Reflections On Fidelity And Fluency In Translation

Validity of 揻idelity and fluency?as translation criteria has long been argued upon by both C-E translators and E-C translators. Some prefer fidelity to fluency, while others prefer fluency to fidelity. However consensus has already been reached on the proposition that both fidelity and fluency constitute just the highest ideal that a translator always aspires to fulfill. Fidelity and fluency are playing equally important roles in translating; neither surpasses the other in bearing upon the quality of a piece of translation. In this thesis I mainly adopt induction and antithesis to analyze various kinds of translations done by various translators and venture to put forward here not only the idea that a piece of translation can be rated as excellent only when a translator pays equal attention to both fidelity and fluency but also the idea that a translator can be esteemed as proficient only when he would try his utmost to secure both ifdelity and fluency in his repdition.My thesis contains five chapters:Chapter one gives a brief introduction to the definitions of both fidelity and fluency. Then I classify all translated pieces into eight categories according to the idea of 揵oth fidelity and fluency are equally important in translation? Finally I advance my proposition that fidelity and fluency must be considered as two dimensions of equal importance.In Chapter two are listed 12 factors that function to favorably or adversely affect fidelity in translation. Then I proceed to analyze various requirements for fidelity in different stages of the history of translation in China, different types of the original text; and different length of the original text. At the end of this chapter are raised a number of difficult problems confronting a translator while he sets about realizing fluency in translation. A number of expedients are advanced for handling such difficult problems.Chapter three talks about the two tasks for a translator to attain fluency in translation; the prerequisites for fluency; factors that hinder a translator from attaining fluency in translation and ways to tackle them.Chapter four discusses the orienting role played by Materialist Dialectics in the development of translation theory and the most instructive theories put forward by three translation theorists桭u Lei, Qian Zhongshu and Eugene Nida.In Chapter five is presented the conclusions that 揻idelity?and 揻luency?constitute the ideal goal of translation and that translation is an art, not a science.4...