20 17 English translation essay 1
On the Transmission of Artistic Conception in Translation Learning
Keywords: vague language artistic conception transmission
Abstract: Artistic conception is the core category of China's traditional aesthetics, which is characterized by the blending of scenes, making readers think freely and feel the same. The transmission of artistic conception is influenced by many factors, such as the translator's aesthetic ability and literary re-creation ability, language differences and cultural differences. The core content of artistic conception is fuzzy beauty, and translators need to skillfully use fuzzy language to convey the artistic conception of the original text.
I. Introduction
Artistic conception is the core category of China's traditional aesthetics, which embodies the philosophical wisdom and artistic experience of China people. The nothingness of Taoism and the emptiness of Buddhism and Zen are the philosophical premise of artistic conception, which is influenced by Buddhism, Taoism and Zen, and aesthetics finds its own unique stipulation in the difference from religion and philosophy. (Liu, 2006: 87,92) According to the interpretation of Ci Hai (version 1999), artistic conception is an artistic realm formed by the combination of the objective picture depicted in literary works and the expressed thoughts and feelings. It has virtual reality, harmonious artistic conception and profound aesthetic characteristics, which can make readers have imagination and association, and will be infected in their thoughts and feelings when they enter the context. China's classical literary theory focuses on the realm and measures the artistic value of his works with the height of artistic conception. Excellent literature and art can often integrate emotion with scenery, meaning with environment, create vivid artistic images and produce strong appeal.
Mao Dun once defined literary translation as follows: "Literary translation is to convey the artistic conception of the original text in another language, so that readers can be inspired, moved and feel beautiful as they read the original text." (Mao Dun, 1984: 10) Many people think that the highest goal of literary translation is to convey and reproduce artistic conception. It is not easy to create artistic conception, and it is even more difficult to reproduce the artistic conception set off by another language in translation. "Artistic conception is composed of image group, which combines various images and surpasses the sum of images." (Wu, 199 1: 4 1) Liu Yuxi once said: "When it comes to righteousness, it is mourning, so it is small and difficult; The environment is born outside the image, so it is thin and sparse. " This shows that "artistic conception originates from and transcends images, which can be understood but cannot be expressed" (Gong Guangming, 2004: 38). How to deal with this inexpressibility and reproduce the artistic conception of the original text in the translation is undoubtedly a difficult challenge for the translator. In fact, the representation of artistic conception is an ideal realm of translation, which is sometimes difficult to achieve. After all, different countries, different nationalities, languages, cultures and thinking are different. However, the translator can convey the artistic conception of the original text in another language through his own efforts.
Second, the main factors affecting the transfer of artistic conception
The transmission of artistic conception is influenced by many factors. Since it is translation, it will definitely involve the original text and translation, translators and readers. Artistic conception belongs to aesthetic category. The research objects of translation aesthetics are aesthetic objects (original text and translation), aesthetic subjects (translators and readers), aesthetic activities, aesthetic judgments, aesthetic appreciation, aesthetic standards and creative aesthetic reproduction in the process of translation (Mao, 2005: 7). The reproduction or transmission of artistic conception requires translators to "not only express their emotions, but also convey their emotions to arouse readers' aesthetic impulses" (Mao, 2005: 50). Translators' aesthetic ability and literary re-creation ability are subjective factors that affect the transmission of artistic conception, while language differences and cultural differences are objective factors that affect the transmission of artistic conception.
1. Translator's aesthetic ability and literary re-creation ability
The translator's aesthetic ability determines the aesthetic level of the translation. When a translator is engaged in translation activities, he is "composed of various psychological factors and their functional relationships". Only when these psychological factors work together can the translator's aesthetic experience (aesthetic feeling) be finally realized "(Tu Yuan, 2006: 25). The artistry of literary translation emphasizes the translator's aesthetic grasp of the ideological content and artistic style of the original, and requires the translator to reproduce the artistic beauty of the original. Therefore, the process of literary translation can be simply expressed as "feeling beauty?" Experience beauty? Understand beauty? Express beauty. "In order to reproduce or convey the artistic conception of the original text, the translator must be able to perceive, experience and understand the artistic conception of the original text, and then reproduce or convey the artistic conception of the original text in the translation.
"The creation of artistic conception needs the harmony between things and me, that is, the confusion between meaning and environment, and the * * * combination of mind and things." (Sun Yingchun, 2002: 87) The author is the creator of artistic conception, and his subjective mind is integrated with objective things, resulting in a certain artistic conception. Translators are first readers of the original text, so they need to carefully taste the context of the text, let themselves experience the author's aesthetic feelings personally, and then convey the artistic conception of the original text to the readers of the translated text through re-creation. Literary works usually contain rich ideological content and artistic skills, so translators must have certain cultural literacy and life experience in order to fully and profoundly understand the artistic conception of the original text and bring the translated readers to the artistic beauty of the original text.
Guo Moruo once said: "Translation is creative work, and good translation is equal to creation, and may even exceed creation. This is not a mediocre job, and sometimes translation is more difficult than creation. " (Guo Moruo, 1984: 22) The creative essence of translation belongs to secondary creation, that is, re-creation. Translators need to deeply understand the artistic creation process of the original author, grasp the spirit of the original, and then reproduce or convey the content, style and artistic conception of the original in the translation with appropriate language. Literary re-creation is not the transformation from word to word, from sentence to sentence. In order to reproduce or convey the artistic conception of the original, the translator should not stick to the formal framework of the original. "The translator's creation does not mean the change of semantic content, but the exertion of artistic psychology." (Jiang, 2000: 260) Translators should first perceive the artistic conception of the original text, and then, through the role of aesthetic psychological factors, make the mind and things blend to obtain aesthetic images, and then reproduce the artistic conception in another language.
2. Language differences and cultural differences
Translation needs to make a comparative study of language and culture, understand the differences and seek ways to cross them. As far as Chinese and English are concerned, they belong to different language systems, which means that their translation cannot be completely equivalent. For example, the translation of Chinese and English poems often encounters difficulties, because the prosodic effect of Chinese flat lines and English twelve-tone poems is different. Chinese is the language of artistic conception. "As long as the arrangement is peculiar and the combination is proper, the scenery, feelings and scenes can be integrated in a few words" (Mao, 2005: 220). English, on the other hand, focuses on logical analysis, with less "emptiness" and "meaning" and more "reality" and "context". For example, when I looked at it in winter, I saw willow cold smoke, which was just a piece of water. In this Chinese sentence, it means light, cold and boundless, as well as winter, willow, smoke and water, which can be said to be a blend of scenes and feelings. I went there in a winter, only to see a piece of cold water, which set off sparse willows and frosty sky. Although Lin's translation conforms to the original text and conveys the feelings and scenery of the original text, the translator cannot fully reproduce and convey the unique artistic conception of the Chinese original sentence because there are not so many words that produce hazy beauty in English.
Literary translation does not happen in a vacuum. When two languages collide, it is carried out under the background of two cultural traditions. Because different cultures have different expressive characteristics, each culture exists in an interactive environment with another culture. (Wang Ning, 2006: 46, 48) China's literary works, especially China's classical poems, are often characterized by polysemy, symbolism, aesthetic imagery and metaphor, and there is a charm and artistic conception between the lines. To appreciate and understand its profound meaning, readers in China need to have certain cultural literacy and literary skills. Therefore, it is really not easy for a translator to convey the artistic conception of the original text to readers of another cultural background. "Culture is consistent and persistent and permeates all aspects of social life. Language is the carrier of culture and has profound cultural connotations, so it is difficult to find words with completely equivalent meanings in different cultures. " (Liao, 2002: 276) For example, Meng Jiao, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, wrote "Gu Bie": "If you want to take Lang Yi, where will Lang go?" Don't hate coming back late, don't go to Lin Qiong! " Xu Yuanchong's English translation is: I hold your rob est you should go/ Dear, where are you going today? /Your late arrival brought me less sadness/Thank you for having your heart stolen. Lin Qiong in this paper is not only a place name, but also a cultural image, which comes from the stories of Sima Xiangru and Zhuo Wenjun. "Don't go to Lin Qiong" means don't look for another lover like Sima Xiangru. Because the cultural images carried by Lin Qiong are unfamiliar to English readers and cannot be translated in simple poetic language, Xu Yuanchong had to recreate them and directly express the artistic conception implied in the original in English.
Thirdly, vague language and the transmission of artistic conception.
Fuzziness of language is one of the characteristics of language itself, which has high aesthetic value. Language constitutes literary works, and writers use language to convey literary images. "Intangible forms such as images, emotions, artistic conception and style in literary aesthetics represent the temperament of literary works. Although they can be felt, they are vague because they are elusive and unmeasurable. " (Mao, 2005: 230) The fuzziness of literary language is the result of the writer's artistic treatment of language. The so-called "fuzzy language" in aesthetic sense means that words have vague and far-reaching semantic extensions. In a sense, don't say what you say, don't "chew rice with others", and don't ignore or underestimate the initiative of the audience; Instead, let readers think independently, let readers gallop their imagination and chew heartily. (Mao, Fan Wuqiu, 2005: 1 1) Fuzzy language mobilizes the aesthetic subject and expands the aesthetic object, thus expanding the artistic space and increasing the aesthetic feeling of reading. The core content of artistic conception theory is vague beauty, or implicit beauty and hazy beauty.
Artistic conception is the core category of China's ancient literary theory. Its emergence and spread are due to China's influence on foreign countries and its characteristics in China. Han nationality is good at associative synthesis from concrete to abstract, emphasizing the whole expression in writing expression, advocating hiding but not revealing, and appreciating specious and understandable artistic conception. The expression of China people pays attention to overall induction, which is an artistic language, paying attention to consistency and recognition, not to analysis and logic; English, on the other hand, stresses logic, emphasizes analysis, strives for conformity, appreciates objective description and ignores overall perception. One of the regrets of Chinese-English translation is to watch the vague aesthetic feeling eroded in Chinese. This shows how difficult it is to completely reproduce the artistic conception of the original text in literary translation. Many times, we can only try to convey or convey the artistic conception of the original text.
Four. conclusion
China's traditional aesthetics advocates the beauty of artistic conception and pursues the harmony and unity of the real world and the imaginary world. Through the description of visual art, the author brings readers into an artistic realm full of imagination. The basic feature of artistic conception is the blending of scene and scene, which has a strong aesthetic impact and makes readers feel the same. Artistic conception is generated by image and transcends image, which can be understood but cannot be expressed. The transmission of artistic conception in literary translation is influenced by many factors, so it is difficult to reproduce the artistic conception of the original text. In order to better convey the artistic conception of the original text to the target readers, the translator must improve his own aesthetic ability and literary re-creation ability, grasp the linguistic and cultural differences between the two languages, skillfully use vague language to convey the artistic conception, and embody the core content of the artistic conception, namely implicit beauty and hazy beauty.
References:
[1] Gong Guangming. Translation thinking [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2004.
[2] Guo Moruo. Literary translation [A]. Essays on translation studies (1949- 1983)[C]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1984.
[3] Jiang. Aesthetic thinking on literary translation beyond the image of happy life [A]. Reflections on translation [C]. Wuhan: Hubei Education Press, 2000.
[4] Liao Exploration of contemporary western translation theory [M]. Nanjing: Yilin Press, 2002.
[5] Liu. On the Birth of China's Aesthetic Artistic Conception [J]. Qiushi Journal, 2006: (5).
[6] Ocean Lu. On Lin Yutang's Translation Studies of American Translation [J]. Chinese Version, 2005: (5).
20 17 English translation essays 2
Re-creation in literary translation
Translation is the art of language, especially literary translation, which has its unique creativity compared with other text types. This paper discusses the inevitability of literary translation re-creation and four levels that translators should consider when re-creating literary works: historical level, religious level, cultural level and language structure level.
Keywords: literary translation re-creation level
China's translation has a long history, with a historical tradition of more than two thousand years. With the continuous development of translation, people's discussion on translation theory is also deepening. Various translation theories emerge one after another, such as Shi Dao 'an's "Five Mistakes", metaphor and vulgarity in awarding prizes, Yan Fu's "Faithfulness and Elegance", Lu Xun's "Similarity in Spirit", Qian Zhongshu's "Mirror" and our present "Faithfulness and Expressiveness". However, literary translation is different from the translation of other texts and has its own uniqueness. It is a cross-cultural language art, which requires that the ideological content and style characteristics expressed in one language be accurately re-expressed in another language. Translators are subject to external factors such as history and culture in the process of translation, which makes translation activities run counter to the "faithfulness" proposed by predecessors. The translation principle of "faithfulness" seems unable to give effective guidance to literary translation. What kind of translation strategies should be adopted in literary translation, and how to understand and reproduce literary works of other countries across the gap of different cultures are all challenges faced by literary translation.
The Necessity of Re-creation in Literary Translation
The translator is the "matchmaker" between the original text and the translation, and the original text is transformed into the translation through the translator's processing. From the beginning of translation activities to the end of translation activities, the original text is the starting point of translation. Translation is impossible without the original text. However, translation is the destination of the original, and the ultimate goal of translation activities is to transform the original into information that the target readers can read. When a work produced in one language environment is transplanted into another language environment, the translator should make the translation produce the most similar effect to the original in the target language environment. In this process, the importance of the translator is self-evident. China's traditional translation theory emphasizes "faithfulness" and ignores "creation". In the past, if someone put forward the creativity of translation, they would often be accused of mistranslation, random translation and random translation. In fact, this misinterprets the true meaning of creativity, mistakenly regards creativity as arbitrariness, and cannot grasp the "degree" of the translator's subjective initiative in the translation process.
Excessive creation will indeed distort the content and destroy the artistic conception of the original, but moderate creation has a positive effect on the expression of the original. The translation of a good literary work is inseparable from the translator's re-creation. Loyalty is only the basis of re-creation, but faithful translation does not mean good translation. Too "faithful" translation can't meet the expectations of the target readers, just like putting a heavy yoke on the translator, imprisoning the translator's thoughts, ignoring the translator's subjective initiative, and adopting "dead translation" where it is difficult to translate and untranslatable, which runs counter to the original intention of translation. Besides conveying the meaning of the original text, literary translation also involves complex aesthetic activities. Literary works contain the author's thoughts and feelings, and are the product of the blending of emotion and scenery. In the process of understanding the original text, the translator will inevitably be influenced by factors such as value judgment standard, cultural accomplishment, life experience, aesthetic taste and so on. Therefore, the subjective and active participation of "re-creation" is inevitable.
Mr. Mao Dun said that literary translation is to convey the artistic conception of the original in another language, so that readers can be inspired, moved and feel beautiful as they read the original. In the process of literary translation, only by recreating the original text according to the actual situation can a good translation be obtained. When someone translates "men are the black sheep." It is really ridiculous to become "that man is the black sheep of the family". This is a typical faithful translation. The translation really shows the literal meaning of the original text to the greatest extent, but it is a failure. The translator is completely immersed in the so-called "faithful" translation, and the translation is word for word, but he doesn't know what to say. If the original text is translated creatively and the image of vehicles in China people's mind is taken into account, the problem will be solved. There are also some translations that are not right or wrong, only appropriate and inappropriate.
Bacon's first sentence in On Reading is well known, "SDU died for fun, decoration and talent". If it is literally translated as "reading can make people feel very happy, add luster and increase their talents", it will be really surprising. The aesthetic feeling of the original text is completely gone, and the parallelism structure of the original text will not be reflected. So, on the basis of understanding, Mr. Wang Zuoliang recreated the original text and translated it into "Enough reading, enough learning, enough learning", which became a classic translation. It can be seen that literary translation does have its own characteristics and needs artistic re-creation.
Second, the level of literary translation re-creation
1 historical level
Different countries and nations have experienced their own historical evolution, and language, as the carrier of history and culture, plays an important role in this process. Differences in national history lead to language differences, which are manifested in different ways in literary works. Therefore, in the process of translation, we must take into account the accumulation of different cultures in history, the ways of thinking and expressing emotions of different nationalities and other customs. Mao Zedong's Seven Laws? There is a saying in "Sending the God of plague": "There are thousands of willows in the spring breeze, and there are Yao and Shun in the 600 million China." Someone translated it into:
"Spring breeze blows willow tips, thousands of miles: 600 million miles, we are all Yao and Shun."
This is an inappropriate translation. It is not difficult to understand the meaning in China's poems. "Shenzhou" refers to China, and "Shun Yao" is the two most wise emperors in ancient China, and it is extended to a saint here, which is unknown to the target language readers and obviously cannot be transliterated directly. Can only be recreated:
"Spring breeze blows willow tips, thousands of miles: 600 million miles, we are all holy kings."
In this way, the "sage" in the translation is more faithful to the original. In the third episode of A Dream of Red Mansions, there is a paragraph describing Lin Daiyu's "rare" beauty:
"Two curved eyebrows like cu cu smoke, a pair of eyes like xi. The state has two sorrows, and it is sick. Tears a little, breath slightly. Leisure is like a flower shining on the water, and walking is like a weak willow. The heart is a little more than the stem, and the disease is not as good as the west. "
Hawkes (David Hawks) translated into:
Her heart is more than the martyred Bi Gan; And suffered a tenth more pain than the beautiful history. (David Hawks, 1973)
Foreign readers can't understand the above statement, because Bi Ganhe is a famous figure in the history of China. The former stands for wisdom and loyalty, while the latter stands for peerless beauty. If you don't add notes here and recreate the original text, the failure of the translation is inevitable.
2 Religious level
Religion plays an important role in the formation and development of civilized society and is an important part of human culture. It refers to the culture formed by national religious beliefs and ideologies. China's three major religions have far-reaching influence in the hearts of China people. In the eyes of westerners, the position of Jesus is irreplaceable. _ _ _ _ runs through all fields of social life and becomes one of the main characteristics of western culture. From this, many words related to religion have evolved, which have special meanings. Under the influence of religious culture, the long-term use of some words has gone far beyond the original meaning of religious words. With the different use environment of words, their meanings are also different. If they are not recreated, they often cannot convey the full meaning of these words, which leads to the loss of information in the text. In the sixth episode of A Dream of Red Mansions, Grandma Liu said, "Man proposes, God disposes."
British translator David? David Hawkes translated this sentence into "Man proposes, God disposes". He translated China idioms with English proverbs, which seems to be both fantastic and metaphysical. "Heaven" translates as "God". And "God" means God in _ _ _ _, but "Heaven" in the original sentence is a Taoist concept. This makes it impossible to reflect the cultural differences and religious origins between Eastern Taoism and Western Christianity. Western readers will think that the characters in A Dream of Red Mansions believe in Christ and the original flavor of the works will be lost. Translator Mr. Yang translated this sentence into "Man proposes, God disposes". He literally translated "Heaven" into "Heaven", retaining the Taoist color in the original text and reappearing the cultural characteristics of the original text.
3 cultural level
Culture refers to the sum of material wealth and spiritual wealth created by human society in historical practice. Different countries and nations have their own cultures, and these cultural characteristics are reflected in a nation's literary works to varying degrees. In the process of translation, different translation methods are used flexibly to eliminate cultural differences, so as to achieve the purpose of cultural reproduction. Due to the different cultural backgrounds of different nationalities, the same expression has different connotations in different languages and cultures. English and Chinese belong to two completely different language families. Influenced by the particularity of language and culture, different countries give different meanings to words. In translation, it is not only puzzling, but also unable to accurately express the true meaning of the original text. Therefore, we can only use free translation to properly translate and reproduce the charm and artistic conception of the original text. There are countless examples of this. For example, "Bush doesn't eat fish and play games" is puzzling if it is translated into "Bush doesn't eat fish and play games".
After checking the relevant information, I know that in the era of Queen Elizabeth, Christians opposed the Roman Catholic custom of eating only fish on Friday in order to express absolute loyalty, so they came up with the saying "no fish", and here we creatively translated "no fish" into "loyalty"; The meaning of "playing games" is the same as "play fair", which generally refers to fair competition, and is translated as integrity according to the specific context here. Therefore, if the above sentence can be translated into "Bush is loyal and upright", it will be more meaningful. In addition, the "dragon" in Chinese and western cultures is also a good example. In China culture, "dragon" symbolizes "power and status", which may be the reason why ancient emperors liked to sit in dragon chairs. However, in western culture, "dragon" is a symbol of evil and an annoying fire-breathing animal. Therefore, it is necessary to accurately grasp the context of words in translation.
4 language structure level
English and Chinese are two different languages and belong to different language families. English belongs to Indo-European language family, while Chinese belongs to Sino-Tibetan language family. English uses 26 letters as its language expression symbol, while Chinese expresses feelings and feelings on the basis of hieroglyphics; Chinese is spiral thinking and English is linear thinking; English emphasizes hypotaxis, while Chinese emphasizes parataxis. These differences make the translator have to choose words carefully and think carefully in the process of translation. If you translate "this coat is beautiful and cheap" into "this coat is beautiful and cheap", it will lose its Chinese meaning, because the collocation of "beautiful" and "cheap" in the original sentence can be said to complement each other and meet the aesthetic standards of English readers, but in the translation process, the linguistic characteristics of Chinese are ignored and the aesthetic feeling of the original text is lost. The translation takes full account of the structural characteristics of Chinese and adopts four-character idioms to express it, which conforms to the thinking of China people and reproduces the original text most naturally and appropriately. In the process of English-Chinese translation, it is sometimes necessary to change the part of speech of words. If the translation adopts the same part of speech as the original, it may lead to a situation of "only meaning without words" or obscure translation. For example, "independent observers have praised your achievements in this direction" translated into "observers with independent opinions have given a good evaluation of your achievements in this regard." The verb "comment" in the sentence is translated into the noun "evaluation", and the adverb "praise" that modifies the verb in the original sentence is also translated into Chinese adjectives accordingly.
Three conclusions
Literary translation is an art, and creation is the only way to express this art. Translation is more difficult than writing, because writers can freely develop and create according to their own experience, while translators' translation is restricted by the content and artistic conception of the original text, and translators only have room to gallop. Even the translation of "cultural gaps" is not arbitrary. In order to make the artistic conception of the original "melt" smoothly and be accepted by the native readers, the translator may have no choice but to create and rebel appropriately. The so-called one hundred percent loyalty can only be an illusion. Translators must find a balance between "loyalty" and "re-creation" with the help of their own cultural literacy and experience. Only in this way can we translate excellent works.
References:
[1] Translation Communication Editorial Department of China Translators Association: Essays on Translation Studies, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1984.
[2] Chang Jingyu: "Chinese Vocabulary and Culture", Peking University Publishing House, 1998 edition.
[3] Interpretation, Zhou's Note: "Eighteen Explanations of Chairman Mao's Poems", China Youth Publishing House, 1957 Edition.
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