《德伯家的苔丝》中环境描写翻译对比研究Comparative Study on Translations of Setting Description in Tess of the D’urbervilles

1、德伯家的苔丝中环境描写翻译对比研究comparative study on translations of setting description in tess of the durbervilles论文摘要文学作品的翻译有别于非文学作品之处主要在于它能够再现原著的美学价值。小说翻译即属于该范畴，因此鉴赏小说翻译的一个重要标识就是看它是否通过深入细致的人物描画，完整复杂的情节叙述，具体充分的环境描写来再现原著的美学价值。而环境描写又是衬托人物性格、展示故事情节的重要手段。 童庆炳，文学理论教程，2004年所以只有充分地把环境描写部分翻译好，才可能如茅盾先生所言：“把原作的艺术意境传达出来，供

2、读者在读译文的时候能像读原作时一样得到启发，感动和美的感受。”本文旨在通过对苔丝两个译本的比较唤醒译者在翻译实践中，充分重视环境描写的翻译，注重小说意境的烘托，以便最大限度地呈现原著的神韵，达到最佳的翻译效果。以德伯家的苔丝为例，小说的作者哈代被称为文学画家，他用画家的眼光看待要反映的事物，用画家的手法描写周围变化的环境。在他的小说中，环境描写为推动故事情节发展、塑造人物和烘托气氛起了至关重要的作用，从而大大加强了作品的感染力。 叶家莉，苔丝两个译本的比较，2001年而本文所选的两种版本的译作，也在环境描写的翻译上各显其能， 并给我们的研究探索创造了条件。本文从张谷若和孙致礼、唐慧心的两个德伯

3、家的苔丝译本中分别选取了十个环境描写的翻译片段，并用对比的方法进行分析，最终得出这样的结论：环境描写是推动故事情节的手段；是烘托人物命运的工具；是增强作品感染力的渠道，因此译者在翻译环境片段的时候需要在修辞方法和字斟句酌上下功夫，努力体现翻译文学的语言美。关键词：环境描写翻译 塑造人物 推动情节 烘托气氛 修辞手法 abstractit is well accepted that translations of literary text is different from that of non-literary text by the ways of whether or not its

4、reproduction of aesthetic values. as novel translation belongs to literary translation, so it must follow the rule that a good translation version should reproduce the aesthetic values of the original. basically speaking, the theme of a novel is usually developed through character, plot and settings

5、, which are also known as the three main components of a novel. and furthermore, the setting description is the important tool for character portraying and plot development. so only by proper setting description, a novel translation might reproduce the nuances of the original as much as possible. it

6、 just as mao dun says, “the literary translation should transmit the mood of literal works to the target language readers, so as to make the readers be inspired or moved and touched by the nuances and get the feelings of beauty in language.”the researcher of this paper intends to probe that translat

7、ors should build full awareness of reproducing the original aesthetic values by good translation of setting description. take tess of the durbervilles as an example, the author of this book tomas hardy are named as “literal artist”, who was good at setting description. proper description of setting

8、may be good for plot and character, and strengthen the artistic appeal. the selected versions of this book are good examples of translation of setting description, which made our research available. this paper selects some sample paragraphs from two translated versions by mr. zhang guruo and mr. sun

9、 zhili & tang huixin separately, and through the comparison of the translation of setting description we will get the following results: since setting description holds the function of plot development and character portraying, so the translation words should be weighed carefully and then reproduce

10、the nuances of the original.key words: translation of setting description, aesthetic values, plot development, character portraying, atmosphere creation, rhetorictable of contentspages1. introduction .1.1 research background.1.2 research objective.1.3 project design.11112. rationale .22.1 definition

11、 of setting.22.2 function of setting in a novel.22.3 importance of setting description of translation.23. data description . 3.1 brief introduction of slt3.2 brief introduction of tlt3.3 standard of data seletion.23344. analysis of the data.4.1 setting for creating atmosphere4.2 setting for portrayi

12、ng characters.4.3 setting for plot development.44565. results and suggestions 5.1 results 5.2 suggestions7776. conclusion.7biliography.9appendix10comparative study on translations of setting description in tess of the durbervilles1. introduction1.1 research backgroundas we all know, the three compon

13、ents of novel are character, plot and setting. and setting description usually plays an important role for character portraying, plot development and atmosphere creation. as a master-hand of setting description, tomas hardy was named as “literary artist”, who was famous for the talent of setting des

14、cription in his novel and make the description combined with the plot and serve for the whole work. so we choose his novel tess of the durbvilles to develop our research.1.2 research objectivethe practice of setting description translation is not simply a word-for-word translation. it should be rega

15、rded as an important part of a novel due to its function of portraying character and development of plot. the research tries to examine some setting discourses in tess of the d”urbevilles and their translations in chinese version, and then to find out the translation strategies applied by the transl

16、ator in translating setting description.1.3 project designthe research is divided into four parts. in part one, the author will define setting and describe the main theories relate with the study. in part two, the author will go further into the study of setting translation by examining 10 paragraph

17、s in tess;. in part three, the author aims to summarize setting description translation strategies according to the data analysis; finally, in part four, the author will summarize the whole research and present the implications for the future practice and research.2. rationale:2.1 definition of sett

18、ingsetting is defined as “the place or time that the action of a book, film etc happens” longman dictionary of contemporary english and “all the things that surround someone or something at a particular time, including the events that happen, their environment, or the people they are with” . longman

19、 dictionary of contemporary english that means setting is not only exists in real life but also in a book or film. in this paper, we concentrate our attention to the former one. 2.2 function of setting in a novelin a novel, setting description is a main way for character portraying and plot developm

20、ent, which should depend on natural setting, cultural setting or social setting etc. the formation and development of a character are also controlled by special setting. so setting description in a novel should be adequate and accurate. 童庆炳，文学理论教程第九章 文学作品的类型和体裁2.3 importance of setting description t

21、ranslationmao dun says, “the literary translation should transmit the mood of literal works to the target language readers, so as to make the readers be inspired or moved and touched by the nuances and get the feelings of beauty in language.” 茅盾：为发展文学翻译事业和提高翻译质量而奋斗，1954年so translation of setting des

22、cription does not mean to word-to-word translation. on the contrary, it should be weighted and considered as much as possible, so as to reproduce the nuances of the original work.3data descriptionthe data to be analyzed consists of ten paragraphs which are selected from two different chinese version

23、s translated from tess of the durbervilles. the first version was translated by mr. zhang gu ruo (张谷若) and published by the peoples literature publishing house （人民文学出版社），1957; the second version was published by china zhi gong publishing house （中国职工出版社）and translated by mr. sun zhi li and ms tang hu

24、i xin （孙致礼，唐慧心），2003. 3.1 brief introduction of slt tess of the durbervilles was subtitled a pure woman and published in 1891. it is one of hardys saddest tales of rural troubles. tess is the daughter of the poor john durbeyfield who learns from the village parson that his family is related to ancie

25、nt nobility, being the last of the family the durbervilles. in trying to make use of this connection, joan johns wife - suggests that tess pursue the son of the local family of mrs. durberville. as it turns out the mrs. durberville has merely taken the name for convenience but tess becomes involved

26、with her son alec nonetheless who gives her employment but takes advantage of her and in unpleasant circumstances seduces her. they have a child together who dies early and cannot be baptized because he is illegitimate. the second stage of the novel concerns the family of the reverend mr. clare and

27、his son angel. angel and tess marry but when she admits the incident with alec their relationship is torn apart leading to angels departure for south america and alecs second attempt to ensnare tess. this leads to murder, escape and superficial impurity on the part of tess who is finally brought to

28、justice. 3.2 brief introduction of tltthere are many chinese translations of tess. this paper based on two versions, which are mr. zhang guruos version and mr. sun zhili & tang huixins version. the reason for choosing mr. zhang guruos version is that it was published by the peoples literature publis

29、hing house, which is quite famous in china; the reason for choosing the latter one is because its translation for setting description are somehow different from that of the former one, which offers adequate materials for our research.3.3 standard of data selectionthe function of setting in a novel c

30、ould be classified as three conditions: a. it creates atmosphere; b. it portrays characters; c. it contrasts plot development. so we choose the paragraphs which serve the above mentioned function separately. however, the classification is just for our convenience of statement, sometimes the paragrap

31、h holds more than one function which may leads to bias.4. analysis of the data:the purpose of this research is to concentrate our attention on the setting description translations of the different chinese versions in tess of the durbervilles. in the meanwhile the author hopes that this discussion mi

32、ght help readers hold a clear attitude towards on how the translation for setting description affects on the reproduction of aesthetic value of the whole original. there are ten selected discourses for us to analysis and from which our results would come. all the examples are classified into three g

33、roups by the function of the setting description in the novel.4.1 setting for creating atmospherein table 1, zhangs version is a full equivalence by faithful translation, whereas suns version is translating meaning. for example, “her quiescent glide” is a noun phrase as subject, so zhangs version sa

34、ys 她那悄悄冥冥的凌虚细步；while suns version translate this noun phrase into a simple sentence like 她静悄悄地独行。this plain treatment makes the latter version lose the taste of the original. another difference of tt1.1 and tt1.2 is the translation of “lonely”. the first version uses “旷山”and “空谷”to make a mystery of

35、 the atmosphere; whereas the second version translates it as “寂静”，which is a common word that could not give the readers any special sense of the atmosphere. other differences are treatments of some adjectives and nouns. for example, the first version use more four-character words than the second on

36、e to successfully create the atmosphere: 悄悄冥冥、潜潜等等；凌虚细步、娇软腰肢、绮思深念，these four-character phrases makes the whole discourse in good order and sounds elegant in style; while the second version translate the same words into 静悄悄、隐隐约约、独行、身影, which does not consider about the beauty in language.in the secon

37、d discourse, zhangs version translates “play about their faces” into 轻拂微掠, while suns version 轻轻地吹拂着。so zhangs version is more genteel than suns. “the broad mirror of light”, zhang says 清澈晶莹的浩荡明镜，both the modifying and modified words are all treated into four-character phrases, while suns version do

38、es not. moreover, zhangs version uses a personification for the word “herald-drops”. 打头阵 sounds more vivid, but the second version translates the meaning only.in discourse three, both versions are almost the same in words but little difference in an adjective. the first version use “毒热的荒野”、“毒蛤蟆” for

39、 “a torrid waste” and “the toads”，then the second version use “酷热”、“癞蛤蟆”。in this paragraph, tesss tragedy fate is hinted by the terrible description of the fire. the first translation version use the adjective of “毒” as an attribute to modify the words which can create the atmosphere properly.in dis

40、course four, they are different from the last sentence translation of “essence” and “substance”. in the dictionary, essence means “the most basic and important quality of something” ，in chinese本质、实质; while substance means material, in chinese 物质。in first version, they are translated into 本质 and 神情；w

41、hile in the second version, they are translated as 物质本身 and 事物的实质。each version has its strong points, however, from the atmosphere perspective, the first one sounds better; while the second one makes the readers confused.4.2 setting for portraying charactersthe two versions are different from how to

42、 translate the adverb “terribly”. in longman dictionary of contemporary english, it has two meanings: one is “especially, very, extremely”, which is translated as 非常、极度、很；another meaning is “badly, severely”, which is translated as 非常糟地；严重地。from the context, we know tess does not like the beautiful

43、incline at all, because it reminds her of some sad experience, which means the surface of the view is beautiful while the truth of life is not. so it should be translated into “美的可怕”，instead of “美丽极了”。the sixth paragraph describes tesss good mood to expect her new life. so in her eyes, everything is

44、 lovely. thus when we appreciate the translation, we should pay attention to the use of parallelism to the second sentence. the second version has lively rhythm by using蔚蓝的大气、黏重的土壤、浓郁的气息and seems to echo with the good mood of tess in words like清新、明净、缥缈. so the second version is slightly better. the

45、seventh paragraph reflects tess and clares are falling in love. the setting description combined with the characters good mood. the main difference exits in translation to the last sentence. the use of reiterative like 一支支、一根根、一股股、一朵朵；and some antithesis like 无声无息、无影无踪made the second version better

46、than the first one. the sentence pattern is well-balanced and shows tesss happiness.4.3 setting for contrast plot developmenttt8.1 and tt8.2: this is a transition paragraph, after which tess will tell clare all the wrong things she had done, and thus her tragedy will begin. but she does not know at

47、all. the author hinted this by describing the fire. the two translators applied different translation treatments to the last sentence. in term of grammar, the first version is translated into a compound sentence which has two subjects, one is 她的脉搏，the other is 它们的颜色；while the second version is trans

48、lated as a adverbial in a simple sentence. since after this paragraph, the plot will develop mysteriously, so the first version is better.tt9.1 and tt9.2: this description is about tesss ancestors appearance, which is hinting karma of tess. it is known that in chinese, many derogatory terms are thre

49、e-character words, so the second version translates the appearance into three-character phrases, like长脸膛，尖下巴，眯缝眼，鹰勾鼻，大牙齿, to show the negative view of it. in chinese almost all the three-character phrases are used in a derogatory sense, for example 挖墙脚、穿小鞋、扣帽子 etc. tt10.1 and tt10.2: this paragraph

50、is describing the bad conditions of tess. she was not living well after clare left her alone. both the two translations to the third sentence seems lost some meaning of the original. it might be translated as : 他们倾着身子，穿过风雪漫漫的田野，步履艰难的往前走去，尽量靠着树篱好避避风，可是树篱不仅挡不住风雪，反而由于过滤作用，使得风雪更劲了。here in order to avoid

51、 the lost of the meaning, we could use some translation techniques, for example addition.5. results and suggestions5.1 resultswhat is the practice like in setting translation? based on the above analysis, we find that setting translation is controlled by the original beauty in both content and form.

52、 as an aesthetic subject, the translator should try his/her best to reproduce the nuance and the poetic quality of the original setting description, which holds the function of portraying characters, developing plot or creating atmospheres. in order to reach this target, the translator should weight

53、 his/her words by some translation strategies: from the sounds level, translators may try to use four-character phrases to make the whole article sounds genteel, or to use three-character phrase to show a derogatory sense, or to make good use of reiterative for lively rhythm. proper rhetorical measu

54、res like personification, parallelism, and antithesis or reiterative should be applied when necessary.5.2 suggestions on the translation strategyhere are some suggestions for the future practice of setting translation. firstly, since the tl is controlled by the sl, the translator must faithfully rep

55、roduce what the author want to show; secondly, translator should try to give the target reader beauty in language when translating setting description and at the same time considering about the function holding by the discourse; thirdly, proper rhetorical measure should be applied to well reproduce

56、the poetic quality and nuance of the original.6. conclusionthis research makes an attempt to explore the strategies of setting description translation in literary works by examining some setting discourse in tess and their translations in ss. to achieve these objectives, the analysis is made between

57、 10 paragraphs in tess and their translations in ss.according to the analysis, the translation strategies dealing with setting description translation are classified into two principles: syntax and rhetoric. the specific translating strategies include antithesis, parallelism, and personification, reiterative and four-character phrase or three-character phrases.the data for the research are carefully selected so that they can represent the common phenom