A Study On The English Translation Of Shiqi Of Er Ya From The Perspective Of Translation Semiotics

As the oldest Chinese dictionary,Er Ya is regarded as one of the Confucian classics in traditional Chinese culture.However,unlike other Confucian classics,the translation of Er Ya to the Western world has long been ignored.Shiqi(??,the Explanations of the Implements and Other Terms Involved)is the sixth chapter of Er Ya.It has no English version until now just like most of the chapters of Er Ya.The referents of the majority of the definienda in 134 entries are the crucial symbols of Chinese traditional culture.Thus,it is of great significance to translate the text of Shiqi into English in order to introduce the culture of ancient Chinese implements to the English world.As one of the chapters of the ancient Chinese classic Er Ya,the main difficulty of translating Shiqi to English readers is the briefness of the forms and richness of the meanings of the content.Shiqi mainly covers the explanations of the terms of the implements widely used by the people in or before the Western Han Dynasty.Due to the dramatic change of Chinese culture in a long period of history,Western readers lack not only the cultural background information of ancient China but also the perceptual cognizance of the ancient implements.Then,the common English readers can hardly understand the information delivered by the source text.It becomes the main task of the translation of Shiqi of Er Ya to present English readers with the linguistic context and the cultural context of the source text,Shiqi,to ensure the readers to get the information effectively and accurately,and eventually to achieve the success of the inter-cultural communication.In the translation of Shiqi,in order to guarantee the accurate deliverance of the implement culture in the source text,the transformation method for both verbal and non-verbal signs is enlightened by researches in the field of translation semiotics.Influenced by American semiologist Charles S.Pierce,Roman Jacobson broadened the category of translation into three types which include intralingual translation,interlingual translation and intersemiotic translation.The three types of translation were further developed by other scholars later into a new subject,translation semiotics,in the field of translation study.Meanwhile,“thick translation” mode is frequently used to translate ancient Chinese classics to the Western world,which is proved as an effectively academic way of translation by various translation practices.Such a “thick translation” mode usually consists of only the procedures of intralingual translation and interlingual translation.In the process of intralingual translation,ancient Chinese classics are firstly translated into the understandable modern versions of Chinese.Then,the process of interlingual translation begins,in which the modern Chinese versions of ancient Chinese classics are restructured further to target readers.However,such a mode merely focuses on the transformation of verbal signs.Such translations are often too dull and deficient in vividness for common readers to be interested in and understand,which hinders the wide spread of ancient Chinese classics over the world.The process of intersemiotic translation has been added to the “thick translation” mode of Shiqi of Er Ya besides those of intralingual translation and interlingual translation.Hence,in translating the terms of implements,verbal signs function as the access for target readers to get the linguistic context and the cultural context of the source text after the procedures of intralingual translation and interlingual translation.Non-verbal signs,such as pictures of implements,help the readers know the implement perceptually after the process of intersemiotic translation.The study on the translation of Shiqi is guided by the ideas employed in the field of translation semiotics,regarding the three types of translation,namely,intralingual translation,interlingual translation and intersemiotic translation,proposed by Jacobson as the three procedures.The innovative point of the study is to take the intersemiotic translation as one of the translation procedures of the “thick translation” mode applied to translate Shiqi.In the English version of Shiqi,the well-constructed integration of verbal signs and non-verbal signs has expressed the information in the source text explicitly and meet the different demands of the target readers with varied reading levels.Meanwhile,an applicable translation mode of translating Shiqi is concluded from the translation practice which proves the procedure of intersemiotic translation as an effective way to show target readers necessary information,and will propably provide a reference for the translation practice of other chapters of Er Ya.