（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）《红楼梦》诗词中文化现象的翻译策略研究.pdf

华华 中中 科科 技技 大大 学学 硕硕 士士 学学 位位 论论 文文 iii 摘摘 要要 翻译，尤其是文学翻译在本质上讲是一种文化活动。如何将原文本中所蕴涵的 文化信息传达给读者一直是翻译界讨论的热门话题。诗歌作为文化的结晶，其间高 度浓缩了许多的文化信息，再加上诗歌文体本身的特殊性，对诗歌中文化因素的翻 译策略的选择应该格外慎重。归化与异化策略是翻译工作者对待文化翻译的两种不 同倾向。前者强调目标读者对目标文本理解的流畅性, 异化翻译更加重视源原文本 在翻译中的地位。 本文基于杨宪益与霍克斯对红楼梦前40回诗词中所出现的文化现象不同处理方 法的对比研究, 分别从物质文化、意识文化以及语言文化三个方面对比总结了他们 在翻译中对文化因素的不同倾向, 译本所达到的不同效果, 并且详细分析了影响他 们翻译策略的不同因素：首先, 中国传统文化的博大精深,以及红楼梦本身的文本性 质要求翻译者在翻译过程中不能弱化或者漏译其中的文化内容; 其次, 由于杨译本 的读者大都是双语者, 接触到原文本并对其中文化内涵的一定理解使他们能够读懂 英译本的异化翻译, 而霍克斯译本的受众大多是英语为母语者, 他们对中国文化尤 其是古代封建传统文化的了解是有限的, 归化翻译对他们来说更加有意义。再次， 译者所处的历史时期的社会意识形态对译者所采取的翻译策略也有着不可忽视的影 响。杨宪益翻译红楼梦采取异化翻译，忠实原文文化特征在一定程度上受当时社会 政治背景影响。在主观方面，译者本身对原文本文化以及译文文化心理态度也会影 响策略的选择。 在各国政治、经济、文化各个方面都出现前所未有交流的今天,作者提出自己对 翻译策略选择的观点: 归化和异化并不是两种互相冲突, 相互排斥的翻译策略, 在 翻译过程中两者应该相互结合、互为补充。对各国不同文化我们应采取包容的态度， 且更倾向于异化翻译. 关键词: 关键词: 诗歌 翻译策略 文化因素 华华 中中 科科 技技 大大 学学 硕硕 士士 学学 位位 论论 文文 i abstract translation, especially literary translation in essence is intercultural communication. how to convey the cultural elements of the source text to the target language reader has been a heatedly disputed topic in the discipline of translation. poetry which is the crystallization of culture together with its special stylistic features poses more difficulty for translators. foreignization and domestication are two different translation trends concerning the cultural phenomenon in the source language. the former is target reader-oriented, while the latter is source-language culture oriented. based on the comparative study of poetry in the english versions of hongloumeng by yang and hawkes, this paper makes a comparative analysis of the different translation strategy of the poetry in the english versions adopted by yang and hawkes respectively and discusses the operational factors influencing their strategies in accordance with the ones the paper proposes in the first part. this paper shows that in the course of rendering the cultural elements in the poetry of hongloumeng, yang generally adopted the strategy of foreignization, while hawkes domestication. their distinctive choices are affected basically by the following four types of factors. firstly, because chinese culture is getting more and more attention and considered an integral part of world culture relics, and also the novel hongloumeng is largely an expressive text, translators have its responsibility to get the culture-loaded elements across by the target readership. secondly, when taking into consideration of the cultural presupposition and the type of the readers of the target language, the translator will employ some corresponding translation strategies. the target readership of yangs english version of hongloumeng are mostly learned with easy access both to the original and translated versions, their understanding and ability to comprehend the cultural phenomenon are more desiring than hawkess whose readership are primarily english language speakers. thirdly, social ideology in specific historical periods also has certain impact on translators preference for strategies used in their translations. in yangs time of the translation of hongloumeng, he had no choice but to treat the novel as a “sacred” book and stick to the original text rigidly and be able to express his own 华华 中中 科科 技技 大大 学学 硕硕 士士 学学 位位 论论 文文 ii understanding of the authors intention due to the special political background of that time. lastly, the cultural and philosophic attitude of the translator. being faithful is yangs first concern; he wanted foreign readers to know chinese culture, while hawkes laid more emphasis on pleasing his readers though he also tried every means to translate everything in his version. in todays world of expanding globalization, the author of the paper presents her view about the two trends in cultural translation: they are not contradictory, but supplementary instead. foreignization strategy will be more and more favored. key words: poetry translation strategy cultural element 独创性声明独创性声明 本人声明所呈交的学位论文是我个人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的 研究成果。尽我所知，除文中已经标明引用的内容外，本论文不包含任何其他个人 或集体已经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对本文的研究做出贡献的个人和集体，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： 日期： 年 月 日 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，即：学校有权 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。本人授权华中科技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。 保密 ，在_年解密后适用本授权书。 不保密。 （请在以上方框内打“” ） 学位论文作者签名： 指导教师签名： 日期： 年 月 日 日期： 年 月 日 本论文属于 华华 中中 科科 技技 大大 学学 硕硕 士士 学学 位位 论论 文文 1 introduction background of the present study since its birth in 3000 b.c., translation has been defined as the “replacement of textual material in one language by equivalent textual material in another language” or “the transfer of thoughts and ideas from a source language to a target language” or “a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and /or statement in other language” (moore, 1992). before 1970s, translation studies have been considered as the sub-branch of applied linguistics, taking little place in literary studies and almost no position in cultural studies. in recent thirty years, translation studies show the tendency of pluralism, breaking the traditional aesthetic or linguistic pattern and reach the level of cultural exploration. in 1980, gideon toury published his in search of a theory of translation, which marked the cultural turn in translation studies. theo hermans (1985) summed up the thought of “translation study school” in his the manipulation of literature: studies in literary translation. he regards translation, especially literary translation as a sub-system of social system and holds that translation should be analyzed and studied under social cultural circumstances. he takes the concept of norm as the tool of translation studies, the particular culture and society as the matrix of the study and objects to the traditional view that translation studies must serve translation practice. susan bassnett brings translation into the category of mammoth cultural studies and holds that translation studies play the role of bridge among stylistics, linguistics, semiotics and aesthetics, etc. she and andre lefevere suggest that the unit of translation studies should transfer from discourse to culture; translation is deeply rooted in cultures, the function of translation depends on the function of the original text acts on the original 华华 中中 科科 技技 大大 学学 硕硕 士士 学学 位位 论论 文文 2 culture; translation should meet the need of culture and different groups in certain culture (susan bassnett or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author toward him” (venuti, 1995). lu xun also said that “before translating, the translator has to make a decision: either to adapt the original text or to retain as much as possible the foreign flavor of the original text” (luo, 1984). purpose of the study with the culture turn taking place in literary and literature translation, we know that translation no longer confines itself to the scope of linguistics, but extends to the field of cultural study. hongloumeng is considered one of the most successful novels abounding in various cultural phenomenons. we cannot translate it without skillfully transferring the cultural elements densely dotted in the lines. to translate and introduce such a masterpiece to english readers, the translator should always keep a close eye on the cultural elements and adopt some corresponding strategies to deal with them. the translation strategies of domestication and foreignization are two most heatedly disputed by scholars in the discipline of translation. different from the concepts of free translation and literal translation which discuss translation linguistically, domestication and foreignization are actually laying an overwhelming emphasis on many aspects, such as, culture, poetics, even politics, thus far exceeding the previous spheres about translation. in the case of the english versions of hongloumeng, different translators have different choices. it is necessary to analyze what strategies are taken by them and also explore the factors affecting their choice of strategy in order to shed some light on the future translation of cultural phenomenon. as the english versions by yang xianyi and his wife gladys dai (yang for short in later discussions), and david hawkes (hawkes for short in later discussions) are the most accepted and acclaimed, we base our study on the comparison of 华华 中中 科科 技技 大大 学学 硕硕 士士 学学 位位 论论 文文 4 translated versions of poetry with cultural elements embedded in. outline of the thesis this thesis consists of five parts. part 1 serves as an introduction. it generalizes the cultural turn appearing in translation in recently thirty years and the two translation strategies-domestication and foreignization and presents the purpose of present study. part 2 provides a brief overview of the concepts that will be undoubtedly touched upon in this thesis. it first makes clear what is culture based on definitions given by the several most influential figures in history and puts forward its classification of culture by drawing upon nidas division of culture. then it elaborates on the core concepts-foreignization and domestication at lengths. different schools will hold their own views on these two long-existing and disputable strategies; the resistance of foreignization against domestication is actually the resistance against the anglo-american culture in nature. finally, this part concludes with a summary of factors affecting translators choice of the strategy deduced from the above presented viewpoints on domestication and foreignization. part 3 is the detailed comparison of the cultural elements in the poetry in hongloumeng translated by yang and hawkes respectively. the author proceeds her research about the cultural elements generally form three catalogues-material culture, culture concerning ideology and linguistic culture. abundant examples are presented in an attempt to make the study as objective and scientific as possible. in part 4, the paper answers the questions one by one raised in the introduction part. the writer also puts forward her views on the cultural elements in todays society, given high-speed of the updating of the information and deepening of peoples communication between different cultures, the strategy of foreignization should be more encouraged for the sake of integration of cultures. the last part concludes the paper with its implications and limitations. 华华 中中 科科 技技 大大 学学 硕硕 士士 学学 位位 论论 文文 5 1 literature review 1.1 culture elements in translation 1.1.1 definition of culture up to now, culture has gained more than 200 definitions, which ranges from all-encompassing ones (it is everything) to narrow ones (it is opera, art and ballet), but there is not an entirely satisfactory definition (larry, 2003). let us have a brief look of the most typical definitions of culture by different scholars: 1） in history and social sciences, variety of life styles of all people is called culture (c. wissler, 1923). 2）the sum total of the knowledge, attitudes and behavior patterns shared and transmitted by the members of a particular society (lincon, 1940). 3）all the historically created design for living, explicit and implicit, rational, irrational and non-rational, which exist at any given time as potential guides for the behavior of men (kluckhohn in other words, culture is acquired instead of being inherited. each individuals thoughts and inner being are formed at a very early stage within the specific geographic location where he was born. the culture to which he is exposed would help him create his pattern of thought, the ways he sees and experiences the world, the way he interacts with other people from the same of other cultures and the way he forms relationships with other people, and the way he discovers aspects of his personality and surroundings. 1.1.2 classification of cultural elements speaking of cultural element, it can be various, as is the case with the efforts of trying to define what culture can be. according to microsoft encarta encyclopedia (2002), in 1930 american anthropologist george p. murdock listed 637 major subdivisions of culture. murdock developed an elaborate coding system, known as the human relation areas files. he used this system to identify and sort hundreds of distinctive cultural variations that could be used to compare different cultures. later anthropologists came up with simpler categorization of culture. a common practice is to divide all the culture elements into three broad categories: material, social and ideological. a fourth category, the arts, has 华华 中中 科科 技技 大大 学学 硕硕 士士 学学 位位 论论 文文 7 characteristics of both material and ideological culture. eugene a. nida used to divide cultural elements involved in translation into five aspects in which translation problems may emerge: ecological culture, material culture, social culture, religious culture, linguistic culture (1964b). translation problems relevant to these five aspects of culture are investigated by this thesis. however, because of the special features of poems- high degree of condenseness, some categories of culture are not to found in the novel if we give a much subtle classification. the present paper classifies culture into a less rigorous system. for the sake of convenience, we will approach the items with heavily culturally loaded meanings from the commonly accepted aspects- material cultural, ideological cultural and linguistic cultural. when we say poems with culturally loaded elements in this paper, we are meant to analyze the cultural phenomenon with distinctive chinese cultural features which fall into the three categorizations proposed by the writer- material culture, ideology culture and linguistic culture. by material culture, the following subdivisions are included: ecology, crafts, artifact, ways of production, social classes and groups, kinship system, politics, laws, education, customs, general history etc. as far as ideology culture is concerned, it includes values, thinking patterns, cognitive focus. the last category, linguistic culture, mainly refers to those poems using certain rhetoric devices with some cultural elements embedded in. in the following chapters contributing to analyzing it we confine our study on the element with clear-cut cultural contents. for if we observe culture in the broadest sense, almost each word or sentence in hongloumeng deserves to be studied, which is far beyond the capability of this research. 华华 中中 科科 技技 大大 学学 硕硕 士士 学学 位位 论论 文文 8 1.2 views on domestication and foreignization 1.2.1 views by polysystem theory disputes over domestication and foreignization have been lasting for a long time. before 1950s, the conflicts have focused on the linguistic levels. since the cultural turn appeared in translation studies in 1970s, this dispute has been viewed from a broad new perspective-social, cultural and historical. the conflict between domestication and foreignization as translation strategies can be regarded as the cultural and political rather than linguistic extension of the time-worn controversy over free translation and literal translation (wang, 2002). since translation in essence is a means of cultural interaction, the cultural position of a nation or of translated literature in a given literary polysystem in relation to the source culture may exert strong influence on the translators selection of strategy (wang, 2002). itamar even-zohar first introduced the term “polysystem” for the aggregate of literary systems (including everything from high or canonized forms such as poetry to low or non-canonized forms) in a given culture. according to polysystem hypothesis proposed by even-zohar, the translators in a strong literary polysystem tend to apply domesticating strategy and thus produce translations characterized by superficial fluency, while in a weak culture foreignizing strategy or resistant translation prevails (zohar, 1978). the polysystem can explain to a large extent the translation strategies, especially foreignization or domestication employed by chinese translators. but the attitude of translators must also be taken into account. in fact, the objective position of a nations culture is one thing and the subjective attitude toward that position is another thing. with regard to the translation strategies employed, translators cultural attitude is more important. we can suppose that when the translators subjective cultural attitude sees eye to eye with the objective position of target culture and source culture, their choice of 华华 中中 科科 技技 大大 学学 硕硕 士士 学学 位位 论论 文文 9 translation strategy justifies the polysystem hypothesis (wang, 2002). 1.2.2 views by school of cultural studies almost contemporary with zohars polysystem theory, the cultural studies by andre lefevere and susan bassnett also provide us a new perspective on the problem of domestication and foreignization. bassnett, like nida, prefers finding existing forms which functions as cultural equivalent in the target literature, reinforcing the current dominant aesthetic rather than importing new ideas and techniques (gentzler, 1993). in other words, she tends to choose domestication when there appear some cultural conflicts. similarly, lefevere put emphasis on the acceptability of translated text by the target readers in the receiving culture. lefevere disagreed with schleiermachers advocacy of foreignization. rather than “leave the author in peace, as much as possible,” “move the reader toward him”, the translator should in schleiermachers opinion “leave the reader in peace as much