A Study On The Reproduction Of Textual Intention And Its Effect Of Two Translations Of Stray Birds

Based on the hermeneutic theory of Umberto Eco,this thesis makes a comparative study of Tagore’s Stray Birds translated by Zheng Zhenduo,a famous scholar in the period of the Republic of China,and Feng Tang,a modern writer.It focuses on the relationship between the reproduction of the intention of the text and readers’ response,so as to reveal the importance of proper handling of the textual intention in translation practice.Stray Birds is a collection of philosophical English aphoristic poems written by Tagore.Its first Chinese version was translated by Zheng Zhenduo.In the past one hundred years,most of the new versions have not been surprising.However,the emergence of Feng Tang’s version has caused a great stir,and the publishing house had to make a recall to calm the readers’ fierce reaction.By means of close reading,comparative study and case study,the author finds that the different attitudes towards the textual intention of the original text and the different degree of reproduction of textual intention of the two versions are the main reasons for the different reactions.Stray Birds mainly eulogizes the beauty of nature,praises the beauty of humanity,and conveys some of Tagore’s philosophical thought of openness,harmony and unity between man and nature.Zheng Zhenduo’s translation of Stray Birds received a lot of criticism from the literary circles at that time due to the excerpts and mistranslations.On the basis of carefully listening to the criticism,he constantly supplemented and revised his translation.After the precipitation of time,it was accepted by readers from generation to generation and finally became a classic.On the whole,his translation embodies his translation style and purpose on the basis of respecting and reproducing the original textual intention to the greatest extent.His translation not only reproduces the beauty of the original poems,but also introduces a new style of poetry to China,and even explicitly proposes that his intention is to advocate a new form of literary expression in response to the New Culture Movement at that time.As a modern writer and businessman,in order to show his personal style,Feng Tang tended to pursue rhyme and minimalism expression,and some open modern ideas and thinking about the original poems of Feng are conveyed in his translation.So the textual intention of the source text has not been fully reproduced,or even partially ignored.Literary translation is a kind of recreation.From the perspective of Eco’s hermeneutic theory,text translation not only requires the translator,as an “empirical reader” and “empirical author”,to fully understand,respect,convey and reproduce the textual intention of the source text,but also should set boundaries for his own translation behavior to avoid overinterpretation.Although Zheng Zhenduo’s translation of Stray Birds has a strong subjective intention,that is,to introduce a new form of poetry to cope with the literary reform movement at that time,his interpretation is based on the respect for the original textual intention,and reproduces the original textual intention to the greatest extent,and his interpretation also follows certain boundaries.In pursuit of personal style,Feng Tang’s translation not only ignores the reproduction of the original textual intention to a certain extent,but also conveys some vulgar language,which not only offends the original text,but also obviously over-interprets the original text.So that is why Feng Tang’s translation has aroused heated debate and eventually been recalled.It can be seen that there is a certain relationship between the reproduction of the textual intention and the reader’s reviews,that is,the higher the reproduction of the original textual intention,the higher the reader’s acceptance.This reminds translators that if they want to gain higher reader acceptance,they should try to reproduce the original text to a greater extent and improve the quality of translation.If too much emphasis is placed on the translator’s subjectivity,readers may be dissatisfied,especially the re-translation of classic works.