（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）从译者伦理角度研究林纾的翻译.pdf

iv 从译者伦理角度研究林纾的翻译从译者伦理角度研究林纾的翻译 摘要摘要 林纾是中国晚清时代最有影响力的翻译家之一。他是翻译外国文学著作的第一 人，他的翻译作品引进了西方的新思想、新文学理念以及新的文学形式。但是，很多 人对他的翻译进行批评，认为他的翻译不忠实于原文。 本论文试图从译者伦理的角度对林纾的翻译进行重新评价。安德鲁切斯特曼认 为，译者在翻译实践中，不仅应当遵循自己的个人伦理，还要遵循职业伦理。由于译 者具有双重身份，并且职业规范有时可能不太实际，译者经常在翻译过程中面临伦理 困境，而林纾也不例外。 在这篇论文中，作者对林纾的翻译进行了详细研究，并发现当职业伦理与个人伦 理不能相互协调时，林纾做出了自己的选择。 本文共分为六章： 第一章是引言部分。引言简述了本文的目的、意义和论文结构。 第二章是文献综述。文献综述分为两部分：第一部分对林纾翻译的国内研究现状进行 了简述；第二部分简单介绍了林纾翻译的国外研究现状。 第三章是理论架构，主要介绍了翻译伦理、译者伦理，以及译者伦理的两个方面，即 职业伦理和个人伦理。 第四章详细研究了林纾翻译中译者伦理如何操控翻译伦理的四种模式，即，再现 伦理、服务伦理、交际伦理和规范伦理。 第五章对分析了面临伦理困境时林纾的选择：林纾通过选择文言文进行翻译、满足赞 助者的要求和达到目标读者的期望来实现对职业伦理的遵守，而在原文本的选择、翻 译目的的确定和对翻译策略的使用中实现对个人伦理的遵守。 最后一章得出结论：译者伦理对林纾在翻译实践中的选择有很大影响。 关键词：关键词：林纾翻译；译者伦理；职业伦理；个人伦理 ii a study on lin shus translation from the perspective of translators ethics abstract lin shu, one of the most influential translators in the late qing dynasty in china, initiated modern translation of foreign works into chinese, and his translations imported new ideas, literary concepts and styles from the west. however, his translations received much criticism for being unfaithful to the original. this thesis attempts to reevaluate lin shus translation from the perspective of translators ethics. according to andrew chesterman, translators, in their translation practice, should not only follow their personal ethics, but also conform to the professional ethics. however, because of translators dual identities and the possible impracticality of the professional regulations, they often face ethical dilemma in their translation process, and lin shu is by no means an exception. in this thesis, a detailed study of lin shus translation is conducted and it was found that when professional ethics and personal ethics did not coordinate with each other, lin shu made his own choices. this thesis is made up of six chapters: chapter one gives a brief introduction to the purpose, significance and the structure of the thesis. chapter two is literature review, in which the previous researches on lin shus translation at home and abroad are discussed. chapter three is theoretical framework, which focuses on translation ethics, translators ethics, professional ethics and personal ethics. chapter four elaborates on how translators ethics manipulates the four models of translation ethics in lin shus translation, namely, the ethics of representation, the ethics of service, the ethics of communication and the norm-based ethics. iii chapter five gives a detailed analysis of lin shus choices when he encountered ethical dilemma, namely, his preference to professional ethics in choosing to translate with classical chinese, satisfying the requirements of the patrons and meeting the expectation of the target readers, and his preference to his personal ethics in the choice of source texts, the determination of translation purpose and the application of the concrete translation strategies. chapter six comes to the conclusion that .translators ethics has a great influence on lin shus choices in his translation practice. key words: lin shus translation; translators ethics; professional ethics; personal ethics 1 chapter one introduction 1.1 lin shu and his translation lin shu (18521924), who is also named qinnan and was born in min county, fujian province, is a great and important man of letters and translator in chinese modern history. in his translation career of more than twenty years, he had translated more than 180 foreign works which are called novels translated by lin and are of great importance and significance to the translation history of china. at the end of the nineteenth century, novel, which had long been considered as a kind of disregarded style of literature, became the most active and widely recognized style, and lin shu had made much contribution to the great change. in 1899, lin shu translated la dame aux camlias, a work of alexandre dumas fils, into classical chinese, and this translated work had such a great impact on the contemporary society that it brought about the first climax of literature translation in translation history of china. lin shu has made great contribution to the chinese literature through translating many foreign literary works, and according to ma zuyi, lin shu has translated 183 novels in total, which amount to about twelve million chinese characters(ma zuyi, 1998:424). lin shu has translated many styles of literary works, including novels, plays and biographies, from eleven foreign languages, including english, russian, french, greek, japanese, spanish and so on. because of his translation practice, many foreign literary writers and their works were introduced to chinese people. according to qian zhongshu(1981:34), lin shus translation career of near thirty years can obviously be divided into two periods, and the translation of li hen tian, which was translated in the year of 1913 can be considered as the dividing line. 2 up to the year of 1913, in the terms of translation, he(lin shu) had translated no less than ninety-six foreign novels and historical writings, the majority of which are foreign novels(kong qingmao, 1998:158). in the first period, lin shus translations, such as la dame aux camlias, uncle toms cabin, tales from shakespeare and joan haste, had received much attention and wide popularity because of the new ideas that he had introduced to the chinese readers as well as his own attitude towards his translation profession. the majority of his translated works in the first period have prefaces, afterwords, postscripts or his own comments, which suggests lin shus enthusiasm in his translation practice. however, his translations in the second period, including adieu, jesus christ en flandre, lauberge rouge, le requisitionnaire, une fille du regent and so on, do not provide chinese readers with fresh ideas or thoughts, and the content of defending the country, expanding industry and commerce and being loyal to the nation and filial to parents, which has been seen repeatedly in his previous translated works, can no longer arouse the interest and resonance of chinese people. in reality, lin shu seemed to have lost his sincerity and concentration on the foreign works he was translating at that time, which led to the result that he had not produced satisfying translated works. the translated works of lin shu have broadened to a large extent the horizon of the chinese people, and they have not only changed chinese peoples thoughts towards foreign literature and brought foreign culture and ideology to china, but have also promoted the revolution of the chinese literature. 1.2 structure of the thesis this thesis is made up of six chapters: chapter one gives a brief introduction to the aim, significance and the structure of the thesis. chapter two is a literature review, in which the researches on lin shu and his translation at home and abroad will be discussed. chapter three is the theoretical framework, which will focus on translation ethics, translators ethics as well as the two aspects of translators ethics, namely, translators professional ethics and translators personal ethics. 3 chapter four will elaborate on the manipulation of translators ethics upon the four models of translation ethics in lin shus translation, which refer to the ethics of representation, the ethics of service, the ethics of communication and the norm-based ethics. chapter five gives an analysis of the concrete presentation of translators ethics in lin shus translation and his choice when faced with ethical dilemma in the translation practice, namely, his preference to professional ethics in the choice of ancient writings and his realization of satisfying the requirements of patrons and meeting the expectation of the target readers as well as his preference to personal ethics in the choice of source texts, the determination of translation purpose and the application of translation strategies. the last chapter comes to the conclusion that lin shus translation is deeply influenced by his translators ethics. 1.3 purpose and significance of the research lin shu, who is considered as one of the greatest men of letters and translators the late qing period in china, is the first one who carried out the translation of foreign literary works with the application of classical chinese, and his translated works reach up to more than 180. such an amount of translated works can be considered as a great miracle in the history of translation. lin shu does not know any foreign languages, because of which his translation was conducted with the help of a person who knew the relevant foreign language and could narrate to him the basic meaning of the source text. under this kind of circumstance, his translations could never be completely faithful to the source text and they could never be considered as a classic version according to the translation standards of faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance. because of the special identity of lin shu in his translation practice and his application of such translation strategies as addition, deletion and adaptation, many translators and scholars have written articles with the purpose of assessing lins translation from different points of view. however, most of them have criticized and made negative comments on lins translations because of his unfaithfulness to the original as well as his arbitrary changes to the source texts. from several decades on, more and more scholars have been writing articles trying to evaluate lins translations from a positive point of view in the light of his ignorance of foreign 4 languages and his great contribution to the introduction of foreign thoughts and foreign literary works, and this thesis can also be considered as one of them. this thesis aims to analyze lin shus translation from the perspective of translators ethics. ethics is the study on the conventions of interpersonal relationship in a certain society and their corresponding moral principles. as a kind of communicative activity, translation in some sense can be regarded as an ethical activity and should be conducted according to the laws and principles of ethics. the theory of translation ethics has been mentioned and studied by many scholars, but the author will apply andrew chestermans theory in the thesis for its comparative comprehensiveness. translators ethics is the key point and the dominant part of andrew chestermans theory of translation ethics. therefore, the present study of lin shus translation will be conducted on the basis of chestermans translators ethics. the overall purpose of this thesis can be stated as the following three points: first, the thesis aims to interpret the manipulation of translators ethics upon translation ethics in lin shus translation. second, the thesis intends to reevaluate lin shus translation from the perspective of translators ethics through a detailed analysis from such aspects as lin shus choice of the source texts, determination of translation purpose and application of translation strategies, etc., by which a new perspective for the study of lin shus translation can be provided. third, the thesis attempts to make some contribution to the study of translators ethics. translation practice and phenomenon are greatly influenced by the contemporary social, political, economic and cultural backgrounds, which will reflect themselves in various ways in the translation process, such as influencing the choice of the source texts and translation strategies. as a result, translators are expected to conform to this or that ethics in order to accomplish a certain piece of successful and satisfying translated work. but what should be paid attention to is that it is the translator who plays the most active part in the translation activity and it is the translators ethics that exerts a profound influence on the translated works, which is the same case with lin shu. the significance of the research lies in the following points: first, through a detailed 5 study of translation ethics, translators ethics, professional ethics and personal ethics, the thesis enables a better understanding of their interrelationship and andrew chestermans four models of translation ethics; second, this thesis further explores the manipulation of translators ethics upon translation ethics, which broadens the scope of relevant researches; third, the author conducts the study on lin shus translation from the new perspective of translators ethics, which may do some contribution to the following researches on lin shus translation. 6 chapter two literature review 2.1 researches on lin shus translation at home since lin shu, the talented intellectual, began to translate, his translations have been attracting the attention and interest of many chinese people. as soon as bali chahuan yishi, lin shus translated version of la dame aux camlias, was completed and published, it received a wider popularity than he had expected, and it had a great influence on the chinese readers attitude toward love and marriage. because of the appearance of bali chahuan yishi, the younger generation of china began to know about a new world of romance, which was free, open and beautiful. just as yan fu put it in 1904, the book titled chahuan has thoroughly broken the heart of chinas people in love(guo yanli, 1988:30). chen yan(18561937), a famous poet in the late qing dynasty, said that, as soon as the novel of bali chahuan yishi appeared in china, it was considered by the chinese people as a brand new thing that had never been seen, because of which it enjoyed a wide spreading in a very short time(kong qingmao, 1998:52). qiu weiyuan, a famous critic in the history of contemporary chinese novel criticism, also expressed his appreciation towards bali chahuan yishi: the wonderful descriptions of the thoughts and disposition of the european people in classical chinese in his translated work are subtle and skillful and very pathetic and stirring so that readers can see marguerites charming soul, armands tears, dumas fils literary conception and lin shus understanding and writing style at the same time, which are the acme of perfection(kong qingmao, 1998:52-53). the fact that his first translated work had won such a large outpouring of favorable comments from the chinese readers had given so much encouragement and surprise to lin shu that he decided to devote himself to the translation of foreign works, and as he had expected, his following translations such as heinu yutian lu, kuairou yusheng shu, sakexun jiehou yingxiongzhuan and jiayin xiaozhuan had gained him a higher reputation. 7 lin shu had always been enjoying positive evaluation before the may fourth movement, however, because of his persistence in the application of classical chinese and his opposition to the cultural revolution, he and even his translations were faced with severe denunciation. in september, 1915, chen duxiu initiated the new youth magazine in shanghai, which symbolized the beginning of the new culture movement. the new culture movement was a disastrous attack to the old culture, ethics and social systems. the ideological emancipation, renewal of ideas and the development of vernacular chinese were a great shock and threat to lin shu, a conservative person who insisted on the application of classical chinese. however, lin shu was not a person that could easily be persuaded or even forced to yield to pressure, and he began to oppose the new culture movement with his persistence. consequently, lin shus reputation as an influential and great translator declined, his achievements of having translated many foreign works were denied and his translated works also received negative comments and harsh criticism. liu bannong published an article in the new youth entitled response to the article of wang jingxuan, in which he began to criticize the translations of lin shu: firstly, although lin shu had translated many famous foreign works into classical chinese, he had also translated some foreign works which did not have much literary value and significance; secondly, there were too many errors and mistakes in lin shus translation, a large amount of which were made deliberately, so many of his translated works could not be compared with the original ones in spirit and artistic value; thirdly, in the opinion of liu bannong, the most important point in translation was the representation of the foreign culture, spirit and disposition in the translated works, however, since lin shu had little knowledge of the foreign culture, he had failed to transmit what the chinese readers should know about the foreign countries. in addition, according to liu bannong, it must be understood that literary writing is different from translation.thereupon, translation can only make the native language close to the foreign language rather than alternating the meaning and spirit of the foreign language in order to be close to the native language(chen fukang, 2000:202). after lin shus death in the year of 1924, many translators and scholars tended to 8 evaluate him and his translations from a relatively tender way and positive comments on his translations began to revive, and from that time on, the achievements of lin shu and his great influence on chinese culture were affirmed again. among all the scholars who had played a part in the reaffirmation of lin shus place and contribution to the history of chinese literature, zheng zhenduo could be considered as one of the most influential one. one month after lin shus death, zheng zhenduo wrote an