A Study Of Xiao Qian’s Thoughts On Literary Translation

This paper is a study of Xiao Qian’s thoughts on literary translation, with five objectives:1. to make some generalizations about Xiao’s translation thoughts;2. to trace the sources of Xiao’s thoughts by taking a close look at his life and work as a versatile man of letters;3. to do some theoretical reflections on Xiao’s thoughts from the perspectives of hermeneutics, reception theories, and defamiliarization;4. to illustrate my generalizations with some of his major English-Chinese translation works; and fifth, to make a tentative description of Xiao’s thoughts in the light of Chinese traditional translation thoughts and translation ethics, for full recognition of his status in the history of Chinese translation theory.The first chapter is the introduction. It starts with an analysis of Xiao’s achievements in journalism and literary creation, especially his experiences as a scholar from which he developed his makings as a literary translator, then followed by a literature review on his translation, particularly the achievements made so far, the trend of development, as well as the areas wanting further research. Finally it clarifies the research objectives, rationale, materials and methodology.From the second to the sixth chapters is the main body of the paper, consisting of five dimensions categorized in accordance with the translation process into two parts-that is, understanding of the source text (ST) and its representation in the target language (TL). The first two dimensions belong to the understanding part, covering the choice and literary study of the ST, while the other three dimensions belong to representation part encompassing the idea of faithfulness to the ST, readability of the target text (TT) and moderate defamiliarization of the TT.The second chapter focuses on Xiao Qian’s principles regarding the choice of the ST, which he divides into two types with military terms, viz.:"guerrilla warfare" and "positional warfare". Xiao thinks that a true translator must be a "positional translator", who focuses on the works of writers that best agree with his personality and experiences. In short, he advocates two principles for the choices of ST. One is "affection principle", i.e. the translator should choose texts that he really loves; and the other is "systematization principle", i.e. the translator should focus on one particular source language (SL) writer. The former emphasizes the similarity between the translator and the writer, and the latter translator’s focus. Based on Hirsch’s assertion that "a text means what its author meant" and that a text’s meaning is stable, and on Gadamer’s discussions on readers’"prejudice", I point out that Xiao’s two principles may be best approached from the perspective of hermeneutics. They are targeted at nothing but the biggest possible overlap of the translator’s "horizon" and that of the writer’s so as to achieve successful understanding. Xiao Qian calls translation his "avocation" and himself a "guerrilla translator", but it is found that most of his translations prove his predilection for satires, which also make up a good system in another sense. Towards the end of this chapter, some other related principles such as "filling in vacancies" and "masterpieces first" are also discussed.The third chapter examines Xiao’s idea about translation-oriented literary study. In his opinion, literary translation is never a matter of mechanical transformation between languages, which, in his view, can only make translation mechanicians (Fanyijiang) instead of real translators (Fanyijia). This chapter first explains Xiao’s views on the significance, consistency, contents, ultimate purposes and forms of representation of literary study. Then it points out that these views are the continuation of "prejudice" discussion. While he acknowledges the fact that it is impossible for the translator to duplicate the ST writer’s personality and experiences, Xiao indicates that other elements, such as background knowledge of the ST and knowledge about SL literature, can be acquired by the translator. Actually no matter whether the choice of the ST is ideal, literary study is undoubtedly an efficient way to narrow the gap between the SL writers and the TL translator. Besides, a discussion is also made on the realm of translation-oriented literary study as exemplified by traditional approaches and the formalistic approach. Regarding his translation practice, a conclusion is reached that Xiao Qian has proved, with his monographs, long prefaces and postscripts to his translations, his persistent efforts in the practice of his principles.The fourth chapter is on Xiao Qian’s thoughts about faithfulness to the ST. First a distinction is made between "loyalty"(Zhong) and "faithfulness"(Zhongshi). Then Xiao’s views on faithfulness is expounded in terms of content and style. Xiao opposes abridging or misrepresenting the ST, and highlights a true representation of the "feeling" of the text. He proposes faithfulness to the style of the ST, including "cold" scientific style and "warm" literary style. The term "feeling", as the source of the literary "warmth", is borrowed from Richards who distinguishes four kinds of linguistic meanings, namely "Sense","Feeling","Intention" and "Tone". With an analysis of Xiao’s views on "form" and "spirit", I conclude that "feeling"(Qinggan) is the "spirit" of the literary work, observable in the whole text as well as in all its constituent parts. The "feeling" of the whole text, also named "artistic conception"(Yijing) by Xiao Qian, depends on that of its constituent parts and, conversely, in order to identify and convey the "feeling" of individual words and sentences, one has to rely on that of the whole text, where the essence of faithfulness lies. Besides, a discussion of Xiao Qian’s views about the style of the translator with that of the ST finds that to him the latter is weightier than the former. The translator needs to cultivate a good literary taste before she can integrate her/his own style with that of the ST’s. Finally these observations are illustrated by Xiao’s translations of Fielding’s Tom Jones and Mansfield’s The Swing of the Pendulum, in which he successfully conveys the sarcasm and humour of one and delicacy of the other.The fifth chapter probes into Xiao Qian’s advocation of readability of the TT. We first trace it’s source by casting a retrospective look at his life background including the May Fourth New Cultural Movement, and his life experiences, notably his multi-faceted roles in the literary field, pointing out that his idea of Literature for Life and the common people as well as his insistence on serving common readers are behind his craving for readability of translation. Then we sum up five aspects under this thought and elaborate on each of them. We take English-Chinese translation as an example in our discussion on Xiao Qian’s views. First, the translation should read smoothly and conform to the Chinese grammar, shaking off Europeanization. In practice, Xiao often employs the procedures of breaking long English sentences into shorter ones and moderate language deviations from TL norms in order to facilitate readers’understanding of the text. Second, Xiao Qian is in favour of using appropriate understandable dialectal expressions as they are vivid expressions that can enliven even the most boring stories. In practice Xiao deals with dialectal expressions in three ways:from SL dialect to TL dialect, from SL dialect to standard TL expressions or from standard SL expressions to TL dialect. Third, Xiao acknowledges the necessity of annotations, respects detailed notes provided by other translators, but he himself is inclined to use only indispensable annotations. He believes that annotations should serve as a torch lighting up the way for the readers, but not a burden which disturbs their reading experience. In practice Xiao uses annotations in two ways, either inside the text or outside it, which serve to clarify ambiguities and offering clues to disjointed plots. The fourth part lists various means Xiao adopts to facilitate his readers’comprehension, such as splitting long paragraphs and changing punctuations. With regard to revision and retranslation, Xiao agrees with the former and prudently encourages the latter, if only they could enable readers to get closer to the essence of the literary works. These are the five distinctive expressions of Xiao’s thoughts on readability, from which three core principles are revealed:smoothness, easy comprehension and easy typesetting of the TT, all reflecting his ideas about literature for the common people and his care about the needs of the great masses of readers.The sixth chapter is about the defamiliarizing aspect of Xiao’s translation thoughts, which is complimentary to his ideas of faithfulness and readability. Starting from Xiao’s discussions on the principle of "appropriate distance that makes beauty", this paper interprets his view on the limit of TL readers’comprehension, which, in my view, is his prerequisite for showing strangeness in translation. We analyze the defamiliarizing aspect of his translation thoughts from two perspectives, one is literariness, which refers to the defamiliarized forms of the ST; the other is foreignness, which emerges from different languages and cultures. The former takes root in Xiao’s pursuit of "fresh" literary language, indicating a distance between literary works and readers in general, while the latter in his idea of cultural exchange, indicating a distance between the ST and the TL readers. As to foreignness, we also highlight two inclinations in Xiao’s translations:foreignness of the TT being superior to the equivalent effect between the ST and TT, and the rejection of over-domestication, especially the abuse of idioms. It is pointed out that though Xiao Qian is not a pioneering advocator of defamiliarization devices in translation, he does attach great importance to this aspect of translation, which helps to prevent the idea of readability from going to the extreme and keep the balance of his translation thoughts.In the last chapter, we sum up the findings of this research and try to describe Xiao’s translation thoughts from the perspective of Chinese traditional translation thoughts and translation ethics. We find that his translation thoughts are closely knitted with the Chinese tradition. They both emphasize faithfulness to the ST and the expectation of the TL readers. However, Xiao’s translation thoughts are not totally reader-oriented. In fact, he favours a moderate manifestation of the foreignness in translation. His trinity principles,—that is, faithfulness, readability and defamiliarization, if viewed from translation ethics, are based on Chesterman’s representation model, while at the same time constrained by his norms and communication models. In translation practice, the key point is the relative influence of the three models on the translator. Xiao’s translation thoughts, as an integrated part of the Chinese translation thoughts, can serve as general principles for literary translation.For a long time, Xiao Qian’s translation achievements have been overshadowed by his literary feats. His translation of Ulysses has established his status as an outstanding translator, but his thoughts still have not received sufficient scholarly attention. It is hoped that this study has proved that Xiao Qian is more than a translation master in practice, his thoughts, rich and comprehensive, should be given a due place in the history of Chinese translation theory. At the end, there is a brief discussion on the limitations of this research and suggested directions for further research.