（英语语言文学专业论文）从语境角度论《林家铺子》的等效翻译.pdf

shanghai jiaotong university m.a. thesis i 摘摘 要要 语境是语言学中的一个重要概念， 其对话语的生成和理解起着至 关重要的作用。翻译的整个过程，从理解到表达都离不开特定、具体 的语境，如果忽略了语境，必然引起对原文的误解、曲解，从而导致 误译。语境对翻译的重要性已获得国内外翻译界的一致认同。 林家铺子是茅盾先生最著名的短篇小说，其独特的文学价值 在中国文学史上占有重要地位。 作者在有限的篇幅中创造了一个具体 而形象的时代及其特定的语言环境， 其中每一个人物的语言都符合当 时的社会历史大环境和个人历史小环境。 在翻译这种具有时代和地方 特色的作品时， 译者必须生动地再现一个有说服力和代表性的语言环 境，才能把读者带入原作的思想和艺术境界。 本文将从语境理论出发,运用实证法,对翻译家沙博理的林家铺 子英译本进行分析, 旨在得出语境理论对翻译实践的意义并且对可 操作性做尝试性勾画。同时，本文运用对等翻译理论作为衡量翻译优 劣的尺度， 从而在一定程度上能够较科学地对翻译做出“得与失”的客 观评价。本文包括五部分。第一部分绪论，说明论文的研究目的、对 象、 意义， 并廓清论文的框架结构。 第二部分介绍论文所涉及的理论， 即对语境理论和对等理论进行较详尽的阐述。 第三部分对 林家铺子 这一作品、作家以及译者进行介绍。根据人类语言学家马林诺夫斯基 对语境的分类，即语言语境、情景语境和文化语境，第四部分将分别 从这三大语境来探讨林家铺子译文的译者沙博理先生如何依靠语 shanghai jiaotong university m.a. thesis ii 言语境明确所指，确定多义现象和通感等修辞手段；如何借助情景语 境使人物的语气符合其社会身份、性格和处境；如何充分考虑文化语 境再现原文的社会政治、物质和风俗文化的语境效果。最后，从前文 的分析中得出语境理论对翻译的重要性并对沙博理翻译中的得失做 出客观评价。 关键词：关键词： 林家铺子 ，语境理论，对等理论 shanghai jiaotong university m.a. thesis iii abstract context refers to the environment in which meanings are exchanged, including all the indirect as well as the direct factors that influence the production and interpretation of utterances. as a significant concept in linguistics, the context theory has exerted a ceaseless and relentless influence on the production and understanding of utterance. in the entire process of translation, the specific context determines proper comprehension of the source text and the appropriate reproduction of the target language. any slight negligence of the context will inevitably lead to misunderstanding and even mistranslation. the significance of the context in translation research has been universally agreed upon in the field of translation studies at home and abroad. as a representative work of mao dun, the shop of the lin family seizes a unique position in the chinese classic literature. the story reflects the turbulent years when china suffered the japanese invasion in 1931 through the depiction of the fate of a shop and the average people who frequented the shop. the writer successfully created a complete, specific and historical context within the limited space and time. the speech of every character is in agreement with the particular social-historical context as well as his or her individual context, such as social status. to translate such a time-specific literary work, only through reproducing a convincing context can the translator bring the readers the original flavor and artistic conception. from the perspective of the theory of context and based on the case study, the present thesis makes an attempt to anatomize the shop of the lin family, and draws a conclusion concerning the significance of context theory to translation. at the same time, it will try to evaluate the degree of equivalence of the translation drawing on the equivalence theory for the sake of objectivity. the thesis is divided into five parts. the first part is devoted to the introduction of the definition, making a brief on the aim, target, significance and structure of the thesis. the second part elaborates on the theories concerned, including context theory and equivalence theory. the third part introduces the work, the author as well as the translator. according to bronislaw malinowski, who is both an anthropologist and linguist, the context falls into three shanghai jiaotong university m.a. thesis iv categories. they are linguistic context, situational context and cultural context. therefore the fourth part is carried out from these three contexts, making an objective evaluation on the translation with the focus on how the translator depends on the linguistic context to identify deictics, determine polysemy of lexical units and reproduce figures of speech, how they look to the situational context to make sure that the tone of the character tallies with his or her social status, temperament and the specific occasion, and how to give full play to the cultural factor. the last part will be divided into two parts, with one part arriving at the conclusion that context theory plays an important role in translation and any negligence of it will lead to misunderstanding and mistranslation, and with the other part making an objective judge of shapiros translation based on the previous discussion on the merits and demerits of his version. key words: context theory; translation criticism; equivalence 上海交通大学上海交通大学 学位论文原创性声明学位论文原创性声明 本人郑重声明：所呈交的学位论文，是本人在导师的指导下，独立进 行研究工作所取得的成果。除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本论文不 包含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的作品成果。 对本文的研 究做出重要贡献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。本人完 全意识到本声明的法律结果由本人承担。 学位论文作者签名：何珊 日期：2007 年 3 月 4 日 上海交通大学上海交通大学 学位论文版权使用授权书学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，同意 学校保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版， 允许 论文被查阅和借阅。 本人授权上海交通大学可以将本学位论文的全部 或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等 复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。 本学位论文属于： 保密 保密 ，在 年解密后适用本授权书。 不保密不保密 。 （请在以上方框内打“” ） 学位论文作者签名：何珊 指导教师签名：陈德民 日期： 2007 年 3 月 4 日 日期： 2007 年 3 月 4 日 acknowledgements the thesis would not have been completed without the help and guidance of those people hereafter mentioned with gratitude. they have contributed, directly or indirectly, to the completion of this thesis. first of all, i would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, professor chen demin for his invaluable suggestions, comments and encouragements from which i benefit a lot. i feel it my great honor to share his innovative ideas, frank criticism and sincere help. my heart-felt thanks also go to many warm-hearted classmates who are always ready to offer help when i encountered difficulties in the revision of my thesis. last but not least, i would like to convey my thanks to my parents. their support and encouragement have seen me through the hardest time when i wrote my thesis. shanghai jiaotong university m.a. thesis - 1 - introduction context, as an important concept in linguistics, exerts great influence on the production and interpretation of utterances. moreover, context theory makes a niche in a variety of translation, including literary translation, drama translation, etc. in the entire process of translation, the correct comprehension of the source text and the appropriate expression in the target language both depend on the specific context, any negligence of which may lead to misunderstanding and mistranslating. the significance of context in translation has already been universally agreed upon in the field of translation studies at home and abroad. j. c. catford, as the first one to introduce hallidays view of context into translation theory, calls on due attention to the reproduction in the target text of language varieties which are closely related to “language-situations” (catford 1965:83-88). peter newmark firmly asserts, “ words conditioned by a certain linguistic, referential, cultural and personal context.” (newmark 1988:193) the shop of the lin family is a well-acclaimed work of mao duns short stories. the story reflects the dramatic social changes of china during the anti-japan war though the depiction of the vicissitudes of the lin family as an epitome. it faithfully describes the ups and downs of the shop and the shop proprietor, who is such an ordinary folk and cannot control his fate in spite of his shrewdness. in addition, the story boasts a special style in language, for it is very successful in colloquial language loaded with cultural connotation and forms a valuable text worth translating. the present thesis is intended to make a preliminary attempt to apply the context theory to translation criticism with the storys english version as the object of study. as for a classic literary work, the translator is supposed to reproduce in the target text a persuasive context so that the target language reader can appreciate the ideological content and the artistic appeal of the original. the present thesis, as guided by the context theory, makes an effort to make an evaluation on the translation of the shanghai jiaotong university m.a. thesis - 2 - story by sidney shapiro. taking account of the features of the literary translation and under the guidance of context theory, the present thesis tries to evaluate the degree of “faithfulness” and “equivalence” of the translation studied. the first part serves as an introduction. chapter one deals with the definitions of the context, elements of the context as well as functions. chapter two is to give background information concerning mao dun, the story and sidney shapiro, the translator. chapter three spares no effort to discuss the translation through case study, which will be the highlight of the thesis. the last part is the conclusion part. apart from the conclusion, the last chapter will also point out the merits as well as the failings of the translation. shanghai jiaotong university m.a. thesis - 3 - chapter 1 context theory and equivalence theory 1.1. context theory 1.1.1. definition of context “the word context originally refers to the environment or situation where a certain word or sentence is located in, just as the word co-text.” catford proposes. (zhu yongsheng 2005:6) however, it is not easy to give a definition of context. since malinowski came up with the idea of “context of situation”, the concept of “context” is extended. in the rough, the term “context” is used either in the narrow sense or broad sense. as for the narrow sense, context refers to the words, phrases and sentences in which a word is used. this is what is known as linguistic context or linguistic settings, which may be a paragraph, a whole chapter and even an entire book. the physical, social and cultural settings are defined as non-linguistic settings. when it comes to talking about its broad sense, linguistic and non-linguistic settings are both included in the concept of context. nowadays, the concept of context usually designates its broad sense. for firth, context consists of five levels: phonetic context, morphological context, lexical context, syntactic context and context of situation which he defines as the entire cultural setting of speech and the personal history of the participants. (hu zhuanglin 1988: 386-387) for halliday, context is a very general term that involves the relation of form to nonlinguistic features of the situation as well as the relation of form to linguistic features other than those of the item under attention. that means, context includes not only the utterance which precedes the sentence under consideration, but also the external physical objects, the observable actions, and all of the conventions and presuppositions accepted in society in which the participants live, as long as these shanghai jiaotong university m.a. thesis - 4 - nonlinguistic features are relevant to the understanding of the utterance. for lyons, context is composed of (1) knowledge of role and status (where role covers both role in speech event, as speaker or addressee, and social role, and status covers notions of relative social standing), (2) knowledge of spatial and temporal location, (3) knowledge of formality level, (4) knowledge of the medium (roughly the code or style appropriate to a channel, like the distinction between written and spoken varieties of a language), (5) knowledge of appropriate subject matter. (6) knowledge of appropriate province (or domain determining the register of a language). (lyons 1977:574) for he ziran, context is defined as “the environment verbal communication depends on”. it includes: (1) linguistic context: words, phrases, and sentences preceding or following a certain utterance, (2) social context: the objective environment in which the addresser produces and the addressee interprets an utterance, such as settings for communication, the status of and the relationship between the addresser and addressee, their social and cultural backgrounds, (3) cognitive environment: any experiences, background knowledge or others which contribute to communication and cognition. (he ziran 1997:210) from the different definitions given by those scholars, we can see that no simple answer can be given to the question“what is context?” the reason lies in the fact that “in the construction of a satisfactory theory of context, the linguists account of the interpretation of utterances must of necessity draw upon, and will in turn contribute to the theories and findings of the social sciences in general: notably of psychology, anthropology and sociology.” (lyons 1995:292) but in any case, a choice must be made between the narrow sense and the broad sense according to the matter of study. since we are dealing with the significance of context in translation, which is “probably the most complex intellectual activity preeminently involved with signs” and everything about a verbal sign carries meaning, we will adopt the broad-sensed shanghai jiaotong university m.a. thesis - 5 - one instead of the narrow-sensed one. in spite of contexts richness in connotation and diversity in features, the author of the present thesis makes an attempt to define context as the environment in which meanings are exchanged, including all the indirect as well as direct factors that influence the production and interpretation of utterances. 1.1.2. classification of context in order to know the nature of context clearly, to study the relation between context and linguistic expressive form, and to discover inherent law of context, the scholars classify it according to its definition. 1.2.2.1. the classification in the west malinowski sorted context into “context of situation” and “context of culture”. the former meant something that had happened when someone was speaking; the latter referred to the social culture that the speaker lived in. his classification did not involve in the contextual problem in inner part of language. firth absorbed malinowskis view, and further explained the problem mentioned above. he divided context into two groups too, i.e. linguistic context and situational context. his classification was more comprehensive, because he concerned about the micro aspect of context. american linguist verchueren proposed his own opinion by arguing that context should include communicative context and linguistic context. communicative context included language users, the mental world, the social world and the physical world, among which language users played main function in communication process. utterance and interpreter are presented as focal points because the contextual aspects of the physical, social and mental worlds dont usually start to a role in language use until theyve somehow been activated by the language users cognitive processes. (verchueren 2000:77) 1.2.2.2.the classification in china according to chen zhian and wen xu，context was of six principal types: context shanghai jiaotong university m.a. thesis - 6 - in a broad sense and context in a narrow sense; situational context and linguistic context; subjective context and objective context; transparent context and opaque context; real context and virtual context; intra-linguistic context and extra-linguistic context. based on the four aspects of communication, wang xijie(王希杰)classified context into linguistic context, physical context, cultural context and psychological context. linguistic context could also further be divided into intra-linguistic context and extra-linguistic context. physical context included the subject, object, time, setting and topic, and all of them existed objectively. cultural context referred to the cultural background of communication, and it was mainly in the cultural world. psychological context meant the psychological space formed between the participants. according to wang weixians opinion, context was a sign situation, which could include all the meanings of context. he gave an explanation about the sign situation that when people were speaking, writing, operating the traffic light, ringing the air-raid alarm and so on, those situations were called sign situation. there was no unified classification about context, because the scholars judged the standard from different perspectives and ranges. according to the classifications we have mentioned above, the author of this thesis makes an attempt to divide context into cultural context, situational context and linguistic context in this thesis: (1) cultural context: compasses religious and philosophical traditions, historical, political and economic background, cognitive patterns, cultural values, ideology and so on. (2) situational context: embraces the following elements-the participants (their age, gender, social status, education, feelings, etc.), the happenings (time and place), the topic of discourse, the medium of communication, and the relationship between the shanghai jiaotong university m.a. thesis - 7 - participants. 3) linguistic context: refers to the linguistic items preceding or following the item under consideration, in which words, sentences, paragraphs, and even texts are included. 1.1.3. function of context according to the research by the japanese linguist 西殑光正, context performs eight functions: absolute function, restrictive function, interpretive function, design function, remedial function, derivative function, transforming function and acquisitive function. among the eight functions, restrictive and interpretive functions are regarded as the most prevalent and basic ones. restrictive function refers to the restricting of determining effects of the specific context on the speaker or writers choice of appropriate ways of expression. situational context exerts great influence on the choice of appropriate ways of expression. mode of communication is another remarkable element of context that decides the choice of expressio