中外翻译理论期末考试点

中外翻译理论考点△重点1.John Fryer(傅兰雅)(British)Translates more practical aspects of Euro-American science and technology into late imperial China.(Editor of The Chinese Scientific Magazine《格致汇编》)Mirroring the Origins of Chemistry《化学鉴原》Chemical Analyse《化学考质》An Introduction to Chemistry《化学初阶》Methods of translating(to establish a systematic nomenclature based on 3 linguistic choices):（1）Using existing nomenclature（系统命名法） from native works on the arts and science;（2）Coining new terms by creating a new character, inventing an descriptive term, or phoneticizing a Western term according to the Mandarin dialect;（3）Constructing a general vocabulary list of terms and proper names.-Why Xu Shou and John Fryer’s translated names for the elements are still in use? -Because their method of translation was quite rational and not simply.2.Lin Shu——famous for introducing the Western literary works into ChineseBorn in Fujian Province in 1852 and received the provincial graduate（举人）The most influential works:La Dame Aux Camelias《巴黎茶花女遗事》；Oliver Twist《贼史》Uncle Tom’s Cabin《黑奴吁天录》The first person to bring many of the important works of Western literature to the attention to the Chinese for the first time and Chinese began to appreciate the value of Western fiction.Translation motives:（1）to cultivate patriotism: his translation intentions were to save the nation from subjugation and ensure its survival;（2）To educate the public: he hopes that the Chinese people could learn the pioneering spirit from reading the translation of the novel.Translation Methods:（1）Omission(considering the Chinese culture and the Chinese reader’s reception): delete some contents for the sake of Chinese literary norms and Chinese reader’staste;（2）Addition(considering reader’s expectation): to publish and improve the original and also to help the readers to understand the original and the Western tradition, making the translation more interesting and attractive and appealing; （3）Alteration(considering the Chinese reader’s aesthetic tendencies): due to the social and cultural differences between the source and target languages, he made some compensation or replacement;（4）Adaptation(considering the feudal Chinese ethics)Criticism of his Translations:(1)the choice of the source text(2)Mistranslation and Incorrect OmissionContributions of his Translation:(1)to reconsider the value of fiction as a genre(2)To change people’s disregard of foreign literature(3)To exert a tremendous influence on later generation3.Fu LeiSome of his translations:Eugenie Grandet《欧也妮·葛朗台》Le Pere Goriot《高老头》Jean Christophe 《约翰·克里斯多夫》Translation Ideas:(1)Spiritual Resemblance Theory: In terms of effect, translation should be the same as copying painting, for what is searched for is spiritual similarity rather than formal similarity; Translation would be easy if breaking the structure, and characteristics of the native language could convey the features of the foreign language and obtain the original spirit; The meaning and spirit of the original, the fluency and integrity of the translation could be combined in one.(2)Translating as a holy career: Those who are not poets should not translate poetry, for what they produce will not only be unpoetic and it will not be like prose either; Measures of our adaptability: our enthusiasm about the original work since emotional interest affects understanding and our artistic insight.Whatever the style of the original, it will always be unified and coherent.(3)Language of translation: paying too much attention to grammar, syntax and style is definitely not conductive to the creation of great works.He can hardly achieve translating it into Chinese to convey the tone of the original text and reproducing the mood and atmosphere in the translation.But it can serve as an important link between what goes before and what comes after in the original text.4.Qian Zhongshu（Fortess Besieged）Works of translation: On the Art of Poetry《谈艺录》；The Pipe-Awl Chapters《管锥编》Translation Ideals:Realm of transformation（化境）：describes what an ideal translation is like, differentiates the good translation from the bad, and contains hidden echoes of similar terminology from traditional Chinese poetics and art criticism.(1)The highest standard in literary translation is “化”, transforming a work from the language of one country into that of another, this could be done without betraying ant evidence of artifice by virtue of divergences in language and speech habits, besides, preserving intact the flavor of the original.(2) a translation should cleave to the original with such fidelity that it would not read like a translation, for a literary work in its own language will never read as though it has been through a process of translation.（与奈达的动态对等理论相似）(3)Misrepresentation：讹.The words transmit and entice explain how translation functions in cultural interchange; it acts as a middleman, a liaison as though playing the role of matchmaker and bringing about a “literary romance”between nations.(4)Translation was to save people the trouble of learning foreign languages and reading the original works,but now it entices the readers into doing the very thing. It arouses the reader’s curiosity, causing them to yearn for the original.(5)The Chinese character for “translation”译has etymological and associative connections with the characters for “seduction”诱，“error”讹，“mediator”媒 and “transformation”化(6)Sublimity，化: changing the form and retaining the content and style or spirit at the same time; a translation should be both smooth and idiomatic in the target language; should be faithful to the original in content or spirit and style;is an all but unrealizable ideal.5.JakobsonHe experimented with “supraconscious”（超意识的）poems, the co-founder of both the Moscow Linguistic Circle and the Prague Linguistic Circle.His essay “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation” extends the significance of translation to include intralingual and intersemiotic translation.His emphasis on the functional role of linguistic elements in the translated text had a positive effect on the work of poetry translators3 kinds of translation are to be differently labeled:(1)Intralingual translation or rewording is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language;(2)Interlingual translation or translation proper is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language;(3)Intersemiotic translation or transmutation is an interpretation of verbal signsby means of signs of nonverbal signs systems.Equivalence in difference is the cardinal problem of language and the pivotal concern of linguistics.（差异对等是语言的基本问题，也是语言学的核心问题）6.CatfordFundamental Problems in PhoneticsTranslation Ideals:(1)The definition of translations: translation is the replacement of textual material in one language (SL)by equivalent textual material in another language(TL).(2)The general types of translationCatford saw language as a set of systems operating at different levels, and described broad translation types using three sets of criteria:A.in terms of the extent of translation, he distinguished between full translationB.In terms of the levels of language involved in translation, a distinction is drawn between total translation and restricted translation(phonological translation and graphological translation)C.In terms of the grammatical or phonological rank at which translation equivalence is established, he distinguished between rank-bound translation and unbounded translation(3)Formal correspondence and textual equivalenceA formal correspondence is “any TL category(units, class, element of structure, etc); a textual equivalent is “any TL text or portion of text which is observed on a particular occasion.In his own words, translation shifts are thus “departures from formal correspondence in the process of going from the SL to the TL.”:1) A level shift would be sth. That is expressed by grammar in one language and lexis in another;2)Category shiftsa.structural shiftsb.Class shiftsc.Unit shifts or rank shifts: rank here refers to the hierarchical linguistic units of sentence, clause, group, word and morpheme.d.Intra-system shifts(4)The limits of translatability(可译性)It fails where the difficulty is linguistic and those where it is cultural(节日，特殊意象)7.Peter Newmark(Englishman)One of the main figures in the founding of translation studies in English-speaking world.Communicative translation and semantic translation(交际翻译和语义翻译)——main contribution to general translation theory Communicative translation:1)responds to the representational and vocative functions;2)Is likely to be smoother, simpler, clearer, more direct, more conventional, conforming to a particular register of language, tending to undertranslate.3)In some sense, communicative translation, by adapting and making the thought and cultural content of the original more accessible to the reader, gives semantic translation another dimension.4)The transition to communicative translation is basically makes the text smoother, lighter, more idiomatic and easier to read.5)“Standardized English”must be translated communicatively, whether a standardized equivalent exists or not, even if it appears in a novel or a quotation, unless the term is used descriptively rather than operatively in the original text.Semantic translation:1)attempts to recreate the precise flavor and tone of the original;2)Tends to be more complex, more awkward, more detailed, more concentrated, and pursues the thought-process rather than the intention of the transmitter to overtranslate, to be more specific than the original3)the transition to semantic translation normally reduces the unit of translation, and brings the text closer to the figurative and formal elements of the original.wrence Venuti(a distinguished American translation theorist, historian and translator) Translation Ideals:(1)Invisibility of the translator（译者的不可见性）The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of TranslationThe absence of any linguistic or stylistic peculiarities makes it reflects the foreign writer’s personality or intention or the essential meaning of the foreign text—the appearance, that the translation is not in fact a translation, but the “original.”The more fluent the translation, the more invisible the translator, and, presumably, the more visible the writer or the foreign text.(2)Foreignizing translation strategy（异化翻译策略）Venuti defined translation as a process by which the chain of signifiers（意符，能指） that constitutes the source-language text is replaced by a chain of signifiers in the target language which the translator provides on the strength of an interpretation.Because meaning is an effect of relations and differences among signifiers along a potentially endless chain(polysemous, intertextual, subject to infinite linkages) “resistancy”（异化、反翻译）Resistancy seeks to free the readers of the translation, as well as the translator, from the cultural constraints that ordinarily govern their reading and writing and threaten to overpower and domesticate the foreign text, annihilating（消灭） its foreignness. Resistance assumes an ideology of autonomy（自主性的意识形态）, locating the alien（异己） in a cultural other, pursuing cultural diversity, foregrounding（突出） the linguistic and cultural differences of the source-language text（源语文本） and transforming the hierarchy of cultural values（文化价值层次）in the target languages.The translation of Buddhist scriptures:The initial period:An Shigao; Zhi Qian(Han Dynasty)The period of development:Dao’an (East Jin Dynasty); Kumarajiva（鸠摩罗什）The period of prosperity:Xuanzang(Tang Dynasty)Translation of western science(16—18AD,Ming Dynasty): Matteo Ricci（利玛窦）Italian Jesuit priest, one of the founding of the Jesuit ChinaMission.The first person to translate the Confucian classics into awestern language,Latin with assistance from the scholarXu Guangqi. They translated Euclid’s The Elements（几何原本）into Chinese.Xu Guangqi: he had coin so many new terms and to select carefully the accurateexpressions of mathematical concepts and contexts fromthe wide vocabulary of Chinese.Three Great Pillars of Chinese Catholicism（中国天主教的三大支柱）：Matteo Ricci，Xu Guangqi，and Yang Tingyun（Summary of WesternLearning《西学凡》；On Geography《识方外纪》）. Translations during Ming Dynasty had 2 distinguished characteristics:(1)the subject of translation shifted from Buddhist scriptures to scientific and technological knowledge;(2)Translators in this period of time were mainly scientists and government officials who were erudite scholars, and the Western missionaries who brought Western knowledge to China.The translation of science in the Late Qing Dynasty:Robert Morrison, Daniel Jerome,Benjamin Hobson, James Legge,Alexander Wylie. John Fryer.Yan Fu1.Famous for introducing Western thoughts, including Darwin’s idea of “natural selection” into China during the late 19th century.2.His heart was indeed not in technical translation but in the transmission of the political ideas which he had discovered in the West so he translated a number of key works of modern Western thought:1)Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays （天演论——赫胥黎）2）The Study of Sociology（群学肄言——斯宾塞）3）The Wealth of Nations（原富——亚当斯密）4）On Liberty（群己权界论——论自由，斯图亚特）Translation Theory: faithfulness, comprehensibility, elegance（信达雅）Hu ShiHu originally emphasized 8 guidelines that all Chinese writers should take to heart in writing:1)Writing with substance（要言之有物）2)Do not imitate the ancients3)Respect grammar4)Reject melancholy（不要无病呻吟）5)Eliminate old cliches（杜绝陈词滥调）6)Do not use allusions（典故）7)Do not use couplets or parallelism（对偶骈文）8)Do not avoid popular expressions（俗话俗字）or forms of characters Translation Ideals:(1)Choosing those masterpieces of famous writers only;(2)Adopting a vernacular prose style in the translation of those dramas of a verse style. He adopted a unity of faithfulness and expressiveness1) a translator should be responsible for the author to keep the spirit of the original and secondly be responsible for the readers and make his version intelligible.2)The literary works that were hard to understand could never succeed in educating people, and thus clearness in meaning is of primary importance in literary translation.Practice: Over the Roofs《关不住了》；Book of Experiments《尝试集》Lu Xun’s translation ideals:he insisted that “he would rather be faithful to the original than be fluent to the translation(宁信而不顺)”, he stressed that it was a special class of readers that his translations were intended for the proletariat literary critics who had special class interests to champion. Extreme faithfulness to the original was a way ensuring that “true” Marxist literary thought be presented to those who wanted the facts as they were.He said “The Chinese language is just too imprecise, and to this ailment, I believe we have to suffer some more pain and embody our thought in wayward syntactical structures——ancient, dialectal, as well as foreign so that one day these structures can become our own.”Practice: From the Earth to the Moon in 97hours 12 minutes.Zhou ZuorenTranslation ideals: prefers straightforward translation, that is : it should convey the original meaning and preserve the original style and express the original meaning as far as our Chinese language can do. In other words, it is faithfulness and expressiveness,Practice: Ali Baba《侠女奴》Liang ShiqiuTranslation ideals：having a book translated is to make it comprehensible, mistranslation is indeed unacceptable. Even though partialmistranslations are mistakes that may really be endlessly harmful,you have nevertheless enjoyed reading them. It would not do anyharm to modify the syntax somewhat and to make it peremptory sothat the text becomes intelligible to the reader because it’s nopleasure to grind through a text while stiff translation can notpreserve the original tone of terseness and conscious.Dead translation is very different, which is bound to be dead frombeginning to end and makes no difference whether it is read or not,also,dead translation might as well involve distorted translation. Major works: Peter Pan《彼得潘》，Wuthering Heights《咆哮山庄》；Meditation《沉思录》Lin YutangWorks of translation:The Chinese Puzzle《国民革命外纪》Women and Knowledge《女子与知识》Pygmalion《卖花女》《庄子》Chuangtse《浮生六记》Six Chapters of a Floating LifeTranslation Theory:On Translation《论翻译》：he pointed out that “translation is an art”.On Poetry Translation《论译诗》He pointed out three “responsibility”and explained the implication.He also proposed three criteria for translation: faithfulness, fluency, and beauty （忠实、通顺和美）He assumed four types of translation concerning the degree of faithfulness: literal, dead, free, and random translation.Words of each language have the beauty of sound,meaning,spirit, form, literary style and literary form.Zhu ShenghaoZhu’s work made up the core of the mainland-Chinese version of The Complete Works of Shakespeare, and the first volume is made up of 9 comedies while the second consists of 8 tragedies.Translation Ideals:(can be revealed from his self-preface of The Complete Plays of Shakespeare.) The preface consists of five paragraphs:(1)the significance of Shakespeare;(2)The situation of Shakespeare translation in China(3)His experience of translating Shakespeare and hardship involved in this process(4)His method of translating Shakespeare: to preserve the original spirit as far as possible; and if not, he made his best to put the original meaning into clear and readable Chinese. He strongly objected was word-to-word stiff translation. After finishing a paragraph, he would pretend to be a reader or a performer.Yang XianyiAccomplishment of translation: A Dream of Red Mansion, Li SaoHe acknowledged his wife’s significance in their translation——Collaborationtranslation.Translation Ideals:(1)Faithfulness: a translation should not be far from the original but not word-to-word translation.(2)Culture and translation: Translation is more than language switching. What more important is the culture behind the words.(3)Poetry translation with or without rhyme: Keeping the rhyme is secondary to keeping the meaning and it is impossible to keep everything in translation because of the differences in the two cultures.Yu GuangzhongHis works often focused upon four fundamental aspects of literature:poetry, prose, translation and commentary.Works: The Old Man and the Sea,Anthology of Modern English and American Poetry.Translation Ideals:1)The fundamental similarities and differences between translation and creative writing: if a writer also translate, his translation style will inevitably be affected by his own creative writing style, conversely, his own writing style will not remain unaffected.2)Translation is a ‘necessary evil’, a substitute we rely on for lack of something better. Not even a good translation can convey the true meaning of the original. In case of bad translations, besides distorting the original meaning, they often have a pernicious impact on indigenous writing styles.Theodore Savory （文艺学派）The Language of Science; Words of ScienceDifficulties in his search for the equivalent of a word:(1)Illusory Correspondence: a word often has several meanings and the translator should take the context into consideration when choosing an appropriate word in the target language.(2)Gaps in languages which cannot be filled in translating: because a word may be quite familiar in one language but there is no equivalent one in another. All kinds of writings where the two nations whose languages are concerned may have different customs, different games and amusements and different degrees of technical development.(3)Idioms, idiomatic phrases and provisional expressions:he suggested that the translator should ask himself 3questions:(a)what does the author say?(b)What does he mean?(c)How does he say it?A good translator’s knowledge of the translated language must be wide and it must also be critically applied so that no detail is likely to be missed. Categories of translation:(1)perfect translation:refers to the translation of all purely informative statements such as are encountered by the traveler or used by the advertiser.(2)Adequate translation:matter is more important than manner（内容比形式更重要）(3)Composite translation：includes the translation of prose into prose, of poetry into prose and of poetry into poetry(4)Translation of learned, scientific, technical and practical matter.The principles of translation:made solely because of the intrinsic importance of the original work, which is strictly confined to the practical business of living; It is almost a necessity that the translator shall have a reasonable knowledge of the science or the technique about which the original was written.The Principle of Translation:(1) A translation must give the words of the original.(2)~must give the ideas of the original(3)~should read like an original work(4)~should read like a translation(5)~should reflect the style of the original(6)~should possess the style of the translator(7)~should read as a contemporary of the original(8)~should read as a contemporary of the translator(9)~may add to or omit from the original(10)~may never add or to omit from the original(11)~of verse should be in prose(12)~of verse should be in verse.We need to choose different words in different contexts.Eugene Nida’s Translation TheoryMain Translation Ideas(1)Two basic orientations in translating:formal and dynamic equivalence.1)D ynamic-equivalence attempts to convey the thought expressed in a source text ;2)F ormal-equivalence attempts to render the text word-for-word.(2)Principles governing a translation oriented toward formal equivalence:1)g rammatical units;2)C onsistency in word usage;3)M eaning in terms of the source context;(3)Principles governing a translation oriented toward dynamic equivalence（动态对等）: the most notable contribution; elaborated in “Principles of Correspondence”and it stands to reason that there can be no absolute correspondence between two languages. It’s the closest natural equivalent to the source-language message.But here are some limitations:1)special literary form,2)semantically exocentric expressions（语义外向）,3)intraorganismic meaning.(4)Principles governing a translation oriented toward functional equivalence.Terms Explanation1.Five Losses:Dao’an(1)Sanskrit and Chinese are in reversing word order in sentence structure, as far as grammar is concerned.(2)Sanskrit prefers to be simple and straight forward, while Chinese prefers to be complex, polished in writing.(3)Sanskrit tends to be repetitive for important points while Chinese does not.(4)Sanskrit always contains sentences within sentences while Chinese does not.(5)Sanskrit writing is repetitive in subsequent passage, while the repetitiongs are deleted in Chinese translations.2.Five Untranslatables:Xuanzangsecrets,polysemy,none in china,deference to the past,to inspire respect and righteousness:Prajna instead of “wisdom.”3.信达雅（严复）Translation involves three requirements difficult to fulfill:1)Faithfulness2)Comprehensibility:prime importance3)EleganceFaithfulness is difficult enough to attain but a translation that is faithful but not comprehensible is no translation at prehensibility is therefore of prime importance.4.直译（literal translation）Straightforward translation/direct translationFormal correspondenceWorld-to-word translation（逐字译）Stiff translation（硬译）（Lu Xun）5.意译(free translation)Sense-for-sense translation/sense translationSemantic correspondenceFree translation（自由译）Distorted translation（歪译）（Lin Shu）6.Dead transportation: not only putting every word and every sentence in the same order as the original, but also not allowing the addition of a single word or even the change of the same order of any words.7. Three Responsibilities(a)The translator should have a complete understanding of the language and contents of the source text.(b)The translator should have a good command of Chinese so that he can produce a smooth and expressive version.(c)The translator should be trained properly to hold proper opinions on the standards and techniques of translation.9.Three Criteria1)Faithfulness: the first responsibility for the translator to fulfill but it doesn’t mean a word-to-word translation. A faithful version will not only convey the meaning of the source text but also spirit of the words and their implications.It is not possible to achieve absolute faithfulness.2)Fluency: a fluent translation should be based on sentence-to-sentence translation rather than word-for-word translation.3)Beauty: translation is an art and an ideal translator should make translationa fine art. So when we translate the Western literary text such as poetry and fiction into Chinese, we have to take its aesthetic value into consideration.。