A Tentative Appproach To The Translation Style Of Prof. Zhang Peiji

The study on Chinese translators has many blanks to fill up, whencompared with other fields' studies, in particular with the translationstudies. "The study on translator is a necessary part in the framework ofwhole translation studies...and the study on translators should have beenstressed, however, it has been generally ignored over these decades on alarge scale." (Sun Yingchun, 2004: v-vi)Nowadays, many translators engage in English-Chinese translations,few in Chinese-English. However, Prof. Zhang peiji is a rather specialone because he has engaged in translation for more than 50 years, andmainly in C-E translation, particularly in prose translation to introduceChinese thoughts and ideas to foreigners effectively. And his volumes ofEnglish versions of Selected Modern Chinese Prose Writings areregarded as his classical representative works which highlight histranslation style. From these perspectives, the author believes such afamous translator is worth study, so the author would like to make atentative study on his translation style on the basis of his two Englishvolumes of Selected Modern Chinese Prose Writings.In Chapter 1 of this thesis, the author introduces Prof. Zhang Peiji'slife story and main works in order to have an understanding of Prof. Zhang. In Chapter 2, the author comes to expound Prof. Zhang'sindividual characteristics of C-E translation, namely, Prof. Zhang's loveto Chinese-English translation, in particular his prose translation tointroduce Chinese thoughts to foreigners. Meanwhile, to have acomparative study on Prof. Zhang's translation characteristics, the authorchooses and studies the different versions of "Cong Cong" and "LuoHua Sheng".Prose is a literary style coexisting with poems, novels and dramas.Owing to some uncertain reasons, prose translation can not satisfy itsreality in China. Then in Chapter 3, the author introduces the definitionof prose and its characteristics style together with prose translation, andexplores Prof. Zhang's ideas on prose translation.In chapter 4 of this thesis, the author makes a tentative approach toProf. Zhang's translation art and style from the perspectives of histranslation criteria, his appropriateness of word choice, flexibility insentence structure, vivid reproduction in discourse and other translationissues. In particular, he has made a great contribution to the developmentof China English. Meanwhile, because translation is a difficult causeaccompanied by regret, the author also analyzes Prof. Zhang's regret, andtries to point out the regret is mainly caused by two factors, internal andexternal.In Chapter 5, the author makes a comparison study on the characteristics of two volumes of Selected Modern Chinese ProseWritings, and points out some slight differences such as his materialschosen, diction and expression form do exist between them, althoughProf. Zhang always keeps his translation style in practice. Meanwhile thestudy on his two volumes brings about the author's reflections on therelationship between translation practice and translation study.In conclusion, the author summarizes that Prof. Zhang Peiji hasmade a great contribution to our Chinese culture, and set a good examplefor our Chinese in C-E translation, thus breaking down the assertion that"the translation of Chinese classics into English can be only done bytranslators who are English native rather than done by Chinese, asmaintained by scholars such as A.C.Graham." (Pan Wenguo, 2004:43 )...