A Study Of Japanese Translation Of Sentence-final Modal Particles In Shangshu

Chinese culture "going-out" draws worldwide attention to traditional Chinese culture once again,and injects renewed vitality into translation studies on ancient books.In this context,Shangshu,honored as "the ancestor of encyclopedias dealing with government and the source of historical books",naturally becomes one of the major research objects.Shangshu,also known as The Book of History,was written by various scholars in the pre-Qin period.As an important Confucian classic,it documents the emperor’s proclamations and the conversations between monarchs and ministers during the periods of Yao and Shun and even the Shang and Zhou Dynasties.Its important historical role and extremely high literature value have exerted enormous influence on the development of China and even the whole world.Therefore,many excellent translation works were born in the course of overseas dissemination of Shangshu.However,it is a pity that compared with other classical works such as The Analects of Confucius and The Book of poetry,domestic translation research on Shangshu is still at the initial stage,which mainly focuses on English translation,with rare systematic research on Japanese translation.As Hanshu:Art and Literature Records said,"The Spring and Autumn Annals records the matter,while Shangshu records the conversation." Shangshu is a classic work of oral narration in the pre-Qin period.It has a unique language style and displays distinctive colloquial color between the lines,which helps highlight the authenticity of character dialogue and historical narrative.Modal particles at the end of sentences,as an expression of colloquialism,are frequently used,reflecting to some extent the characteristics of the spoken language in the pre-Qin period.Meanwhile,those help readers to grasp the identity,position,thoughts,emotions,voice and manner of the characters through subtleties.Academic researches on ancient Chinese sentence-final modal particles are abundant,while most of them are centered on the analysis of their sources and functions.The translation research of ancient sentence-final modal particles is scarce.Based on the research status of the sentence-final modal particles in Shangshu,this paper selects the works of three translators,Kato Jyoukenn,Ikeda Suetosi and Akzuka Kiyosi,so as to study the Japanese translation of sentence-final modal particles "Zai(哉)""Yi(矣)" "Yan(焉)""Yi(已)""+Qi(其)" "Hu(乎)" in Shangshu.Specifically,this paper first classifies sentence-final modal particles according to different Chinese modalities,and then compares and analyzes three Japanese translations of sentence-final modal particles and sentences in which they are located.Based on that,it further discusses the Japanese modality expansions of modal particles and their translation strategies.This paper finds that the modal particle "Zai(哉)" is used in Shangshu frequently,the modal functions of "Zai(哉)" are very rich,it spans four categories of modality:imperative modality,declarative modality,exclamatory modality and interrogative modality.And when it is translated into Japanese,it corresponds to four Japanese modalities which are imperative modality,declarative modality,expression modality and interrogative modality.The modal particle "Yi(矣)" mainly functions as "expression modality and "declarative modality" when it is translated into Japanese."Yan(焉)",which has the dual functions of pronoun and modal particle,mainly expresses"imperative modality"and "declarative modality".In addition,through the analysis of the Japanese translation of these modal particles,it can be seen that the imperative modality corresponds to the verb imperative form+(よ),ねばならぬ+(ぞ)(command,advice),the verb primitive form+の だ(command),etc.;the declarative modality corresponds to the "verb deductive form","judgment sentence","declarative sentence",etc.;and the expression modality corresponds to the "volitional form",which can provide some ideas for translating the sentence-final modal particles in ancient classics.