Translation Of Literary Fuzziness And The Identity Of Translators

In 1965, professor Zadeh published his paper Fuzziness in which he advanced anew theory—the famous fuzzy theory. This marked an epoch-making turn in scientificthinking. From then on, a series of new-born subjects come into being in the world ofscience, such as fuzzy mathematics, fuzzy logic, fuzzy linguistics, fuzzy rhetoric andthe like. Fuzziness is a phenomenon existing in languages and also one of theproperties of natural languages. At present, fuzzy theory, which was applied in thestudy of fuzziness in natural languages, now has been used to guide translationtheories and practices. Fuzzy linguistics is closely related to translation theory. Thissubject is thus well worth a thorough investigation and study.Literature is the art of language and its artistic symbols compose the literarylanguage. Literary language distinguishes itself from scientific language. Literary andartistic creation, an active process, is mainly based on the fuzziness of languages.Thanks to this property of language, human beings can create vivid literary images ofgreat vitality through imagination, association, understanding as well asenlightenment. To some extent, without fuzziness in literary language, literary workswould certainly lack vitality in images. From the perspective of the relationshipbetween fuzzy language and literature, in the course of translating literary works,translators, only by grasping the fuzziness of literary language can they achievefaithfulness in translation.At the beginning of this paper, the author gives a brief literature review of fuzzylinguistics and also indicates the significance of the study. This paper mainly focuseson the middle two parts. That is, the applicable methods to translate fuzzy language inliterary works and the identity of translators in the process of translating. First, theauthor analyzes several applicable means in translating literary fuzzy language. Inliterary works, fuzzy language has different forms of manifestation. Therefore, thereare several correspondent solutions(from concrete to abstract—translating theaccurate language of the original works into fuzzy language; from abstract toabstract—maintaining the original fuzziness in the target language; from abstract to concrete—using accurate language to substitute the original fuzzy language). In thecourse of translating, fuzziness in literary works gains two properties—translatabilityand untranslatability. This is a matter of degree, which is a controversial issue in thesphere of translation. Second, the analysis of the identity of translators is based on thetheory of aesthetics of reception. In translating fuzzy language in literary works, thetranslation should be SLT—oriented and the translated works should be of the sameaesthetic values as the original text is to the greatest possible degree. The translator,also the author of the translated work, when dealing with literary fuzziness, shouldfocus his efforts on the original text and maintain the original fuzziness in the targetlanguage. As a source language reader, he can enjoy the imagination room that theoriginal work leaves for the readers; as a translator, he should also give full play to theimagination of the target language readers. Translators ought to be clear about thepurpose of translation and his role. As long as the translated work has the sameopen—ended form as the original text, the target language readers can participate inand have the same sympathetic response.Fuzzy language in literary works is closely related to translation, which is wellworth a thorough study. In the conclusion part of this paper, the author summarizedthe whole passage and comes up with several limitations, which aims at a new anglefor the study of literary fuzziness in the future.