翻译中的文化迁移张培基《英译中国现代散文选》个案研究1

班级 _____英语083______学号__4号________姓名 __王宁______ 分数__________

Cultural transfer in translation——a study of the Selected Modern Chinese Prose Writings translated by Professor Zhang Peiji.

Abstract

With increasing contact between China and the Western world, a better understanding between the two cultures is of growing importance. During the process of intercultural communication, the distinctive features of culture may undoubtedly bring out both cultural exchanges and cultural conflicts. Although there may be different means by which the exchanges can be achieved and the conflicts smoothed over, it is translation that can be used as the most useful medium to serve both purposes.

Since translation came into being, it has never been short of people‟s attention. Scholars formulate their own translation theories and standpoints from different angles; various schools have been established, the two major ones being the linguistic school and the cultural school. The theories of both schools are actually interwoven with one another. However, with the boom in cultural studies in the academic field, cultural theories in translation have attracted considerable interest on the part of scholars and have become the main research tendency.

Susan Bassnett, one of the leading figures of the cultural school, thinks that translation should take culture as the translation unit so as to realize the functional equivalence between the SL culture and the TL culture. In the process of seeking cultural equivalence, the translator enjoys great freedom of creation. S/he can not only adopt a flexible method of rewriting, but also break with the literary form of the original. This concept of translation, taking a macro view of translation study and reviewing it from a brand new perspective the nature and function of translation, the translator‟s position, and the relationship between translation and culture, has greatly broadened the horizon of translation studies.

Guided by the concept of cultural translation and borrowing the concept of “cult ural transfer”,this thesis endeavours to identify what exact cultural influences should be taken into consideration that are likely to have an impact on translation, and how a translator deals with these influences in the process of translation through studying the research data

collected from the Selected Modern Chinese Prose Writings translated by Professor Zhang Peiji. Based on this case study analysis, this thesis expects to gain deeper insights into the translator‟s attitude and motivation behind various choices in the translation process. This thesis holds that the translator enjoys subjectivity in translation and may employ every means to bring his subjective initiative and creativity into play so as to achieve the functional equivalence between the target culture and the source culture.

Key words: cultural translation, cultural transfer, Zhang Peiji, translation methods, translator’s motivation

1. Introduction

1.1 General trend of translation studies

As is known to all, the purpose of translation is to help people who speak different languages achieve smooth communication. Based on this very purpose, translation is required to render exactly the content of the original. So the traditional translation studies were generally source-text-oriented or author-oriented and regarded “faithf ulness”as the criterion of good or bad translation. This source-text-oriented translation view, which focused on the perfect rendering of the meaning of the source text, has long controlled the field of translation studies. And the critic may also judge the translation quality according to how close the translated version is to the original. In respect of the relationship between the source and the target text, the debate of translatability or untranslatability, literal or liberal translation emerged on all sides. Correspondingly, the translation criteria were in riotous profusion. Tytlor‟s “three principles”, Yan Fu‟s “three-cha racter principle”, Fu Lei‟s “si milarity in spirit”and Qian Zhongshu‟s “sublim ation”are the representatives of the traditional views.

However, the traditional translation studies were generally restricted in the scope of the translator‟s “personal experiences and subjective feelings (Zhang Boran, Xin Hongjuan, 2005:1) ” without any theoretical support. It is since the second half of the last century

that the study of translation theory has reached an all-time prosperity.

During the past few decades, developments in the fields of transformational grammar, general and contrastive linguistics, semantics, information theory, anthropology, semiotics, psychology, and discourse analysis, etc.,.have exerted great influence on gen eral translation theory, enabling the discipline to broaden the areas of investigation. The traditionally debated dichotomy between literal and liberal translation has been replaced by various linguistically informed modern distinctions, like Nida‟s “for m al”versus “dyn amic” correspon dence, Catford‟s “for mal correspond ence” versus “text ual equivalence”, or Newmark‟s “se m antic” as opposed to “communicative” translation. In general, more attention has been paid to the translation process and greater emphasis