A Contrastive Study Of Yang Bi's Translation And Yang Jiang's Refined Version Of Vanity Fair

Yang Bi's translation of Vanity Fair is a translation classic in Chinese.Yang Jiang,however,offers a “Dian Fan”(Refined)version of Vanity Fair to revise and refine Yang Bi's translation of Vanity Fair.Besides,her translation of Don Quijote de la Mancha attracts severe criticisms in which mistranslations and omissions are included regarding the effects of “Dian Fan”.Based on this,it is quite necessary to explore the necessity and effects of Yang Jiang's “Dian Fan”(Refined)version of Vanity Fair.The author makes a contrastive study to analyze the refinements made by Yang Jiang to Yang Bi's translation of Vanity Fair from the perspective of the meaning of the source text,differences between English and Chinese,the characteristics of Chinese words,cohesive effects and translation aesthetic effects.Then the author finds out that regarding the meaning of the source text,Yang Jiang reduces wordy expressions;Regarding differences between English and Chinese,she reduces europeanized traces;Regarding the characteristics of Chinese words,she simplifies disyllabic words in Yang Bi's translation;Regarding cohesion and translation aesthetics,she further reproduces the cohesive and aesthetic effects of the source text.Wordy expressions are deleted by Yang Jiang,which is conducive to further reproducing the meaning of the source text.Europeanized traces are the influences of phonemic feature of English toward non-phonemic feature of Chinese,which mainly include: the linking verb-predicate structure and the structural particle“?”.Yang Jiang reduces these europeanized traces in order to further reproduce the meaning and expression of the source text in more purified and idiomatic Chinese.Disyllabic words are words composed of two or more Chinese characters.Yang Jiang simplifies disyllabic words because of the characteristics of Chinese.The corresponding simplified forms of disyllabic words are used to further reproduce the expressive effects of the source text.In addition,YangJiang further reproduces the cohesive effects of the source text by optimizing grammatical cohesion,thematic meaning and collocative effect.Moreover,she pays attention to the aesthetic transiency,aesthetic perception,and aesthetic emotions.Regarding aesthetic transiency,Yang Jiang transforms relatively outdated expressions into more modern ones.Regarding aesthetic perception,she mainly focuses on reproducing the audio-visual beauty of the source text,replacing the expressions of Yang Bi's translation with four-character words,and transforming the static effects into dynamic effects.Regarding aesthetic emotions,Yang Jiang further represents the emotional transmissions of the source text.These effects of the “Dian Fan”(refined)version can be inseparable from the historical background of language development and Yang Jiang's multiple identities.Modern Chinese has undergone a lot of Europeanization since the May Fourth Movement,and the process of “de-Europeanization” lasts a long time.And with the progress of the times,the old expressions have been replaced by the new expressions.Besides,Yang Jiang is not only a translator,but also a foreign literature researcher and writer.As a translator,Yang Jiang attaches much attention to the translations of“picaresque novel”,which obtains the same theme and style of Vanity Fair.Besides translation practice,Yang Jiang demonstrates her own translation thoughts in which“Dian Fan” is highly emphasized in her own paper and in the preface of the “Dian Fan” version of Vanity Fair.“Dian Fan” demonstrated in the translation procedure means to reduce the wordy expressions,to revise and refine the whole target text from more comprehensive perspectives(such as textual level)and to further reproduce the expressive effects of the source text.As a writer and foreign literature researcher herself,Yang Jiang's creations and literary criticisms have laid a good foundation for her translations of Vanity Fair and her capacity to refine the translation,which make her deeply aware of the expressive effects of the source text.Therefore,the “Dian Fan” version produced by Yang Jiang is a more refined version than Yang Bi's translation of Vanity Fair,with the literary effects more vividly reproduced.As the first contrastive study of Yang Jiang's “Dian Fan”(Refined)version andYang Bi's translation of Vanity Fair,it demonstrates the value of refinements in translation with detailed analysis of what Yang Jiang does to make the translation better.Besides,It can become a good example for the optimization of translations,and help student translators form a rational view of translation and pay more attention to the importance and procedures of translation refinement.