On The Unfaithful Chinese Translation Of Western Literary Theories

“Unfaithfulness” in the Chinese translation of westeren literary theory refers to the fact that “what is to say is not equivalent to what was intended to say”.Roughly speaking,there are three types of unfaithfulness,that is,completely wrong,logically incorrect,and semantically inaccurate.The unfaithfulness mentioned above might lead to theoretical misunderstanding and/or a misleading way in practice.While translating western literary theory into Chinese,a translator is supposed to recognize the style and characteristics of the text of literay theories,and to overcome the causes of unfaithfulness.Firstly,the features of the text of literary theories are analyzed.Traditional methods and criteria concerning the translation of literary theories are also discussed briefly.Then the features of the translation of literary theories are also proposed.Western literary theory texts are theoretical essays,in which there are clear points and logical structure.However,the text of literary theories is not confined to a certain types of genre,except for argumentive essays,literary forms such as poems,letters or dialogues are of theoretical significance as well.The translation of literary theories is different from that of literature or that of scientific text.Literature is fictional,and its founctions are story-telling and emotion-provoking.Scientific works are completely objective descriptions.Literary theories are both imaginative and abstractive as literature and logical and strict as scientific works.As argumentative statements,literary theories have characters of both scientificity and humanity.From different aspects,there are three pairs of traditional translation methods:“ge yi(格义,to explain/introduce new ideas by analogy)”and“da zhi(达旨,to achieve semantic equivalence regardless of word choice or sentence structure)”,“literal translation”and“free translation”,“foreignizing method”and“domesticating method”.As for the translation criteria,an ideal translation should be faithful in semantic and thoughts,fluent in structure and agreeable in style.When the text of literary theory is translated,three features must be considered:first,it is academic.Second,its meaning is context based.Third,it is personal view on literature or the society.Secondly,the types of unfaithfulness and the causes of unfaithfulness are discussed.Unfaithfulness is kind of “treason”,which is demonstrated in the following aspects: meaning of words,intention of thoughts,cultural implication and representing style.The amplification or omission of semantic meaning and change of style are also regarded as kind of unfaithfulness.Retranslation is also a source for unfaithfulness.The necessity of retranslation comes from the change of time and context because there are different problems and solutions accordingly in different eras.It has something to do with how to understand the gist of the original text and how to render them into Chinese.It is easier to translate again than the former attempts,but it does not guarantee that the newest version of translation will exceed the former ones in quality.Compared with other kinds of text,literary theory is highly personalized semantically and stylistically and bears deep ideological and cultural implication.The unfaithfulness in the translation of western literay thoeries results from both objective and subjective factors.The former mainly refers to the contextual differences,including language system,theoretical framework and cultural backgrounds.Chinese is kind of hieroglyph,and Chinese characters are pictures that covey meaning.Most languages in western countries are alphabetic,which are different from Chinese in terms of spelling and logic structure.The context of word usage includes historical context,spatial context,cultural contest and literary context.All concepts are context-dependent.A concept developed in one context might mean something different in another.Subjectively speaking,the language competence,theoretical attainment and working attitudes of the translator are all factors that may lead to unfaithfulness.Therefore,translators have to exhaust their language and thinking capacities to improve the quality of their translations.In some occasions,treaon is a passive strategy to overcome some difficulties encountered,though not accurate,it is still an approach to “represent meaning”.This is kind of “creative treason”,and is an accepted way of translating.Thirdly,the corresponding strategies are proposed to handle the problems of unfaithfulness.To translate western literary theories into Chinese is just a process of sinicization,which is a transfer of idea into a completely new context for some practical purposes.The transfer of meaning is to represent the semantic,idealogical,cultural and stylistic implication in the new context.The translated text will represent the meaning of the original text and follow the rules of the target lauguage.The subjectivity of the translator is realized by getting rid of the obstacles leading to the above mentioned “unfaithfulnesses”.Translators are in a dominant position and also a decisive factor in the process of translation.A competent translator of academic works must be good at two or more languages and an expert in the field related to the work to be translated.In this way can he understand what the author intends to say precisely,the way he writes and then find an ideal correnspondent expression in the target language.In order to convey the original idea successfully,it is necessary to understand the original text accurately and to express it in the target language properly.An ideal translator is supposed to be an expert on a school or a theorist of western theories so that he can fully understand every single word in the text.By the very same word,the writer might mean something different.The meaning of terms of western literary theories might change chronically,which makes it more difficult to catch and represent in Chinese.The more familiar with the context a translator is,the more accurately can he understand and express the idea.As for the terms already translated,especially those widely accepted,we?d better use the existing translation to reduce the cost of translation and communication.A qualified translator of western literary theories must be a researcher or an expert in the field.He also needs some professional training and be familiar with information technology.The corpus established in the information age together with CAT and AI is of great help in dealing with the parallel texts.Progress in technology is also of great help in the speed and validity of translating.Western literary theories,ideological content integrated with humanity,are accretion and sublimation of individual experience.As an academic activity,the redenering of western literary theories is based on scientific research with a honest attitude.Only in this way,can the author?s intention be explored successfully and expressed in idiomatic Chinese.There is no end in the efforts to pursue “perfect translation”.