On the Cultural Translation of Chinese Poetry From the Perspective of Peter Newmark’s Theory [2]
论文作者:佚名论文属性:短文 essay登出时间:2009-04-15编辑:黄丽樱点击率:8522
论文字数:2328论文编号:org200904152237049441语种:英语 English地区:中国价格:免费论文
关键词:Peter Newmarkcommunicative translationsemantic translationpoem translationtheory
ontinuous blending among nationalities in ancient China has given rise to a complex Han culture. Appellation culture is a good case in point. Appellation can be divided into relative appellation and association. A relative appellation is a cultural symbol produced by marriage system. After long-term cultural sediment, it has become well established. In ancient China, the complex marriage system finally led to a complicated relative appellation system, which inevitably causes troubles in translation.
E.g.2 未谙姑食性,先遣小姑尝。
Verginial: I decide that not my mother-in-law.
But my husband’s young sister shall have the first taste.
Xu Yuanchng: To meet my mother-in-law’s taste,
I send her daughter the first share.
Fletcher: But what kind of taste auntie likes, I don’t know,
So send to my sister-in-law the first share.
In ancient China, there was a traditional custom, which meant to turn cousinship into marriageship. In other words, a girl was supposed to marry the son of her mother’s brother, thus she would call her husband’s parents, i.e. her father-in-law and mother-in-law uncle and aunt or auntie. Fletcher, obviously, has been confused by the surface meaning of “姑”, hence, he translates this word semantically as “auntie”. Although the girl calls her husband’s mother aunt, she has to present as a daughter-in-law and look at the “aunt” as mother-in-law and serve her everyday after the marriage. This is determined by the feudal marriage system. Thus, Fletcher has made a semantic translation.
But here the “auntie” only acts as a “signifier”. A good way to deal with it is to uncover its veil and make the readers see clearly its face, to reveal the word in its true colours. After analyzing and consulting
Reference books, this is not a difficult task. The best way is to take a communicative translation. Both the first two translators have done in this way. “姑”is translated communicatively as “mother in law”. Under this condition, the TL readers will understand the poem in a full; otherwise, they must be confused about the relationship.
Now let’s take another example:
E.g.3 嫦娥应悔偷灵药,碧海青天夜夜心。
Zhang Tingchen & Wei Bosi: Chang E must regret having stolen the magic elixir——
In that blue ocean of a sky: endless thoughts, night after night.
Sun Dayu: Chang’e should now sorely regret
For stealing the herb of fay,
So she hath to face all alone the blue sky
And the sea immense night and day.
Bynner: Are you sorry for having stolen
The potion that has set you.
Over purple seas and blue skies,
To brood through the long nights?
Chang’e is a fairy lady in a Chinese legend who swallowed elixir stolen from her husband and flew to the moon. Here, in order to let the TL readers get to know the legendary figure in Chinese culture, both Chinese translators have taken the semantic translation and transcribed it into “Chang’e”, the alphabetic correspondence of “嫦娥”. Since the original verse is a narrative, in which “Chang’e” functions only as a sign of a person, it is hard for readers to fully understand the figure in the poem. So, this kind of transcription is quite all right.
Meanwhile, Bynner, starting from the western thinking mode, has communicatively translated the verse by using the second as if in a dialogue with God or someone else. This kind of tone may bring the TL readers kindness and make them feel as if they are participating. But this can’t yet explain who “嫦娥”is. This shows that sometimes when the differences between the two languages c
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