On Translatability Of Classical Chinese Poetry

The history of poetry in China can be dated as far back as the late Spring andAutumn Period (770-476 B.C.). Classical Chinese poetry is characterized by itsterseness in language, abstruseness in meaning, richness in imagery, sharpness inemotion, and distinctiveness in rhyme and rhythm. Difficult and complex astranslation of CCP is, more and more scholars and translators have contributed to thediscussion of translatability of classical Chinese poetry.In order to make an over-all investigation on translation of CCP, this dissertationfirst discusses some problems related to translation, pointing out functions oftranslation; and then gives a detailed overview of translatability; then, a theoreticalfoundation, reception theory is introduced, which can be regarded as a completelynew angle to the study of translatability.Chapter One makes a brief introduction to the dissertation and discusses origin,objective, necessity and significance of the study and organization of the thesis.Chapter Two discusses some problems related to translation, pointing out its fivetasks: First, an understanding of the cultural and experimental worlds that lie behindthe original act of speaking or of writing, ways into their schemata. Second, anunderstanding of the potential of the two semiotic systems in of their image-making.Third, a making intelligible of the linguistic choices expressed in the message.Fourthly, an opportunity to explore the social psychological intentions of theoriginator of the message matched against one's own; Lastly, a challenge to match allof these with our appropriate response in our semiotic and linguistic system, and ourculture. And then gives a detailed overview of translatability: some scholars believeCCP is translatable, while, others hold the opposite point of view. The author pointsout that concept of translatability in the dissertation is a relative concept, referring tothe possibility of translation.In Chapter Three, a brief introduction of reception theory will be presented.Some significant concepts in Reception Theory, such as "schematized structure","blanks", "indeterminacy", "horizons of expectations" and "fusion of horizons", make people begin to view literary translation from an entirely new angle. Guided byReception Theory, literary translation is no longer a one-way process which istext-centered and transmitted by a translator with readers on the receiving end, but anever-going two-way communicative process carrying out the dialogue between thetext and its readers, between its author and readers. In the process of literarytranslation, a translator is required to manifest three distinct literary identities, namely:a reader, an interpreter, and a writer (a re-creator of literature). As a reader, thetranslator is required to manipulate his feelings, aesthetic values, imagination, andother literature abilities to realize a concretization of the "indeterminacy" and"blanks" in the text, and conduct a dialogue with the content of the text. During theprocess, the translator must continuously adjust his "pre-structure" to reach a "fusionof horizons" and eventually enact a complete re-construction of the meaning, andpremise of the literary text.Then, in Chapter Four, the translatability of classical Chinese poetry in specificis expounded through discussing the translatability of imagery, translatability of styleof classical Chinese poetry. The dissertation proves that classical Chinese poetry istranslatable in most situations; however, a few untranslatable cases do exist, amongwhich some can be solved by the translator by using proper methods, such as literaltranslation and adding footnotes; while, some can not be solved at the present time.But it's believed that with the development of translators' professional level andtranslating methods, untranslatable cases will be overcome in the future.Chapter Five comes to the following conclusion of the dissertation: on the onehand, CCP is translatable to a large extent; on the other hand, due to differencesbetween Chinese and English cultures and languages, there are some untranslatablecases that can not be solved today and effective methods shall be further discovered.Meanwhile, in this chapter, shortcomings of the dissertation are pointed out to befurther discussed and improved and some suggestions for the further study presentedas well.