use of Katharina Reiss ’s translation text types.Chapter 4 focuses on Sidney Shapiro’s "red" literature translation.Firstly,it introduces the historical background,translation background and translation purpose of Annals of a Provincial Town.Secondly,the part discusses the description features,narration features,and translation skills and strategies of folk culture.Thirdly,the part analyzes the "harmony" approaches of the relationship between the source text and the translated text,and the relationship between the writer and the translator from the perspective of the relevance theory.It intends to make an analysis of the similarities between the source text and the translated text,and better appreciate the "faithfulness,expressiveness,elegance" in Sidney Shapiro’s outstanding translation,and build the connection between the source text and the translated text.Finally,it concludes the implications of Annals of a Provincial Town translated by Sidney Shapiro for "red" literature translation as follows:1)It is significant to comply with its characteristics of the language and history in the "red" literature translation.Firstly,it should be faithful to the content and form of the source text,on the basis of which the "creation" translation can be carried out;2)Emphasis should be put on the culture-loaded words in the "red" literature translation,and they should be dealt with in a way of "harmony" to retain f"red" literature’s characteristics of revolutionary and nationality in the translated text.By the way of recognition of inner relationship between the source and target languages,the shift of recognition between the two concept fields can be realized in the linguistic signs of the target language.Chapter 5 analyzes Sidney Shapiro’s "Zhanghui" novel translation characteristics with Oulaw the Marsh as an example.This chapter firstly gives an overview to the translation historical background.Secondly,it analyzes the characteristics of his English translation of Outlaw of the Marsh.Thirdly,it discusses Sidney Shapiro’s translation model.Finally,it concludes "Zhuanghui" literature’s translation skills as follows:1)The translator’s personal qualities are significant to the translation;2)It is necessary for the translator to get to know the historical background and characteristics of the source text to catch its core ideas;3)"Zhanghui" literature lays emphasis on the aesthetic language by the form of couplet,poetry,quatrain.So,the translator should take the aesthetic translation to retain the beauty of the form and content;4)the translator can use "zero-translation" and "deletion"technologies to maintain the characteristics of the "suspense" in the source text;5)When translating chapter titles,the translator should strive to make them short and clear.Chapter 6 analyzes Sidney Shapiro’s "leader" biography translation characteristics,taking,for example,Deng Xiaoping and the Cultural Revolution-A Daughter Recalls the Critical Years.Firstly,it summarizes the translation values of A Daughter Recalls the Critical Years.Secondly,the chapter outlines the historical background when Sidney Shapiro translated it.Thirdly,it analyzes the translated text’s overall characteristics.Fourthly,it explores the translated text’s translation skills and stategies from the lexical,syntactic,and discourse levels.Finally,the chapter presents the implication of Sidney Shapiro’s "leader" biography translation as follows:1)it should lay emphasis on the translation of the culture-loaded words during the "leader" biography translation,because of the source text’s literature and historical characteristics.The translation approach of "China English" is advocated to embody Chinese culture and transmit China’s history;2)"Domestication" and"foreignization" should be used freely and skillfully in a way of "harmony" in order to deliver the content and form of the source language.Chapter 7 concludes the whole thesis,figures out the reasons for Sidney Shapiro’s success in translation,point outs the findings and weaknesses of the research and then puts forward the future plan.