社会文化因素对翻译实践的影响.doc

摘要THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL FACTORS ON THE TRASLATION PRACTICES AbstractThis dissertation discusses the interference of social-cultural factors with the process of translation. The traditional study of translation has mainly been approached from the perspective of comparative literature. At this stage, translation is regarded as a kind of linguistic transcending. However, due to its self-imposed limitations, it is unable to account for the complexities of translation, especially literary translation. Starting from the 1970s, translation studies have gradually taken a cultural turn, and a new paradigm for the study of translation has been established. According to Bassnett (Liao Qiyi, 2001: 358), the purpose of the translation theory is to enable people to understand the process of translation, not to produce perfect translations. The polysystem theory as outlined by Itamar Even-Zohar and Gideon Toury has considerably widened the horizon of translation studies and is particularly helpful for the analysis of the influence of extra-literary factors on the poetic decisions of the translator. For one thing, translation is evaluated in the contexts of both culture and history. For another, all disciplines and phenomena relating to translation have become objects of study. Key words: Society; Culture; Translation; Influence 1摘要社会文化因素对翻译实践的影响摘 要本文的研究主题是从翻译现象看社会文化因素对翻译的干扰及其这种现象带给我们对传统翻译理论的思考。 传统的翻译研究把原文放在至高无上的位置，注重的是译文与原文的对等，这样就把原文当作了衡量译文质量的唯一标准。翻译被当作是两种语言之间的转换，所谓的翻译理论也仅仅局限于一些对译文的技巧分析及对译文优劣的衡量。然而，由于语言学自身的局限，它无法解释复杂的翻译尤其是文学翻译现象。自二十世纪七十年代以来，翻译研究领域逐渐出现了“文化转向”，对翻译的研究被置于更广泛的文化视域中。正如苏珊巴斯内特所说，翻译理论的目的是使人们理解翻译的过程，而不是制定一套方法，产生完美的译文(廖七一，2001：358)。 埃文佐哈尔的“多元系统”理论以及它的延展理论大大拓宽了翻译研究的领域，为我们研究社会文化等外部因素对译者翻译抉择过程的影响提供了有力的理论依据，也构成了本文的理论基础。一方面，翻译被放置在了宏观的历史和文化的视域中加以考察；另一方面，所有与翻译有关的现象都成了我们研究与考察的对象。正是在这一理论的启发下，本文将主要从清末民初的翻译现象考察社会文化因素对翻译的影响。 本文研究的具体范围是1896年至1919年期间译介到中国的各种文学作品。选择这一范围是由于我国历史上的翻译高潮之一出现在这一时期，然而这一时期的翻译由于与原文有很大的出入而经常被认为是没有价值的。的确，这一时期的大部分翻译都不忠实于原文，然而，我们需要区分由于文化的干扰而使译者对原文的有意的操纵与由于译者能力不足而产生的误译。本文主要研究了在这一特定时期译者操纵原文的深层原因。 关键词：社会；文化；翻译；影响II 2 CONTENTSCHAPTER I INTRODUCTION1CHAPTER II CULTURE AND SOCIETY32.1 How Culture and Society Affecting Translation32.2 The “Culture turn” in Translation Studies4CHAPTER III THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL SITUATION OF QING DYNASTY AND ITS INFLUENCE ON TRANSLATION53.1 The Great Civilization of China53.2 Translation as a Cross-cultural Activity73.3 The Position of Translators83.4 The Social Problems93.5 Gender Depiction10CHAPTER IV THE INFLUENCE ON ESSAYS AND PLAYS134.1 Fiction134.2 The Influence on the Target Language: the Prosperity of a Genre144.3 The Impact on the Target Culture: Transformation of Thoughts 14CHAPTER V THE DIFFERENT TRANSLATIONS ON DIFFERENT SOCIAL AND CULTURAL SITUATION165.1 Cultural and Social Situation165.2 The Differences of the Three Periods Translations175.3 Translators Purpose19CHAPTER VI CONCLUSION21REFERENCES24 iACKNOWLEDGEMENTS25CHAPTER I INTRODUCTIONThis dissertation discusses the interference of social-cultural factors with the process of translation. The traditional study of translation has mainly been approached from the perspective of comparative literature. At this stage, translation is regarded as a kind of linguistic transcending. However, due to its self-imposed limitations, it is unable to account for the complexities of translation, especially literary translation.Translation never appears from nothing. It is the result of “objective observes the formed motivation in a specific historical-cultural environment, analysis and studies the restrictions from factors of society, history and culture to the strategy and ways of translating, and the influence on the received culture from translating books. Translating usually embodies the attitudes of main-stream culture towards foreign culture. What kind of translating strategy chose is the result of interactions of main-stream culture and foreign culture? Therefore, translating strategy adapted is not occasionally.The whole dissertation is divided into six parts: The introduction briefly introduces the basic objective and the scope of the research. The first chapter is a survey of the social background, the reasons and reality for the booming of translated literature from 1896 to 1919. Conditioned by the social-cultural background and with the decline of the traditional literature, large-scale translation activities were called for to facilitate the introduction of new ideas. The second discusses in detail how various social and cultural factors interfered with the translation activities during the late Qing and early Republican period. The third chapter analyses how translation activities as a cross-cultural communication and social event against the certain social and cultural background, are inevitably governed by social norms that reflect the values dominant in the social and cultural background. The fourth chapter expounds how the then social factors, such as politics, expectations of the readership, the patronage and the target poetics influenced the translation process. To make his translation integrate into the target culture, the translator had to make modifications accordingly. The fifth chapter elaborates on the effects of the interference of social-cultural factors on the translation activities. Due to the interference of the social-cultural factors, translators performing under different conditions often adopt different strategies, and ultimately come up with markedly different products. This is significant for contemporary Translation Studies. We need to reconsider the traditional criticism, which has taken the original as the ultimate criteria. The sixth chapter is the conclusion.CHAPTER II CULTURE AND SOCIETY2.1 How Culture and Society Affecting TranslationPeople grow up in a certain social-cultural environment. Anyone his behaviors embody the cultural background where he lives in, including his thinking methods, regularity, the words normal meaning, the tattoo, his favored way spoken and so on. English humanist Mailnowsky called this kind of cultural background as context of culture.There we focus on the context of culture. As we know, language reflects culture and is restricted by culture. Due to this complex relationship, any work is the product of a certain culture. Therefore, apart from their own language knowledge, translators have to use more out-context knowledge and non-language knowledge.For instance, a passage in a piece of newspaper described parliament Shaman as “the oldest abolitionist in the House of Common”, in English-to-Chinese dictionary, “abolitionist” means the meaning is impropriate to be translated into Chinese directly. In order to translate correctly, you have to find out what he wanted to abolish. Since this sentence doesnt mention it, you have to figure out what happened on British politics in 1963(the passage was published in that year). Through referring to the history books, we can know that the parliaments had a fierce debate on whether to abolish death penalty or not. So we can figure out that the abolitionist can be translated in to “one who support to abolish death penalty”. If it appears in America in 1920th to 1930th, this word can be translated into “one who support to liquor forbidden”. The word is a good example to show the importance of the out-context factors. From the example, we can know that during the process of translation, the obliviousness of social-cultural factor will be a big obstacle for translation. It means the context translation in some level is an activity of cross-cultural communication. In order to understand and translate correctly, the translators not only have the bilingual competence but also the bicultural competence. Or the translated works can be cultural misreading or cultural clash.2.2 The “Culture turn” in Translation StudiesThe so-called “culture turn” usually turn to an approach which goes beyond the traditional way of pure linguistic analysis in translation and thus has greatly widened the scope of translation studies. From the perspective of cultural turn, many problems in translation theories now become interesting issues. Many linguistic problems have turned out to be cultural problems. Scholars began to shift their attention to cultural studies reflected in translation instead of focusing on translation theories alone, instead. i.e., take cultural instead of the translated words or phrase as their main concern in their translation studies. Translation is no longer regarded as a process of language transformation but a cultural exchange in a wider social and historical backgrounder. Scholars began to give more attention to the translators subjectivity and also the historical, social and cultural environment when the translation is done. Resulting from the shift, this targeted-oriented approach, foreground the cultural identity and the essential role of the translator in translation procession. In a word, a translator is the essential medium in transformation from oriented text to the target text, as well as external factors influencing his /her translation process.Translation is an activity of people and after all every decision in the translation process is made by the translator, whose choice is influenced and constrained by various social and cultural factors. Therefore, study of social-cultural influence on literary translation is of great importance in broadening deepening the criticism of literary works. This is the reason why I take the “cultural turn” as the main theoretical support of my analysis in this thesis.CHAPTER III THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL SITUATION OF QING DYNASTY AND ITS INFLUENCE ON TRANSLATIONIn order to study the translation better, we find it necessary to study the extra literary factors that have impact on the literary system so as to arrive at a good understanding of the real picture of the translation activities during the late Qing and early Republican periods. As Andre Lefevere (2001:13) argues, “translational practice is one of the strategies cultural devices for dealing with what we have learned to call the other ”. The development of a translational strategy provides good indications of the kind of society one is dealing with. Prior to the late Qing periods, China had only developed translational strategies twice in its history: the translational of Buddhist scriptures from the Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty, the scientific and technological translation from the end of the Ming Dynasty to the beginning of the Qing Dynasty. This fact something about the image of the other dominant in Chinese civilization is namely that the other was not considered very important.3.1 The Great Civilization of ChinaThe Chinese people had, for two thousand years regarded their civilization as entirely satisfactory and superior. Chinese literature, social system and technology were introduced to the neighboring countries and the rest of the world. just as Andre Lefevere(ibid ) points out , “cultures that see themselves as central in the world they inhabit , are not likely to deal much with Others, unlessthey are forced to do so ”. Being proud of their culture, its people did not think much of other countries. Small wonder is that “it showed no interest in the other and did not develop any thinking about translation”. Although there had been two waves of translation prior to the late Qing, they actually had little influence on the fabric of the Chinese society.As was stated above, the present dissertation will mainly focus on the translation activities from 1896 to 1919, the eve of the May Fourth Movement. During this period, the late Qing Dynasty was “in a state of rapid decline duo to both internal decay and external attacks by the West and Japan”. This period is characterized by drastic changes of cultural environment and large-scale translation was called for to facilitate the effective introduction of new ideas and new method of creating literary works. After the Opium Warm, China was in a critical situation, which forced Chinese intellectuals to learn from their enemies in order to defeat them. Chinese students were sent to the west to learn their language and translation bureaus were set up to import western applied science and useful knowledge. The defeat of the Manchu government in the Sino-Japanese War 1894-1895 was an even greater shock to Chinese nation. Japan, a small country that used to turn to China for knowledge and wisdom, had grown strong through social reform .Chinese intellectuals, realizing that the introduction of applied science was not the reliable way out for the nation, began to pay attention to the western social science. Liang Qichao said:Before the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, what our Chinese literati and officials deemed most important in West learning was merely the impregnable ship , superior weapon and exquisite machinery, which was also the only thing the Chinese intellectuals learned from the west . The reason why we were defeated lies in here. After the 1895 Agreement, Chinese literati and official came to realize that it was in social science that the westerners were superior to us (Guo Yanli, 2000:29).Circulation, among the readers and have brought disaster to our society. The articles, which can exert a subtle influence on the Chinese peoples thinking, are the only reliable ways to transform social translations. Therefore, it is pressing to translate new novels to rid the society of its malpractice.This situation in the late Qing Dynasty fit exactly one of the three sets of social circumstance identified by Even-Zohar, in which translated literature can occupy a more central position, that is, when a literature is peripheral or weak or both. Since traditional Chinese fiction did not have the enlightening function, translation, especially fiction translation, gradually acquired a distinct position in literature.3.2 Translation as a Cross-cultural ActivityIf language is an integral part of culture, then translating is not merely passing from one text to another or transferring words from one container to another, but rather transporting one entire culture to another with all that this entails. Therefore, it is no longer possible to limit to the word as a translation unit; one must take into consideration both the original and target cultures with which the translator is connected.With the influence of, among others, communication theory, translation studies over the past several decades find best expressions in a shift from a linguistic approach to a cultural approach. Translation has now been broadly seen as an act of cross-cultural communication (Guo Jianzhong, 2000). In the most general sense, cross-cultural communication occurs when a member of one culture produces a message for consumption by a member of another culture (Samovar, et al., 2000:48). One must take into consideration both the original and target cultures with which the translator is connected. We must reckon with the differences of culture. There are always cultural differences between societies widely separated in time, and there are radically different degrees of cultural diversity in contemporary societies. Peter Newmark (2001: 94) distinguishes cultural language from universal and personal language. Die, live, star and even virtually ubiquitous artifacts like mirror and table are universals. In such situations, there is usually no translation problem. However, for such cultural words as monsoon, steppe and dacha, there will be translation problems. In most cases, wherever there is a cultural focus, there is a translation problem due to the cultural gap or distance between the source and the target languages.As Bassnett and Lefevere argue (Gentzler, 2001:xii), translators have always provided a vital link enabling different cultures to interact. Translation enables communication to take place between members of different culture communities. It bridges the gap between situations where differences in expectations, knowledge and perspective are such that there is not enough common ground for the sender and receiver to communicate effectively by themselves. In one word, translation is a cross-cultural event.3.3 The Position of the TranslatorAs persons-in-the-culture (Toury, 2001:26), translators are always involved in a communicative activity that takes place within a social context. The translators purpose is related to the social conditions in which the translation activity occurs.Translations are facts of one system: the target system. Translators operate first and foremost in the interest of the target culture, not in the interest of the source culture, for they have left the source culture behind. Translated literature in a certain language or culture as an entity forms a system of its own. So it is more often than not a subsystem of the encompassing target system. Therefore, the target culture is the environment of the translation subsystem. Translated literature and other subsystems belonging to the same social system are open to each other: they influence each other. The translators behavior should be regarded as having cultural significance. As cultural mediators (David Katan, 1999:12), the translator is uniquely placed to identify and resolve the disparity between sign and value across cultures (ibid: 14). Translators mediate between cultures (including ideologies, moral systems and socio-political structures), seeking to bring the source text across the cultural barrier. Consequently, translatorship amounts first and foremost to being able to play a social role, that is, to fulfill a function allotted by a community deemed appropriate in its own terms of referen