A Study On Fuzzy Language In Chinese Fortress Besieged And Its English Translation Strategies

Fuzziness is one of the basic characteristics and common phenomenon of theobjective world, which is, inevitably, exhibited in the language so long as it reflects theworld’s objectivity. Fuzziness, as one of the intrinsic feature of natural language, existswidely in all languages. It is employed extensively in our daily communication andliterary works for the proper and reasonable use of fuzzy language can enhance theflexibility and expressiveness of language. Fuzzy language is indeterminate and veiledto convey a kind of implicit and far-reaching semantic denotation. Especially in literaryworks, fuzzy language can bring forth both pragmatic and rhetoric aesthetics. Hence,the comprehension and translation of fuzzy language plays a significant role in thetranslation of literary works.Literature is conceived as the carrier of fuzzy information. Fortress Besieged, as oneof the greatest works of twentieth century in China, employs a great deal fuzzylanguage at different linguistic levels to achieve humorous, ironical and impressiveeffects of language. Although fuzziness is the inherent characteristic of languageshared by Chinese and English, there do exist some differences between them as far aspresentation mode and aesthetic effects of fuzzy language are concerned, which would,inevitably, bring great challenge and difficulty in the translation. Therefore, whetherthese fuzziness can be translated from source text to target text skillfully is one vitalelement to value the English version of Fortress Besieged. The English version ofFortress Besieged translated by Jeanne Kelly and Nathan K. Mao in1979is the only version by far, which has aroused great interest from foreign and domestic researchers.They have made wide research into the translation and analyzed its gains and lossesfrom different perspectives. However, language fuzziness in Fortress Besieged doesnot receive its due attention from scholars and translators, not to mention the essays onits English version from perspective of fuzzy linguistics. This is also the motive of theresearch.In this thesis, we will research into fuzzy language and its translation in FortressBesieged from Chinese to English based on the translation of Jeanne Kelly and NathanK. Mao. Generally speaking, language fuzziness in Fortress Besieged falls into thefollowing aspects: semantic fuzziness, pragmatic fuzziness, rhetoric fuzziness andcultural fuzziness. Based on the analysis of fuzzy language and its English translationin Chinese Fortress Besieged, this thesis further points out some mistranslations andlosses in reproducing the fuzzy meaning in the English version. The author alsoattempts to put forward some translation methods in dealing with fuzzy language inFortress Besieged.Translation is a profession full of regrets due to diverse social, historical and culturalbackgrounds of different languages, which is particularly apparent in the translation offuzzy language. In dealing with fuzzy language, the translators should adopt flexibletranslation methods to keep a balance between the preservation of pragmatic, culturaland aesthetic functions of fuzzy images in the target language and the transmission ofthe original fuzzy meaning in a smooth or idiomatic way.