郑州大学优秀毕业论文
郑州大学毕业论文
题 目:
学生姓名：刘润泽 学号：[1**********]
指导教师：杨春丽 职称：讲师
院 （系）：外语学院 年级: 2008
专 业：英语 班级： 1
2012年 5 月 27 日
On the Chinese-English Translation of Chinese Culturally Bound Expressions
Liu Runze
As Partial Requirements
For the Bachelor’s Degree of Arts in English
Supervised by Ms. Yang Chunli
The School of Foreign Languages
Zhengzhou University
May 27, 2012
浅析中国特色语的英译
摘要
近年来，中国在世界之林迅速崛起。学习并发扬中国文化已势在必行。毋庸置疑，翻译作为跨文化交际中的一个重要工具，在文化学习和发扬中扮演着重要的角色。这篇论文以中国特色语的英译为研究中心。其着重点有两个方面：其一，中国特色语英译过程中常用的方法；其二，中国特色语英译过程中不可避免的文化缺失。前者基于大量的文献参考，对常用的方法进行概括性的论述，而后者则对中国特色语的英译进行了更深层次的挖掘，并提出了几项弥补中国特色语英译过程中文化缺失的方法。此研究的最终目的是为了鞭策广大译者以严谨的姿态面对中国特色语的翻译，以求最大程度地减少中国特色语英译过程中的文化缺失。
关键词：跨文化交际；中国特色语；文化缺失
On the Chinese-English Translation of Chinese Culturally Bound Expressions
Abstract
The rising of China in the international community necessitates the study of its indigenous cultures. Translation, generally acknowledged as an effective instrument in cross-cultural communication, plays a pivotal role in this regard. The Chinese-English translation of Chinese culturally bound expressions forms the kernel of this paper, with emphasis on two parts, namely, the methodology and cultural losses in the translation in question. The former is no more than a presentation of the facts based on a wide range of researches while the latter explores the dilemma that more often than not confounds the translators in the rendering. Several possible remedies to this problem will be further presented with the view to minimizing cultural losses and facilitating the communication between China and the rest of the world.
Key Words: cross-cultural communication; Chinese culturally bound expressions; cultural loss
Acknowledgements
My deep gratitude goes to Ms. Yang Chunli, my tutor, without whose help I would not have been able to go this far with my paper. Her academic rigor and patience in the revision is very much admirable.
I also wish to pay tribute to the venerable pioneers in the field of translation studies. Those theories and methodologies presented in their works inspired me a lot during the time when I was writing up and revising the paper.
What's more, there are many others whose assistance and advice are quite constructive and beneficial. I am in much appreciation of their openness and willingness in sharing with me their academic researches, especially of the unfailing love and constant support from my friends. I wish to thank them all.
Acknowledgements
My deep gratitude goes to Ms. Yang Chunli, my tutor, without whose help I would not have been able to go this far with my paper. Her academic rigor and patience in the revision is very much admirable.
I also wish to pay tribute to the venerable pioneers in the field of translation studies. Those theories and methodologies presented in their works inspired me a lot during the time when I was writing up and revising the paper.
What's more, there are many others whose assistance and advice are quite constructive and beneficial. I am in much appreciation of their openness and willingness in sharing with me their academic researches, especially of the unfailing love and constant support from my friends. I wish to thank them all.
On the Chinese-English Translation
of Chinese Culturally Bound Expressions
Outline
I. Introduction
A．The Relationship between Language and Culture
B．The Necessity of the Translation Study of Culture-Specific Chinese
II. Content of the Expressions and the Translation
A．Expressions in the Political and Economic Area and the Translation
B．Expressions in the Art and Literature Circle and the Translation
C．Expressions Related to Religion and History and the Translation
D．Expressions Related to Customs and Conventions and the Translation
III. Commonly Employed Methods in the Translation
A．Literal Translation
B．Liberal Translation
C．Transliteration
D．Idiomatic Translation
IV. The Inevitable in the Translation -- Cultural Loss
A．Facts -- Cases of Cultural Losses in the Translation
1．Cases in the Political and Economic Area
2．Cases in the Art and Literature Circle
3．Cases about Customs and Conventions
4．Cases about Religion, Myth and History
B．Roots -- Reasons as to Why Cultural Losses Exist
1．Lexical Gap
2．Ideological Differences
C．Antidotes -- Ways to Minimize Cultural Losses
1．Professional of the Two Languages -- Prerequisite of the Translator
2．Literal Translation plus Further Explanation in Translation
3．Learning the Original -- the Best way and the Ultimate Goal
V. Conclusion
On the Chinese-English Translation
of Chinese Culturally Bound Expressions
I. Introduction
A. The Relationship between Language and Culture
The relationship between language and culture is a centre of attention in cultural studies. It is complicated by the fact that the all-embracing nature of culture points to the impossibility of laying down a hard and fast definition for it. Cultures are not monolithic entities, and nor are languages. Inside these two interdependent systems, there is always a tension that influences their evolution, which justifies Eugene Nida‟s observation that “variability is the name of the game for both language and culture” (Nida 142). According to him, culture refers to the totality of the beliefs and practices of a society, and language is indispensable for both the functioning and the perpetuation of the culture (139). The study of culturally bound expressions in a certain language will help to clarify the relationship between language and culture, for these expressions not only embody the key features of the language but also reflect the evolutionary change of the culture.
B. The Necessity of the Translation Study of Culture-Specific Chinese
The shroud of mystery surrounding China has been gradually receding ever since the implementation of the reform and open-up policy. Meanwhile, China, a country steeped in a history of more than 5,000 years, is expected to export its indigenous culture to the rest of the world. Especially in recent years, the expectation has been raised even higher. The reasons are twofold. On one hand, China is playing an increasingly prominent role on the international arena. On the other, the wave of globalization awakens the interest in cultural origins across the world. Simply put, the world becomes more heterogeneous rather than homogeneous.
However, an arduous journey lies ahead before the cultural exports from China fully
sink in, given that for the outsiders, huge obstacles stand in the way of understanding Chinese culture and language. Nicholas Jose, a former cultural attaché, once said, “a traditional stereotypical image of the oriental is intrinsically different and very often inscrutable, coupled with the weight of history and bound of tradition” (Ma 3). Indeed, history and tradition feature prominently in Chinese culture-specific expressions. The inscrutability puts their translation in the foreground in cross-cultural communication, since translation, as a basic inter-lingual communicative activity, plays the role as a pivotal agent and an indispensable medium between two cultures.
These factors combine to necessitate the study of the translation of Chinese culturally bound expressions, whose quintessential significance can never be denied. The paper is a brief study of the methods commonly employed and the most frequently encountered problem in the Chinese-English translation of expressions with Chinese characteristics. Hopefully, it will provide some insight into cultural translation and contribute to the minimization of cultural losses during the translation and the dissemination of Chinese culture. All in all, in order to make effective inter-cultural communication possible in today‟s increasingly globalized world, Chinese culturally-bound expressions, as an essential part of Chinese culture, should be handled in their translation with great academic rigor so as to convey the message with cultural losses as little as possible.
II. Content of the Culture-Specific Chinese and the Translation
The English version of Chinese culturally embedded expression is the hybrid of Chinese culture and the English language. Bearing the imprint of the nativization of English as an international language, culture-bound Chinese expressed in English has another name -- China English, a term coined by Ge Chuangui（葛传槼）in 1980. These expressions can be fairly described as the fruit of yesterday and the mirror of today, for they derive vitality from both of the time-honored traditions and current social changes. Boasting a rich content that goes beyond description, these culture-specific expressions permeate almost every level of society and all walks of life. With the aim of presenting them from the most panoramic view, these expressions will be grouped into the following four categories.
A. Expressions in the Political and Economic Area and the Translation
In the international community, the new China has never exercised greater political and economic muscle than she does now when conditions both at home and abroad are set relevantly fair for stable development. The swell of the glossary with distinctive Chinese features in the political and economic area is a testament to this irrefutable fact. These expressions reflect the political and economic climate in China, as can be seen from abundant exemplifications. One of the buzzwords in the past few years is “两岸„三通‟”, namely, the "three direct links" of cross-Strait mail, trade, air and shipping services, which signals strong headways made in the cross-Strait relations between the mainland and Taiwan. Other terms such as “to build a well-off society in an all-rounded way （全面建设小康社会）”, “the Four Modernizations （四个现代化）”, “the Scientific Outlook on Development（科学发展观）”, “the Eight Honor and Eight Shame Outlook（八荣八耻）”, etc. have all been well received by the mass media and stand as windows on China. It should be pointed out that a further explanation is necessary on certain occasions when a thorough understanding is the top priority. A case in point is to put the socio-political ideology of “the Three Represents（三个代表）” within the grasp of a foreigner by clearly specifying what "represents" refer to in the Chinese context -- the Communist Party of China represents the development trends of advanced productive forces, the orientations of an advanced culture and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people of China. In this way, the message of these expressions can get across to the utmost.
B. Expressions in the Art and Literature Circle and the Translation
Art, in a broad sense, is an umbrella term for a diverse range of activities that marry the abstract thinking with the concrete forms, such as sculpture, dance, music, etc. It constitutes an integral part of a nation‟s cultural legacy. Against the backdrop of increasingly frequent cultural exchanges between China and other countries, Chinese art begins to show its power to charm. The Chinese martial arts have reached quite a number of fervent fans and more people are expected to join the ranks. Both “Kung fu” and “t‟ai chi ch‟uan” now sound familiar to the foreign ears, along with other terms with distinctive Chinese characteristics
such as “shadow play（皮影戏）”, “Tang Dynasty tri-coloured glazed pottery（唐三彩）”, “Four Treasures of the Study（文房四宝）”, etc.
As a form of artistic expression, literature records the authentic voices of the times and fashions the mode of thinking of a generation. Ji Xianlin（季羡林）, a giant in academia, once stated in his speech to the effect that the Chinese classics is number one in terms of both quantity and quality. Confucianism is the pearl among these classics. Now a growing number of scholars are mesmerized by the underlying profundity in the Four Books and Five Classics（四书五经）which are characterized by extreme brevity and compactness. "Sishu" consists of four books, usually translated as Great Learning （《大学》）, Doctrine of the Mean（《中庸》）, The Analects（《论语》）, Mencius（《孟子》）. Couched in Chinese culturally bound expressions, these works pose a challenge to translators. Take The Analects translated by Arthur Waley. In Book Four, the subjects of Confucius‟s teaching are summarized as “wen（文）”, “xing（行）”, “zhong（忠）”, “xin（信）”, which are translated as “culture”, “conduct of affairs”, “loyalty to superiors” and “the keeping of promises”. Leaving aside the semantic losses, the readers may find it easy to notice that the linguistic form has undergone a drastic change. This is the dilemma translators often find themselves in. Besides, in literary translation, the English equivalents usually fail to cover all the senses of the original. For example, Arthur Waley respectively renders “ren（仁）”, “de（德）”, “li （礼）”, “shi （士）” as “the Good”, “the moral force”, “ritual”, “the true Knight of the Way”. These losses in senses speak of the importance of cultural elements in the translation.
C. Expressions Related to Religion and History and the Translation
With incomparable richness and diversity, Chinese civilization has nurtured numerous expressions associated with history, religions and legends. More often than not, word-for-word rendering is employed in their translation, as shown by the English name for such periods of historical importance as “the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors（三皇五帝）”, “the Spring Autumn and Warring States（春秋战国）”, “the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms（五代十国）”, etc. This method also works with expressions tinted with religious and mythical color, like “the three Jewels and the five Precepts（三皈五戒）”. Nevertheless,
word-for-word rendering is not necessarily the only way available in the translation. When it comes to “玉兔” in the folklore, it should be translated as “the Moon Rabbit” instead of “Jade Rabbit” to avoid misunderstanding.
D. Expressions Related to Customs and Conventions and the Translation
Customs and conventions are the heirlooms passed on between generations. China has 56 family members observing a myriad of customs and conventions, among which some are gaining in popularity over recent years, such as “scrambling for Huapao（抢花炮）”or “the Oriental Rugby” of the Dong minority, “Bamboo Skipping Dance（竹竿舞）” of the Li minority, “the Shuagetang Festival（耍歌堂）” of the Yao minority, to name but a few. Certain customs abhorrent to a civilized society fail to survive in the course of history. “缠足”is one of the likes. It is the custom of making females bear themselves more daintily by binding their feet so painfully tight as to prevent further growth. The English equivalent is “Foot Binding”, now universally accepted.
Culture-specific Chinese is the concrete form of the nation‟s wisdom as a whole, the content so extensive that the above exemplification is impotent to build up its whole picture. They are omnipresent, in forms of colloquialisms and enigmatic folk similes in daily communication and literary works, or of abstruse jargons in varied professions, such as “the Three Treasures - Jing Qi Shen（精气神）” in traditional Chinese medicine. In the succeeding part, the emphasis will be shifted to the study of commonly employed methods in translating Chinese culturally bound expressions, which is essential for their successful export to the foreign lands.
III. Commonly Employed Methods in the Translation
The three-character criterion for translation proposed by Yan Fu（严复）, namely, faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance, serves as a yardstick when the translators are weighing over the optimum way in translation. Both Lu Xun（鲁迅）and Qu Qiubai（瞿秋白）held that faithfulness to the original rather than expressiveness was important and that if it was impossible to get both, adhere to the former and sacrifice the latter (20). The balance of
evidence suggests that faithfulness should be the axis that the translation of culture-bound Chinese revolves around. The four methods frequently resorted to in the translation in question are as follows.
A. Literal Translation
Peter Newmark in his masterpiece A Textbook of Translation once stated that “we must not be afraid of literal translation, or, in particular, of using a TL (target language) word which looks the same or nearly the same as the SL (source language) word” (Newmark 72). Literal translation can then be understood as converting the source language to their nearest target language equivalents on lexical and grammatical levels. Its advantage resides in keeping the grammatical constructions and lexical arrangements intact as much as possible, hence the survival of the exotic flavors during the transference. For this reason, this method is preferred in dealing with culturally bound Chinese, as can be seen from such expressions as “to try to help the rice seedlings grow by pulling them upward（拔苗助长）”, “rice wine（米酒）”, “Hope Project（希望工程）” , “Chinese Herbal Medicine（中草药）”, “Tang suit （唐装）”, “Three-Good Student （三好学生）”, “paper tiger（纸老虎）” etc. Literal translation is an instrumental vehicle in literary translation as well. Arthur Waley translated “君子务本，本立而道生” as “It is upon the trunk that a gentleman works. When that is firmly set up, the Way grows.” Translating “本” into “trunk” is based on the etymological study that the Chinese character “本” and “木” are closely connected. Here is another illustration drawn from the Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung. In Volume Ⅴ, in the speech Beat Back the Attacks of the Bourgeois Rightists, Chairman Mao mentioned "the man of Chi worried lest the sky fall", the Chinese set phrase“杞人忧天”in English. The translations mentioned above are certainly not impeccable, but by translating literally the translators manage to communicate the message both accurately and economically.
B. Liberal Translation
The debate between literal translation and liberal translation has never ceased. Liberal translation, or free translation, “reproduces the matter without the manner, or the content
without the form of the original” (46), while literal translation highlights faithfulness. To put it plainly, the former is content-oriented as against the latter, which is form-oriented. It is an established fact that loyalty to form sometimes equals betrayal of content. Therein lies the constraint on literal translation. For example, non-Chinese speakers will surely frown in complete puzzlement when they come to the pairing “earth chicken（土鸡）” and “foreign chicken（洋鸡）”, which would otherwise make sense without any difficulty if they were translated liberally as “free-range chicken” and “mass-produced fast-growing chicken”. In such cases, literal rendering is put into shade because when the liberal approach is applied, the gain of comprehensibility in meaning far outweighs the loss of intactness in form. The fact that the liberal translations of some Chinese culturally bound expressions like “小康之家 (well-off family)”, “大排挡 (side walk snack booth)”, “塞北 (northwest frontier)”, “划拳(finger-guessing game)” are well accepted further justify this approach's legitimacy. It would be fair to make a conclusion that the straight choice between literal translation and liberal translation is quite circumstantial. As Perrot d‟Ablancourt puts it, “in fact, there are many passages I have translated word for word... there are also passages in which I have considered what ought to be said, or what I could say, rather than what he actually said” (Lefevere 9).
C. Transliteration
Many vivid expressions are created out of transliteration. Onomatopoeia serves as a good example. Onomatopoeia is, in essence, spoken sound transliterated into a readable format. In inter-lingual translation, transliteration plays a role of crucial significance as well, preserving the acoustic relatedness between the two linguistic systems. It contributes to the diversity of the target language and the wholeness of the source language, as can be illustrated by “tea（茶）”, actually a derivative of “te”, dialect in southern China. For this reason, transliteration enjoys wide applicability in the translation of Chinese culturally loaded expressions. The general run of transliteration in this field falls into two types. The first one is to transcribe Chinese-specific words directly in pinyin, the phonetic symbol of Chinese characters. By means of this approach, the units of measurement “里” and “亩”can directly be transcribed as “li” and “mu”. It also works well with “Fuwa（福娃）”, “Shenzhou V（神
舟五号）”, “wenyan（文言）”, “yuan, jiao, fen（元角分）”, etc. The second approach is to imitate the pronunciations of the culture-specific Chinese and spell them accordingly in English letters. Many English words created in this way come from Chinese dialects. Words like “kowtow（叩头）”, “chop-suey（杂碎）”, “kaoliang（高粱酒）”, “siumai（烧卖）”, “dim sums（点心）”, “cheongsam（长衫）”, “wonton（馄饨）”, “I-Ching（《 易经》）” are all on the list. Surely, when need arises, the two aforementioned approaches work together, sometimes with annotations, as shown by “Mapo tofu（麻婆豆腐）” and “kang, a heatable brick bed（炕）”. To wrap things up, transliteration in the handling of Chinese-specific expressions provides a middle ground where Chinese and English compromise each other.
D. Idiomatic Translation
The idiomatic approach makes the translation conform to the customs familiar to the receptors mainly for communicative purpose. The German theologian and translator Friedrich Schleiermacher once mentioned in his seminal lecture On the Different Methods of Translation two roads open to a genuine translator, namely, either the translator leaves the author in peace and moves the reader towards him or he leaves the reader in peace and moves the author towards him (149). Apparently, idiomatic translation leaves the readers in peace by making the cultural content more accessible to them. Many translations of Chinese idioms, colloquialisms, four-character set phrases are approached in light of this method. It is easy to match the following English expressions with their idiomatic equivalents in Chinese -- “a mare‟s nest（子虚乌有）”, “an old wives‟ tale（无稽之谈）”, “to put all one‟s eggs in one basket（孤注一掷）”, “a land flowing with milk and honey（鱼米之乡）”, “polish the apple（拍马屁）”, “to shed crocodile tears（猫哭耗子假慈悲）”, “cut the Gordian‟s knot（快刀斩乱麻）”, “even Homer sometimes nods（智者千虑，必有一失）”. The list goes endlessly. The substitution by the corresponding idiomatic expressions is made merely on the functional basis, regardless of the syntactic structures and cognitive effects of the original.
The chink in the armor is that idiomatic translation tends to distort the original meaning. Semantic nuance is a common sight in translation. To keep the cultural connotation intact in the transference is hardly achievable. The following section will focus on the inevitable
cultural losses in the translation of Chinese culturally bound expressions.
IV. The Inevitable in the Translation -- Cultural Loss
Alexander Tytler once said, "a translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work.” However, to achieve “completeness” seems to be a “mission impossible” in inter-cultural communication. Albrecht Neubert, a trail-blazer in translation studies, stated in the book Translation as a Text that it is a daunting task to pull a text from its natural surroundings and recreate it in an alien linguistic and cultural setting (Ma, Miao 58). This is particularly true with the translation of Chinese culturally bound expressions. Because of the culturally associated meanings, there is an immense potential for cultural losses in the translation. In this section, the unavoidable cultural losses will be analyzed from three dimensions -- facts, roots and antidotes.
A. Facts -- Cases of Cultural Loss in the Translation
The cases to be discussed follows the same classification as that of the content in section Ⅱ.
1. Cases in the Political and Economic Area
During the conference held in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the reform and opening-up policy, the interpreter directly translated “不折腾”, a colloquialism in Northern China mentioned in the president‟s speech, into "bu zheteng". No sooner were the three syllables (bu zheteng) uttered than the audience at present bursted into laughter. This anecdote alludes to the inevitability of cultural loss in handling such typical Chinese turns of phrases as “不折腾”, which contains “a set of non-transferable associations and connotations” (Bassnett 22). Under such circumstances, resorting to the baffling transliteration turns out to be a wise choice. Taking the context of the speech into consideration, Professor Bai Jingyu has offered in his book Translation and Culture （《文化与翻译》）another two translations, namely, “don‟t make trouble like the Culture Revolution” and “no self-consuming political movements like the Culture Revolution” (Bai 30). These
translations are somehow unsatisfactory as they simply provide a foil for “不折腾”, which convey the meaning of “tossing and turning”, “getting sidetracked”, “going awry”, etc. simultaneously.
2. Cases in the Art and Literature Circle
The translation of literature, especially traditional Chinese literature, sometimes replete with abstruse allusions, poses a formidable challenge to the translators, or the inter-culture mediators.
Chung-yung （《中庸》）is widely acclaimed as a vitally important literary legacy of Confucianism. That its key concepts are wrapped in highly condensed forms gives rise to great complexity. “礼”, for example, is usually rendered as “ritual”. Technically speaking, “礼”refers to a dynamic process rather than a static state. Obviously, “ritual” fails to capture this dimension. “Sincerity”, the English counterparts of “诚”, is more of the same. Ch‟eng as the Way of the Heaven is certainly different from “sincerity” as a personal quality (Du 88). The English expression “sincerity” apparently does not accommodate the many-sidedness of ch‟eng. In the comparative study of the renderings of the Tang Poem Qing Ming（《清明》）in the book Systemic Functional Linguistics and Translation Studies, the author Zhang Jingyuan（张敬源）comments on the semantic discrepancy between“牧童”and its four English counterparts (“cowboy”, “shepherd boy”, “herdboy”, “cowherd”). None of them sufficiently reproduce the intrinsic and extended meaning of“牧童” and their associated senses are a far cry from those of the original. Another example is “推敲”, an allusive word meaning “intent pondering”. Its corresponding English expression by no means conjures up in readers‟ mind, as “推敲” does, a picture that Jia Dao, contemplating the diction in the poem, stumbled into the procession escorting Han Yu, a famous scholar.
3. Cases about Customs and Conventions
Social stratification and patriarchal hierarchy are deeply seated in traditional Chinese society. Born out of the hierarchical tradition, the complicated kinship appellation system within a family, the microcosm of society, justifies this statement. By contrast, the English kinship terms are much ambiguous. As a result, the Chinese appellations that make clear
distinction among the siblings are substituted instead by their names during translation. Moreover, the Chinese appellation preserves the dignity of the elder, as indicated by “贾母、老祖宗” in A Dream of Red Mansions. Yang Xianyi（杨宪益）and David Hawkes translated it respectively as “Lady Dowager” and “Her/Your Ladyship”. It is plain to see that they fail to convey the concept of respecting the elder but rather ring with the western ideology. Culture loss is also a common sight in the translation of terms concerning the tradition of Chinese New Year. For example, the phonetic relatedness between “糕” and “高” vanished without a trace in “New Year‟s Cake”（年糕）and the five layers of meaning of “福” can never be fully presented in a simple word “luck”.
4. Cases about Myth and History
Chinese people call themselves “descendants of dragon” as a sign of ethnic identity. However, “龙”, a mythical creature in Chinese folklore, an amalgam of various animals, stands in contradistinction to the western “dragon”. “龙” denotes a sense of power and is worshipped in awe in ancient China while “dragon” demonstrates the forces of evil and is abominated in the West. The same goes with “凤凰” and its English counterpart “phoenix”. The former is actually a cover term of both the male and the female and an incarnation of virtue, nobility and auspiciousness while the latter symbolize eternity and resurrection. Due to the connotative differences, “龙” and “凤凰” suffers a certain degrees of cultural erosion in their translation. A lengthy explanation is needed before the foreigners come to see why the parents in China want their sons to become “dragons” and why “凤求凰” indicates the bliss of romance.
B. Roots -- Reasons as to Why Cultural Losses Exist
Translation is far more than a mere replacement on the lexical and grammatical levels between two languages. The inevitability of cultural losses in translating culture-bound Chinese proves this point. From the perspective of language and culture, lexical gap and ideological difference lie at the root of the cultural losses.
1. Lexical Gap
No language can exist unless it is steeped in the context of culture; and no culture can exist which does not have at its center, the structure of natural language (Lotman 211-232). As this statement implies, culture and language are closely intertwined in their development. China and those English-speaking countries basking in inherently different cultures thus cultivate language systems with features distinct from each other, hence the birth of lexical gap. A lexical gap or lacuna describes the situation where a concept lexicalized in one language does not have a corresponding equivalent in another. The lexical gap herein somehow bears on the issue of untranslatability on the linguistic level postulated by John Catford in his seminal work A Linguistic Theory of Translation. Linguistically, untranslatability occurs when there is no lexical or syntactical substitute in the target language for an[a] source language item (Bassnett 15). This is a fitting explanation for the cultural loss in the translation of Chinese culture-loaded terms. Hardly can the historically associative images of “西施” is preserved in “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, and there is no straightforward equivalence between “京剧” and the western “opera”. The lexical gap illustrated in the above exemplifications once again throws the issue of untranslatability on the table and predetermines the inevitability of cultural losses.
2. Ideological Differences
Victor Hugo once wrote in the preface to the Shakespeare translations published by his son that “when you offer a translation to a nation, that nation will almost always look on the translation as an act of violence against itself” (Lefevere 18). Indeed, the ideological divergence between two nations easily stirs dissenting voices and therefore is not negligible in translation. The almost diametrically opposed ideologies well account for the polarized comments by the domestic and western media on China‟s “birth-control” policy. The westerners' belief in the inviolable sanctity of humanity is ingrained in every fibre of their beings. No wonder that they feel confounded when the Chinese extol the virtues of this policy. What it all boils down to is the historical and cultural background, the formative forces in shaping one‟s ideology. For China, the oversized population is an albatross on the neck, albeit reluctantly, sacrifices have to be made for a better future. With the westerners' cognition
functioning outside the framework of Chinese ideology, the cultural loss in the translation is never retrievable, let alone the achievement of the understanding as to why the birth-control policy for China is a boon instead of a doom.
C. Antidotes -- Ways to Minimize Cultural Losses
The minimization of cultural losses is feasibly achievable, though the eradication of it is far out of the realm of possibility. Below are three ways concerning the minimization of cultural losses in the translation of culture-bound Chinese.
1. Professional of the Two Languages -- Prerequisite of the Translator
A sound translation requires careful consideration of the semantic content, formal contour and aesthetic features of the original. Therein lies the complexity of translation. Those dilettantes content to just dabble can never scale the heights of translation. Bilingual competence desirable in a capable translator consists in the high sensitivity to both of the language and culture. Edwin Gentzler once quoted Nida in Contemporary Translation Theories, “he (the translator) must understand not only the obvious content of the message but also the subtleties of meaning, the significant emotive values of words and the stylistic features which determine the flavor and feel of the message” (Gentzler 56). Keen perceptivenesses are indispensible in drawing a clear-cut line between “来生” and “afterlife”, “社会科学” and “social sciences”. Technically, “afterlife” refers to a life that some people believe exists after death, and “社会科学” in China cover the area of both “social sciences” and “humanity” (Bai 23). In a word, the cultural idiosyncrasy of Chinese culture-bound expressions poses demanding requirements to both of the translator‟s hand and mind.
2. Literal Translation plus Further Explanation in Translation
Lu Dianyang once put forward a principle of translation -- translate literally, if possible, or appeal to free translation. Under the guidance of this principle, the translation of Chinese culturally bound phrases privileged literal approach out of consideration for the minimization of the cultural loss. However, literal translation alone does not prove to be a sufficient remedy,
as the succinct expression in literal translation turns out to be a drawback. The extreme compactness of the translations simply increases their vulnerability to cultural losses. Under such circumstances, it is advisable to resort to the notes for further explanations. In this way, the preservation of the exotic flavors and the restoration of the cultural elements can be realized simultaneously. For instance, “破釜沉舟”, an allusive Chinese four-character set phrase, can be translated literally as “break the kettles and sink the boats” with a note that reads this Chinese saying originates from an ancient war where a general named Xiang Yu dictated the order to destroy all the means of re-crossing the river, committed his army to a ferocious struggle and eventually achieved victory. Similarly, the enigmatic folk simile “和尚打伞——无法无天”can be translated as “a monk under an umbrella -- wu fa wu tian -- defying laws human and divine” with a further explanation -- A monk has a shaved head, hence no hair. A monk under an umbrella is cut off from the sky, hence no heaven. But “fa” in Chinese with the third tone also means “law”, and “tian” also means “heaven” of paramount supremacy. Thus, a monk under an umbrella is a man without law or limit (Jin 286). Lu Xun once compared translation to a trip in a foreign land. The responsibility of the translator, who has seen it all, resides in presenting before his readers‟ eyes the exotic affairs during the trip. In the translation of Chinese culture-bound expressions, the literal approach aided by further explication is surely helpful in creating such a foreign land, both exotic and enjoyable.
3. Learning the Original -- the Best way and the Ultimate Goal
Qian Zhongshu（钱钟书）once aired his viewpoints on the functions of translation. He argued that a translation should draw the readers to the original work and inspire them to learn the foreign language in which the work was first written. It is reasonable to infer from this statement that learning the original is the best medicine to counter cultural losses. Arguably, there is always a certain degree of loss either lexical or semantic during translation. The translation of the culture-specific Chinese is no exception. The reason is that there is ordinarily no full equivalence through translation (Bassnett 22). In this connection, the richness of the culturally associative connotations intrinsically embedded in these Chinese expressions is unavoidably ruined when reconstructed by English. Therefore, encouraging the foreigners to learn Chinese culturally bound expressions in the original context is the way to
eradicate cultural loss once and for all.
V. Conclusion
The wave of globalization throws the cultural differences between nations into relief. Under such circumstances, the fate of culture is set -- to survive and revive, or to decline and be devoured.
China, a nation nurtured by a rich cultural legacy, has much to offer for the rest of the world. One of the effective ways to present its splendor is translation. Translators are accorded great importance in the times when the need for translation is exploding with the growth of intercultural communication. Their contribution to the continuity and diffusion of culture is immeasurable. The focal point of this paper is the analysis of the translation of Chinese culturally bound expressions, which is crucially important for the successful export of Chinese indigenous culture. The analysis starts with the introduction to the content of these expressions, then moves on to the common methodology employed in the translation and concludes with detailed studies of cultural losses.
It is perfectly understandable that only when fully accepted by the outsiders can a culture survive and revive. Therefore, Chinese culturally bound expressions, as an integral part of cultural legacy of China, should be handled with full academic rigor in their translation. Incidentally, it would be pathetic if translation was perceived as the destination in the journey of intercultural communication. To attract more foreigners to the learning of Chinese is the ultimate goal of the study conducted in this paper.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_gap
http://orientaldiscovery.com/11/html/list1235-1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_no_return