On the Cultural Translation of Chinese Poetry From the Perspective of Peter Newmark’s Theory [3]
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:8521
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
an’t be understood by TL readers, they should be eliminated by sensible translators.
3.2 Culture about Weights and Measures
Weights and measures were very complicated before the unity by the Qin Dynasty. Each country followed its own system of weights and measures. After the unity of the country, Qin also standardized them. Such a system is handed down from generation to generation. Nevertheless, they are unknown or unfamiliar to foreigners. Although the Tang Dynasty reached in a peak in cultural influence abroad, some of the cultural concepts are unknown to foreigners. Now let’s see the following instances:
E.g.4 桃花潭水深千尺,不及汪伦送我情。
Obata: The Peach Flower Lake is a thousand fathoms deep,
But it cannot compare, O Wang Lun,
With the depth of your love for me.
E.g.5 一片孤城万仞山。
Wen Shu: On a steep high mountain the lone garrison town stands
Zhang Tingchen & Wei Bosi: Amid the massive mountains lies the solitary sliver of a town
Sun Dayu: And a lone pile lies by a mount a hundred furlongs high
Xu Yuanchong: The lone Great Wall lost amid the mountains proud
Fletcher: ‘Mid peaks so high our tiny town to sight is almost lost
Such units as “尺” (in its ancient meaning), “仞”have no equivalence in Anglo-American culture or modern Chinese culture. According to A Dictionary for Ancient Chinese Words, both of them are measures of length, height or depth. In ancient Chinese, 1尺≈0.26m; 1仞≈6.4chi(current)≈2.4~2.5meter. So “万仞”≈24000meter~25000m. Even people in China today may not know these. We may translate them semantically as 260m and 24000m, but which may make the translated versions lost their original charming and become more complicated. Therefore, Obata chooses another way, he adapts and makes the thought and cultural content of original more accessible to reader. In his version, “尺”is replaced by “fathom”, a word familiar to foreigners. 1尺≈0.26m, then 1000尺≈260m; 1fathom≈1.8m, then 1000fathoms≈1800m. Thus it seems the two figures differ largely from each other, but after all, the “千尺” here is in its exaggerated meaning. In this way, the readers can get the rough meaning of a great depth conveyed by the original poem.
While in the second version, Sun Dayu has semantically translated “仞”into “a hundred furlongs”. He used a similar unit in Anglo-American culture for replacement. 1furlong≈201m, then 100furlong≈20100m. This is almost equal to the height of “万仞”. The domesticating method here has not merely made the TL readers understand the grandeur of the mountains the author wanted to convey, but also given them a perceptual knowledge of this point. Thus we can see that Mr. Sun has really given much thought to the matter.
As for the other versions, they should be categorized under communicative translation. Although the key cultural word has been sacrificed, all the versions have become clear enough to be accepted by TL readers.
From the above examples, we see that semantic translation is not always the only valid method. Sometimes communicative translation may also help to translate those words that are heavily culture-loaded. However, when it is imperative to retain the culture, semantic translation should be considered, that is, we can translate the words literally and then add a note. In versions that aim to introduce Chinese culture, it is necessary to use this method.
3.3 Time Culture
Time culture refers to some culture that is related to time or the techniques to express time. During the development of Chinese history, ancien
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