Aesthetic Reproduction Regret And Retainment Of Fuzzy Beauty In C-E Translation Of Shuihu Zhuan

With the development of aesthetics, the concept of fuzzy aesthetics emerges, whereby fuzzy beauty becomes the main object of the study of fuzzy aesthetics, and fuzzy language is adopted extensively. In fact, fuzziness is an elementary characteristic of natural language and a general phenomenon of the natural world; it is also an important means of literary expression, which is fully embodied in Chinese classical literary works. However, due to the estrangement of language, the barrier of culture and differences in history, etc, quite often translators can only enjoy the beauty of the source text by themselves in the process of translation. It is difficult to retain the beauty of the source text to the readers. Therefore, in the translation of literary works, ablation and retainment of fuzzy beauty is directly related to the quality of translation. To strive for retaining the beauty of the source text, translators should precisely understand the source text and be proficient in the differences of fuzzy expression between Chinese and English.For a long period, when using language, people advocate accuracy, evade fuzziness and consider that accuracy is the basis of distinction, vividness and art in language expression. However, we need not avoid and are unable to avoid it. The research on the fuzziness of language abroad is of long standing. However, the systematic research on it mainly began in 1970s. It is regrettable that the relevant research abroad lays emphasis on semantic study, seldom probing the aesthetic effects of fuzzy language and rarely linking with the practice of translation. Foreign scholars' research about language fuzziness mainly involves the following two aspects, namely: the exploration about the basic contents of fuzzy theory; research of the relationship between language fuzziness and other subjects. Though a few scholars realized the aesthetic value of fuzzy language, the research is usually based on foreign languages. The domestic scholars have realized the importance of the research of fuzzy language, and they have done some researches into this aspect. However, domestic scholars usually discuss the aesthetic effects of fuzzy language (even in this aspect, their work appears to be insufficient) and less attention is paid to the translation of fuzzy language. In general, fuzzy linguistics shows the trend of booming, but the researches on the origin of language fuzziness and the aesthetic value of fuzzy language have been inadequate.The objective and rational existence of fuzzy language can be verified from the perspective of many related subjects, one of which is semiotics. Semiotics has wide research scope, with all signs and sign systems as its research targets. Its theoretical fundament has profound guiding meaning. Linguistic sign fuzziness results in the appearance of the phenomena of "the language is hard to be the identical embodiment of the notion" and "sometimes meaning fuzziness is a better choice than meaning accuracy". As linguistic sign sometimes cannot transfer the meaning, it is difficult for us to express the connotative meaning beyond the linguistic sign, thus fuzzy language comes into play. Fuzzy language makes full use of the enlightening and hinting function of language to arouse the imagination of the readers, which makes people sense the meaningful sentiment beyond linguistic sign. Therefore, from semiotic point of view, we can understand more correctly and easily the objective and rational existence of fuzzy language.Along with the reform and opening-up, China communicates with other countries more closely, and the communication of culture also strengthens. Chinese literary works, especially Chinese classical literary works have been widely spread and translated into foreign languages. However, the most impressive regret in translation of Chinese classical literary works might lie in the fact that our capability is largely restricted in reproducing the aesthetic effect of Chinese fuzzy expressions. Translation is a profession full with regret and translators are professional regret-tasters. While the translator can comprehend the excellent of source texts himself or herself, it is always extremely hard to transmit this excellence exactly in translation and sometimes it even tends to be impossible, because usually elegant expressions cannot be translated perfectly.At present, the translation of fuzzy language has aroused the interests of many scholars who engage in translation, and many scholars at home and abroad have realized the importance of fuzzy language in translation, especially in translation of literary works. And it has been put forward in many works of translation theory. However, at present, few monographs on the ablation and retainment of fuzzy beauty in C-E translation have ever been published in the translation field, and the retainment of fuzzy beauty in C-E translation has always been short of systematic research and theoretical guidance.Reception aesthetics which was popularized in the 1960s caused a shift of the focus of literary theory from the author-work pole to the text-reader pole. Reception aesthetics takes the relationship between reader and literary works as the research emphasis, discusses the reader's understanding, response and reception of the literary works and the reading process's active interference with the creation process and also studies the social, historical and individual reasons of different understanding towards the same literary works (Fan Wuqiu, 2008). Therefore, this theory plays a macro instructive role in translating and accepting the literary works.Chinese classical literary works embody abundant fuzzy beauty. Shuihu Zhuan is a work of social encyclopedia, and one of "Four Great Ancient Classical Works". It is famous at all times and all over the world due to its vivid language, lively characters and distinctive folk custom. It is a representative work which successfully makes use of the merit of fuzzy language. It has been widely spread and translated into foreign languages. So far, it has several English versions, among which Outlaws of the Marsh by Sidney Shapiro and All Men Are Brothers by Pearl S. Buck are the best-known.The author of this thesis adopts Sidney Shapiro's version as the main version of Shiiihu Zhuan for its popularity in China and also takes Pearl S. Buck's version as the main comparative version for contrastive analysis for its prevalence in the Western world. F. de Saussure's Semiology and C. S. Peirce's semiotics are chosen to serve as the theoretical paradigm to discuss the objective existence of fuzzy language. Then, based on reception aesthetics, the author analyzes the aesthetic reproduction regret of fuzzy beauty in translation of Shuihu Zhuan, especially illustrates the aesthetic regret in the retainment of characters' description, scene description and nickname of character. On the basis of this, the author analyzes the roots of regret from the perspectives of psychological archetypes of nation, thinking pattern, aesthetic consciousness, language and means of expression, etc. And then, the author illustrates the retainment of fuzzy beauty in C-E translation of Shuihu Zhuan, and analyzes prerequisites for effective retainment of fuzzy beauty. From this, the author expounds a brief reference of the instruction for C-E translation. The author states the necessity and significance of C-E translation, and compares C-E translation by Chinese translators with that by foreign translators. At last, the author expounds the prerequisites and responsibilities of Chinese translators who engage in C-E translation.