On English Translation Of Shuihuzhuan From The Perspective Of Frame Theory

In recent years the study of Shuihuzhuan has achieved certain progress， however thestudy of the English translation of Shuihuzhuan largely lags behind. Although there have beensome attempts of research on the English translation of Shuihuzhuan the situation is still notsatisfying in the translation field. The study rests on the problems of mistranslation orunder-translation of word or expression fragments, which lacks systematicity withoutreaching the rooted reasons that may cause these problems. Therefore it lacks width andprofundity in the study. It’s no doubt that Shuihuzhuan as one of the four ancient Chineseclassic novels takes the important role in the world-wide cultural communication， and thestudy of the English translation therefore carries the great responsibility to spread Chineseculture in the world. This article is a modest attempt of the more systematic and profoundstudy of the English translation of Shuihuzhuan in the translation field where culture holds animportant position.Because of the diversified versions of the novel and the complexity of the translation theresearch process is much of a complicated and arduous work. So far there have been fourcomplete English versions of Shuihuzhuan among many other excerpt translations. These fourEnglish versions are All Men Are Brothers by Pearl. S. Buck, Water Margin by Jackson. J.H,Outlaws of the Marsh by Sidney Shapiro and The Marshes of Mount Liang By John DentYoung and Alex Dent Young. Due to the limits of research conditions the author collected theformer three of the four most influential English versions as the study subjects in this paper.Through the systematic and comprehensive study of the three translations we’ll have semanticanalysis to the translators’ handling of the translation involving cultural conflicts. Through thestudy of the three translators’ ways dealing with the cultural frames of the cultural conflictphenomenon, the author found that the translators applied different strategies and methods inthe frame adjustment, which were influenced by their different living experience in terms ofspace and time. In spite of the difference of the translation strategies there is somethingcommon in the three translations, that is, different ways of semantic deviation from the sourcetext to the target language texts occur from time to time. Because the three translators are allfrom the Anglo-American countries, their cultural racism was more or less reflected in theircultural communication of translation. Their ways of interpreting cultural characteristics showthe deviation or distortion from the source text in different degrees. They translated with theirpersonal ideals displaying the characteristics of the society where they live.