Between And Beyond Intralingual, Interlingual And Intersemiotic Operations: On English Translations Of Chinese Classical Literary Criticism-Wenxin Diaolong

Translation is both a challenging and fascinating task. This cannot be truer of translating a Chinese classic literary criticism with its full range of complexity in meaning, linguistic and stylistic form, culture and value orientations. This research sets out to explore the issues involved in English translation of a representative Chinese classic literary criticism—Wenxin Diaolong, covering intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotical operations and beyond. For this purpose, Jakobson's definition of translation is adopted and modified for its high generality and applicability in the present research. The basic assumption is that translating a Chinese classic literary criticism like Wenxin Diaolong is bond to be entangled with abundant intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic operations, and the success of such translation largely depends on appropriate coordination between these operations. Accordingly, the context, research issues and complexity of Wenxin Diao long are analyzed for the truth of its meaning as intralingual operation, and the existent English versions of the source text are compared and evaluated as interlingual and intersemiotic operations. Meanwhile, some theories for translating classics are examined for their soundness in application and effort is made to construct a model for guiding the English translation of Chinese classics in general and Wenxin Diaolong in particular. In order to test the validity of this model, a partial English version of the source text is presented by the author in heroic couplets. It is found that the basic assumption mentioned hereinabove is generally sound in practice: intralingual translation is the basis of interlingual translation and intersemiotic translation is an effective device to deal with culture-specific items like literary terminologies. It also shows that it is difficult for a translator to represent the connotation and the style of the ST simultaneously; it is beyond the normal operations in translation but worthwhile to attain it.Chapter One introduces the issue including the necessity of translating classics, the methodologies and the structure of this thesis.Chapter Two is mainly devoted to the content, issues and complexity of Wenxin Diaolong, finding that the subtleness and vagueness of terminologies; the gorgeous style of rhyme-prose and the allusions in it will be great challenges to a translator.Chapter Three analyzes and modifies the definitions of translation by Jakobson. Considering the complexity of the language and culture in classics, it is suitable to apply Jakobson's translation theory in translating Wenxin Diaolong for it involves all the intralingual, interlingual operations and intersemiotic operations between and beyond.Chapter Four compares different versions of Wenxin Diaolong in terms of intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic translations. Versions in modern Chinese and English are compared to explore their differences from different levels and to delineate the relationship between intralingual and interlingual orperations. And itersimiotic translations are also compared, and it is inferred that it is effective in treating some culture-specific items.Chapter Five aims to construct a model for translating classics like Wenxin Diaolong and some concrete principles are proposed to instruct translating Wenxin Diaolong in particular.Chapter Six is a translation of Wenxin Diaolong in heroic couplet to examine the soundness and applicability of the model and principles put forth earlier.Chapter Seven is a conclusion of the foregoing chapters and further reinforcement of the major arguments for translating classics. It reveals that the findings of this research are feasible to solve the complexity in translating Wenxin Diaolong. However, it is necessary to make further researches to prove the validity of these arguments in translating other classics.