Theories 理论

The British translator Alexander F. Tytler put forward his three principles in the late 18thcentury:First，the translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work.Second，the style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of the original.Third，the translation should have all the ease of the original composition.Fu Lei’s Criterion: Spiritual Conformity“神似” 是傅雷于1951年提出的文学翻译观。

这是比“信、达、雅” 更高的翻译标准。

他认为“以效果而论，翻译应当像临画一样，所求不在形似而在神似”。

所谓“神”，就是指原作精神。

好的文学作品总是有丰富的感情，深邃的意境，浓厚的感染力，强烈的艺术效果。

神似也叫传神，即除了传意外，还需要尽力保存原作的神韵和风姿。

例如：You may take a horse to the water, but you can‟t make it drink.a. 你可以把马牵到河边去，但不能叫它饮水。

b. 牵马河边易，逼它饮水难。

译文a只是在形式上与原文保持一致，而译文b则保留了原文强烈的对比色彩，体现出原文风趣形象，而寓意深刻的特点。

Qian Zhongshu’s Criterion: Subli med Adaptation钱钟书指出，“文学翻译的最高标准是…化‟。

把作品从一国文字转变为另一国文字，既能不因语文习惯的差异而露出生硬牵强的痕迹，又能完全保存原有的风味，那就算得入于…化境‟。

”所谓化境，就是原作向译文的“投胎转世”，文字形式虽然换了，而原文的思想，感情、风格、神韵都原原本本地化到了译文的境界里了，丝毫不留翻译的痕迹，让读者读译作就完全像在读原作一样。

Summarizing the above criteria, you may find that both Chinese and foreign translation criteria aim to solve two problems: one is the task of translation, namely, to be faithful to the source text；the other is how to carry out the task — the language used in the target text should be smooth. In short,“faithfulness and smoothness” can be regarded as the essential translation criteria.Liu Zhongde’s Principles of TranslationAccepting the first two of Yan‟s principles of translation and absorbing those expounded by Tytler, Liu proposed his three characters—“信达切”as a set of principles of translation, which he believes to be more comprehensive and practical. They may be defined as follows:1.Faithfulness—to be faithful to the content of the original;2.Expressiveness—to be as expressive as the original;3. Closeness—to be as close as possible to the original styleHe agrees with both Yan and Tytler that the translation must confirm to the original in meaning and “that the translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original.” Faithfulness is the first important principle of translation. The translator ought to convey the author‟s ideas faithfully and exactly. He has no right to alter the meaning of the original to suit his own taste.Lu Xun pointed out, “Translation does not tolerate any mistakes.”Apart from making an effort to achieve faithfulness to the content of the orginal, the translator must aim at making his translation as expressive as the original, for it is intended for the reading public. If one‟s translation is not readable or understandable, what‟s the use of it?During the debate on the principles of translation in the 1930‟s there appeared two opposite schools. One said, “Smoothness (which is corresponding to the expressiveness as mentioned above) is preferable to faithfulness in transl ation”. The other argued, “Faithfulness is preferable to smoothness.” Advocating the former, a translator might sacrifice some of the content of the original. Acting in accordance with the latter, he might produce a translation not quite readable somewhere. This has been demonstrated by some of their translations. We should take it as a lesson. So long as we work hard at the practice and theory of translation, we can finally unify these two seemingly contradictory principles.We may say that faithfulness and smoothness are the two rudimentary principles every translator must observe.Only when a translator achieves faithfulness in content and smoothness or expressiveness in wording, can he further pursue closeness in style.The reason why Liu Zhongde replac es Yan Fu‟s elegance with closeness is that elegance means gracefulness, which in fact is only one of various styles. Evidently we should not make all translations elegant in style, regardless of what style the original is. The word closeness, Liu believes, is a neutral term which may be applied to all kinds of styles. Discussing the various styels of Chinese and foreign literature, Zhang Qichun said, “ style is the art of representation…it is revelation of individuality. For instance… the style of Li Bai i s elegant and forceful whereas that of Du Fu profound and thoughtful”. The style of Henry James and that of Ernest Hemingway arealso quite different. The former is wordy and obscure while the latter brief and implicit.Of this question, Buffon, a French naturalist, made the well-known statement—the style is the man (Le style, c‟est l‟homme). That‟s to say, style varies with authors. Some are elegant in style, some vulgar, some flowery and some plain. A translator should try his best to make the style of his translation as close as possible to that of the original. For instance, if the original is elegant, of course, the translation should be elegant in style, too. If the original style is not elegant, the translation style shouldn‟t be elegant, either.Style represents the essential characteristics of each writer‟s writing. Various writers have various styles. This is already a universally acknowledged truth. For instance, the essential characteristic of the political essays written by Lenin is to make use of allusions and stir up the reader‟s thinking in images and that of Lu Xun‟s miscellaneous essays is characteristically brief and pithy, sharp and sarcastic. The translator must strive to reproduce their respective characteristics in writing, i.e., style, besides being faithful to the original content and making his representation expressive. Only by doing so can his work be called translation which conforms to the principles—faithfulness in content, expressiveness in wording and closenss in style.Liu furth er argues against the character “Ya” (elegance) as a common principle applied to style in the light of dialogues in literary works. It‟s undeniable that the dialogues of the characters either in a play or in a novel are quite distinct from one another in linguistic style due to their status. Such being the case, the translator should do his best to retain the tone and manner of speaking of all the characters concerned. He should not make the vulgar elegant or vice versa. If we put all the vulgar expressions into elegant ones, the images of the characters in literary works will be impaired, because the typicality or idiosyncracy of the characters is usually reflected, on the one hand, in their actions and on the other, in their words. Suppose in a literary work you are going to translate, you come across such vulgar expressions as “Damned, you son of a bitch, go to the devil!” How could you make them elegant in your translation? They should be randered asthey are into something like “该死，你这个狗崽子；见鬼去吧！” Otherwise, you may be criticized for not being faithful to the original.Concerning style, Jonathan Swift, a famous English writer, gave style a very concise definition:“Proper words in proper places make the true definition of a style.”What he said is applicable to both writing and translation.A translator must work hard at the closeness to the original in style and the reproduction of the original images if he wants to make his translation worthy of appreciation. But such a success is not easily achieved. We can see the difficulty in the criticism made by M. Arnold (1822-1888) of the several versions of Iliad and Odyssey by Homer:“Homer is rapid in his movement, Homer is plain in his words and style, Homer is simple in his ideas, Homer is noble in his manner. Cowper renders him ill because he is slow in his movement, and elaborate in his style; Pope renders him ill because he is artificial both in his style and in his words; Chapman renders him ill because he is fantasitc in his ideas; Mr Newman renders him ill because he is odd in his words and ignoble in his manner. All four translators diverge from their original at other points besides those named; but it is at the points thus named that their divergence is greatest…”Indeed, it is not easy to satisfactory realize the three principles of translation—faithfulness, expressivenss, and closeness. But a responsible translator should try to make every possible effort to put them into practice. Otherwise, the goal of the tranlation can never be attained. Only by satisfactorily realizing these principles mentioned above can the translator come up to the standards set by Belinski: “Translation is an art which perfectly reproduces a literary work of another nation in one‟s own native tongue.” On ly by so doing can the translation be faithful to the original.To successfully achieve this goal, a translator must have enough linguistic and literary attainments. As early as 1852, N. A. Dobrolyubov (1836-1861), a Russian critic, pointed out, “It goes without saying that the language he wants to translate from is the one he must have a good command of. That‟s to say, he should master the minute distinctions of words in meaning and allocation and those of the small particles which are of not much importance themselves. Besides, he must be versed in the target language. He can write it not only easily and fluently but also correctly and gracefully. He can make use of all the wealth of the target language and avoid its incorrect wording and impure vocabulary while exactly conveying the original ideas. As a result, the reader can hardly find anything stiff in the translator‟s work.” From the critic‟s remarks, we can see that a literary translator must, on the one hand, have a thorough grasp of a foreign language and, on the other, be proficient in his mother tongue. What‟s more, he should possess some knowledge of linguistics and literature.In the course of the realization of the three principles, it is extremely difficult to achieve “closeness to the original style”. However, we translators should meet difficulties head on instead of shrinking back from them. Mao Zedong pointed out long ago, “It is not easy to learn a language well. The mastery of it calls for hard work.” We can imagine how difficult it is to translate sastifactorily, for it is related to two languages, the original and the target. In his speech at the National Conference on Literary Translation held at Beijing in 1954, Mao Dun said that the translator should make strict scientific study of the original work and that this is a must while translating it. And at the same time, in the process of translation, he must be careful and serious inthe choice of words and making of sentences and in the coherence of the whole text in accordance with the principles of faithfulness, expressiveness and closeness so as to retain the charm and style of the original.Liu‟s Trinity Principle of Faithfulness, Expressiveness and Closeness actually constitutes an orga nic entirety, because “closeness” always exhibits itself in the style. In “closeness” lie “faithfulness” and “expressivenss” and vice versa. “Faithfulness” is the prerequisite of “expressiveness” and “closeness”; “expressiveness” the representation of “faithfulness” and “closeness”; and “closeness” the very picture of “faithfulness” and “expressiveness”. This three-in-one principle can never be over-emphasized.。