A Study On "Hua" And "E" In The English Version Of Legends Of The Condor Heroes Ⅰ

Translated works of Martial arts fictions play an important role in cultural exchanges,while translators are usually beset with great difficulties in making the Western people enjoy the charm of Chinese martial arts cultures.The publication of the English version of Legends of the Condor Heroes I provides an opportunity for reviving discussions on translation of martial arts novels.To research this English version will be a progressive step for introducing more wonderful martial arts novels to the world,and making the distinctive Wuxia world being featured by rich cultural images of China accessible to more readers around the world.This thesis firstly made an introduction to current researches on the translated martial arts works especially the translated works of Jin Yong’s novels,and then followed a brief review of Legends of the Condor Heroes.Based on Qian Zhongshu’s "Huajing" thought,the author deems that"Huajing" can be regarded as both the highest ideal of literary translation and the standard of translation criticism.The core of this thought includes two key concepts:"Hua(Sublimation:the perfect translation which should be the"transmigration of souls" of the original without any deviance or any misinformation)and "E(Misinformation:imperfects or defects in translation)".This thesis views that "Hua" is the effect and the realm of translation and has a practical value for translation criticism.However,"E" as something that deviates from the original text can,to some extent,provide the possibility to reach "Hua".Therefore,in light of "Huajing" thought,Legends of the Condor Heroes as the research object,from a perspective of "Hua" and"E",this thesis analyzed the translation involving characters’ names,nicknames,martial arts moves,martial arts fighting scenes and characters’utterances,to study the translation strategies and tendency of the translator upon different situations.The conclusion was made as below:The translation is basically faithful to the original in terms of content,spirit and style.The translation plays the function of translation-"Medium"and "Lure",which can be considered as a successful cross-cultural translation attempt.The translator has adopted flexible strategies in transmission of cultural images such as names,nicknames and moves.At the level of sentences and discourses translation,the translator tended to respect the target language habits and to adopt strategies such as simplification and reconstruction of word order or structures of sentences,so that the cultural losses of "E" caused by her subjectivity to reach "Hua" can be effectively compensated.However,there are also a certain number of negative "E" in the translation."Hua"achieved in this translation is comparatively limited because the translator is not good at dealing with transmission of images with too much Chinese cultural information.This research found that,when the original language and the translated language have similar indicative meanings and cultural backgrounds,the translator usually adopted literal translation,which makes less "E" and can basically convey the cultural image and emotion of the original text;When the cultural information or indicative meanings of the original language are partially missing in the target language,the translator usually adopted the strategies of free translation,neologism and semantic reproduction,but there are many mistranslations and improper selection of words in the translated text;When the cultural information or the indicative meanings of the original language are completely absent in the target language,the translator usually employed transliteration and literal translation plus notes or further explanations.The translator managed to make up for the lack of the original or cultural context needed by the target readers through some context reconstruction methods such as adding background,extra annotations and inter explanations.In the case of other sentence levels such as fighting scenes descriptions,and dialogues descriptions,the translator extensively employed techniques of simplification,omission and adding.