Study On Discrepancies Between English And Chinese Translations Of SHIH-SHUO HSIN-Y

Shih-shuo Hsin-yü simplified as Shih-shuo is a book compiled by Liu Yiqing(403 AD- 444 AD), Lord of Linchuan of the Liu-Song in the Southern and Northern Dynasties(420AD- 589 AD), but the mainstream academic view is that this book is actually compiled by his aids and staff. Shih-shuo depicts the anecdotes which include the words and deeds of celebrities living from Eastern Han to Eastern Jin Dynasty. All the anecdotes are divided into 36 chapters with each one focusing on a special subject, such as Virtuous Conduct, Speech and Conversation, Letters and Scholars and Grading Excellence. Within about 70,000 words, the book contains 1130 anecdotes and 626 characters, from which we can infer its conciseness in words. We can also realize its great influence by the unceasing studies on the book ever since its birth.This paper firstly introduces five types of studies on Shih-shuo Hsin-yü, which include study on its notes and annotations, study on its words, such as making special dictionaries for it, study on its modern Chinese translations, study on its foreign language translations and study on discussions of problems in the English translation. Meanwhile, the author makes a detailed description on its English translation.The main part of this paper elaborates discrepancies between the modern Chinese version(by Zhang Wanqi and Liu Shangci) and the English version(by Richard B. Mather). Taking the book A New Account of Tales of the World(Shih-shuo Hsin-yü), which is a publication of the Library of Chinese Classics by Zhonghua Book Company in 2007, as the main research object, the author studies the bilingual text closely and found out about 100 places of unwanted differences and selects 65 of them due to limited historical references. Then the author makes an in-depth study on these 65 discrepancies by classifying them into three types, which are discrepancies in words, sentences and people’s names. By referring to annotations collected and sorted by Yu Jiaxi(1883-1955) and relevant articles published on journals and graduating papers, the author analyzed these discrepancies one after another and provided suggesting English renderings if possible.In the end, the author makes a summary of analysis on all the discrepancies and explains why these discrepancies happen in certain degree with the aim of making contribution to improving its English translation. Nevertheless, without enough context and relevant historical data of the original text, especially with very limited studies on its English translation, the author is unable to provide sufficient explanation for all discrepancies.Studies on translating Chinese classics into foreign languages respond to the current national policy of exporting Chinese culture and ideologies to the world so as to enhance mutual understanding between Chinese people and people from other countries. It may also evoke Chinese people to study literary classics in order to be more cultivated. The author’s study on the English translation of Shih-shuo may have some practical significance on translating Chinese classics at present day.