[Keywords:] balance of domestication, foreignization and foreignization in translation of proverbs and idioms
As a translator, what kind of translation theory should be used as a guide when introducing foreign works? There has been no conclusion about translation standards or guiding principles. In the field of translation in China, the "Three Difficulties in Translation" was first put forward by Yan Fu, a modern translation theorist, and has long been regarded as the three criteria of translation. In contemporary translation theory, Qian Zhongshu's theory of "change" and Fu Lei's theory of "attaching importance to spirit but neglecting form" both take translation as the core and integrate standards and methods, but they are only extensions of domestication and foreignization. In the contemporary translation field, the dispute between domestication and foreignization has become a hot topic. In traditional translation, that is, domestication translation, the translator makes the translation easy to read by taking advantage of the mother tongue, and the target readers can produce an aesthetic effect similar to that of the original readers, that is, they can achieve some similarity in aesthetic transmission function, which is the same as Nida's "dynamic equivalence" or "functional equivalence". Alienation originated from some Buddhist translators more than 1000 years ago, that is, the so-called "seeking quality", which is similar to literal translation. Venuti, an American scholar, also proposed to preserve the differences and strangeness of the source culture and advocated foreignization translation.
In the field of translation in China. Since Liu Yingkai published his thesis "Differences between Domestication and Translation", there has been another round of debate between foreignization and domestication, but this debate has changed both in breadth and depth. "The dispute between literal translation and free translation at the language level has risen to the height of culture, literature and political ethics." Xu Jun also pointed out that the so-called "domestication" and "foreignization" dispute is actually a cultural attitude dispute, which is based on the cultural position chosen by the translator. From the standpoint of the source language culture, it will lead to alienation, from the standpoint of the target language culture, it will lead to domestication, while from the standpoint of communicating the source language and the target language culture, it will avoid extreme alienation and domestication, and take "communication" as the fundamental purpose of translation, trying to find a set of translation principles and methods that are conducive to communication between different cultures. Therefore, domestication and foreignization should not be absolute, but should strive to achieve a balance. Just as Zhang Guruo, a famous translator, proposed to use authentic translations to translate authentic original texts, Sun Yingchun regarded authentic as a major translation principle in Zhang Guruo's Research on Translation Art, and pointed out that authentic is not extreme domestication, but strives to achieve a balance of alienation.
Taking the translation of proverbs and idioms as an example, the translation of proverbs and idioms needs to give consideration to both language and culture in order to reproduce the meaning and style of the source language information. There are a large number of proverbs and idioms in English and Chinese, but due to the differences in customs, language and culture, few proverbs and idioms with exactly the same meaning, similar structure and equivalent vocabulary can be found in translation. In cross-language translation, how to deal with proverbs and idioms with different expressions and strong cultural colors in the source language and the target language? Domestication or alienation? In this regard, I only talk about my personal views.
(A) Translation of proverbs and idioms from the perspective of domestication
Domestication refers to the translation strategy of adopting a transparent and fluent style to minimize the strangeness of the original text. For example:
Birds of a feather flock together, and heroes know heroes.
Birds of a feather flock together.
Fight poison with poison.
Birds of a feather flock together, dragons give birth to dragons, and phoenix gives birth to wind.
These proverbs with "like" are so abstract that it is difficult to translate them by means of alienation, and it is inevitable that they will be awkward. Translating idioms familiar to China readers by domestication is easy to understand.
Proverbs and idioms come from life and are highly concentrated and concentrated expressions of a national language and culture. It can reflect a country's geographical, historical, religious, living customs and other cultural background. English and Chinese proverbs and idioms bear different national cultural characteristics and cultural information. Whether in Chinese or English, people often refer to people or other things with similar characteristics by borrowing familiar things in daily life. However, the different cultural backgrounds of English and Chinese determine that the two sides have different understandings of some things. In one language, one thing is used to express a certain image, while in another language, it may be expressed by different things. For example, "seeing a hare in a hen's nest" means "looking for something in the wrong place". Knowing this profound meaning, we can easily associate it with "finding fish from the tree". It doesn't matter where we are looking for anything. The point is that they mean the same thing. However, if it is translated into "looking for a rabbit in a henhouse", some traditions inherited are different due to different cultures. When the target readers read this, they are likely to be in a state of confusion and confusion. Another example is smoke without fire. Some translators may find it unnecessary to translate "smoke" and "fire" in the original text into "wind" and "wave". Since "smoke" and "fire" and "wind" and "waves" are mutually causal and closely related, why not directly translate them into "there is no smoke without fire"? Of course, since the meanings are similar, adopting more fluent and familiar sentences in translation can minimize the strangeness of the original text and make it easier to understand.
Domestication is necessary, but excessive domestication will also cause some loss of meaning, expansion of meaning extension and even distortion of original intention. For example, "facts speak louder than fiction" translates into "facts speak louder than words" But look carefully, there are two key words in this proverb: truth and fiction. Truth can be translated into fact, but fiction doesn't mean eloquence in the dictionary. Therefore, the translation of this proverb distorts the original intention. For another example, where there is life, there is hope, which translates as "staying in the green hills, not afraid of burning without firewood". This is a very authentic Chinese sentence. After reading this sentence, there will be a sense of self-confidence that men clap their chests and swear to make a difference in the future, which is refreshing. But reading the original text, the simple sentence "As long as there is life, there is hope". Therefore, reading the original text and translation will cause readers different feelings. Translators should also consider the emotions and moods of the target readers when translating. For another example, "the laggard suffers" translates into "whoever falls behind is beaten". Although the translation is similar to the original intention. However, an element "devil" is inevitably missing. This is a role against God in western culture, with horns on its head, which is a very familiar image to westerners. The translator's failure to translate it will inevitably make readers lose the opportunity to understand foreign cultures. The second half of the translation "Who was beaten" inevitably narrows the meaning of "take", and the devil will take him away without saying what to do. Moreover, when the translation is read by readers, it will inevitably be associated with the semi-colonial and semi-feudal period of China, which was often bullied by imperialist powers because of its backwardness. This is beyond the imagination of the original readers in any case. Therefore, when translating, the translator should not only pay attention to the emotional appeal of the readers caused by the translation, but also pay attention to the specific historical background related to it.
In short, as long as the meaning is expressed accurately and does not involve the loss of cultural significance, domestication translation is desirable. Moreover, domestication has indeed played a positive role in easing the contradiction between language and culture, and can enable readers to obtain aesthetic effects similar to those of the original readers in their own accepted and familiar language environment.
(2) Translation of proverbs and idioms from the perspective of alienation.
For a long time, alienation has not been defined accurately. Compared with domestication, foreignization refers to a translation strategy that preserves the exoticism of the original to a certain extent and intentionally breaks the conventions of the target language. Take the following idioms as an example:
"Hypocrisy" translates as "crocodile tears". As we all know, crocodile was a rare animal before China appeared. If we blindly translate it into "a cat cries a mouse" or "a rabbit dies and a fox is sad" according to the expression habits of China people, then we will not understand this common exotic animal in Britain and America. In fact, I can only read "cats cry mice" or "rabbits die and foxes are sad" in fairy tales or cartoons. It is impossible in real life, but crocodile tears are real. Zoologists observed that crocodiles shed tears when eating their prey, so this idiom came into being. But it was later found that the real reason was that the crocodile excreted excess salt in the body through the lacrimal gland. Therefore, if the idiom is not directly translated by foreignization, will the reader get to the bottom of this popular science knowledge he is interested in?
The translation of "paper tiger" into "paper tiger" is also a typical example. This word was first put forward by Mao Zedong. In his report, he mentioned that imperialism is a paper tiger and will only bluff. When translating Mao Zedong's report, the translator tried to use "Scarecrow", but Mao Zedong insisted on literal translation of "Paper Tiger" to preserve its linguistic features. Therefore. This word was annotated and spread to the United States. Later, Americans slowly accepted it and became a new word in English. If it weren't for Mao Zedong's insistence, there would be such a vivid idiom in English.
The purpose of translation is for cultural exchange. With the deepening of communication, different cultures are more and more tolerant. Therefore, we often hear people say a series of foreign words such as "armed to the teeth", "bottleneck", "sour grapes" and "ivory tower". Alienation can enrich our vocabulary and help us understand different cultures. Therefore, foreignization translation is produced under such an international background. It is still worth popularizing.
(C) from some examples to see the abnormal income balance
Translator Sun Yingchun pointed out that "generally speaking, the balance of alienation should be the most ideal". It also lists three points that Huang Jianhua should pay attention to in the article "Improving Bilingual Translation" about how to translate idioms, proverbs and idioms well. That is, translate the meaning accurately, express its vivid image as much as possible, and keep the format of its idioms and proverbs as much as possible. And he quoted Huang Jianhua's words and put forward a solution-"provide two translations, one is literal translation, and the other is closer to the form of proverbs". For example:
It is the last straw, the last grass that breaks the camel's back. Accumulate feathers and sink a boat.
Empty containers make the loudest noise, while empty cans make the loudest noise. Full pot of water is silent, half pot of Water jingle.
Knock down the big oak tree in a small way, and cut it down with one axe, no matter how big the oak tree is. Drip wears away the stone.
These are typical examples of alien equilibrium, and I have encountered such a situation in the teaching process. Once, I asked my students to translate an article with many idioms, some of which were "I hope you don't feel like a fish out of water, oh, don't mind my little brother Jason;" ; He is fidgeting today. This is your room. Clean as a whistle ",although these idioms mean" feeling unfamiliar and uncomfortable ","fidgeting and excited "and" spotless "after class. But most students still translated its metaphorical meaning. The following is the student's translation:
"I hope you don't feel like a fish out of water. Oh, please don't mind my little brother Jason. He is as fidgety as an ant crawling into his pants. This is your room. Clean as a whistle. "
The first two kinds of translation are possible, which not only retain the characteristics of the original text, but also translate the deep meaning. But the later translation is a bit confusing, because there is no such metaphor in Chinese. But in any case, we can see that students are used to translating all the meanings to avoid omission. When translating. We might as well learn from this practice, especially for some newly introduced proverbs and idioms, such as the "crocodile tears" mentioned earlier, and we might as well translate "crocodile tears-crocodile tears" in the form of two-part allegorical sayings. There are both alienation and domestication, which can easily make readers feel intimate and familiar and accept them quickly. Slowly, readers can understand its meaning as long as they see the first half of the sentence, and the purpose of cultural exchange is achieved.
In short, in the process of translation, we can't blindly use domestication instead of foreignization, nor can we blindly use foreignization instead of domestication. Domestication and foreignization are often intertwined, and flexible use of foreignization and domestication is the real way to solve cultural conflicts in translation.
(4) Conclusion
With the acceleration of globalization and the deepening of understanding among ethnic groups, the reference and integration between various cultures are becoming increasingly obvious, and the heterogeneous colors of cultures seem to be gradually fading. On the other hand, all ethnic groups also call for "cultural diversity" and demand to maintain their own cultural characteristics. As a cultural matchmaker, translation plays an intermediary role in the communication between different cultures, which is what we often call "bridge function". As translators, we should stand on the standpoint of communicating different cultures, take "communication and communication" as the translation purpose, and rationally use domestication and foreignization, two complementary translation methods. Neither foreignization nor domestication can be overemphasized. We should learn to use these two methods skillfully and alternately to achieve the balance of foreignization.