Scientific Approach From The Perspective Of Semantics And Pragmatics Of Literary Translation

Since the beginning of translation theories, people have argued about the nature of translation: is it a science or an art? This debate has continued up to the 21st century and has not been settled yet. Aesthetics constitutes the origin of Chinese translation theories and has exerted far-reaching influence throughout their establishment and development, while western translation theories are rooted not in aesthetics, but in Biblical hermeneutics. The different origins and the complexity of translating itself are the two main reasons why the debate of science vs. art has not been settled even until today.For literary translation, undoubtedly, artistry is a key issue that needs studying carefully. However, the author of this thesis also believes that it would be lopsided only to stress the study of its artistry while neglecting its scientific nature, and that translating any text should integrate one with the other. Therefore, this thesis, guided by the semiotic framework—semantic triangle, aims at exploring scientific approaches in literary translation.Translation means translating meaning, which implies that meaning lies at the core of translation studies. On the basis of the semantic triangle, meaning will be studied from three perspectives: semantic, syntactic and pragmatic.The author believes that some aspects of semantic and pragmatic studies are helpful in interpreting and solving problems in translation. For semantics, componential analysis and hierarchical analysis ( including syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations, collocations and lexicalization)can be greatly helpful in analyzing and choosing lexical and phrasal meanings; The deep-surface structure hypothesis and back-transformation theory blaze a trail to the study of sentence meaning. For pragmatics, it is mainly applied to achieve textual equivalence. This paper has adopted quite a few pragmatic theories, such as coherence vs. cohesion and thematic progression, which play a crucial role in expounding textual development; and theme-rheme structure and information structure, which are of great importance in understanding texts.Therefore, in this thesis, semantics and pragmatics will be taken as two fundamental viewpoints. And with the realization of the two, a new path to the research on literary translation will be created.This thesis consists of six chapters, including introduction and conclusion. A brief introduction is made in the first chapter, with regard to translation history and translation studies both at home and abroad. This brief survey gives a thread about the development of translation theories and thus points out the necessity to research literary translation in a scientific way. In the final part of this chapter, the theoretical basis—semantic triangle is presented in detail. What the semantic triangle theory expresses is that a linguistic sign not only stands for a referent, but also for a concept. In practice, a sign that corresponds to a referent can be used to refer to one or more relevant concepts. So we can say that the same thing in different languages resorts to different signs. In this sense, translation can be viewed as a dynamic and equivalent transformational process between two languages for the same concept. Therefore, the author believes that the semantic triangle theory offers great significant guidance to the research on translation theories and translation practice.Chapter two mainly deals with word meaning by adopting semantic approaches, including: componential analysis and hierarchical analysis(including syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations). In this part, the use of componential analysis is discussed in detail. It is necessary to point out that translation is a cross-cultural activity, which means that meaning is conditioned by context, so componential analysis and hierarchical analysis should be coupled with a survey of cultural background. Due to linguistic and cultural differences, absolute equivalence is hardly possible. In order to achieve the closest equivalence between two languages, some compensation strategies should be taken as well, for instance, explicitation, division and lexicalization.Chapter three focuses on sentence meaning. In this chapter, the author finds out that back-transformation theory originating from Chomsky's deep and surface structure proves quite illuminating and instrumental in dealing with semantically complicated sentences. Translation involves three stages, of which the first stage, namely, analysis. Analysis is actually one step of the triad back-transformation process. And at this stage, tracing back to kernel level can be of great assistance in comprehending original sentences. Chapter four elaborates on the approaches to achieve textual equivalence. This part is mainly based on Halliday's theory and borrows the research results from other scholars as well. Coherence and cohesion go hand in hand. Coherence can be either implicit or explicit, with the latter being the focal point studied in this chapter. Explicit coherence is realized by means of cohesive devices. So this chapter is further divided into three parts: 1) the relationship between coherence and cohesion; 2) the classification of cohesion based on Halliday's point of view, in which five cohesive devices are studied in detail; 3) a brief summary of this chapter.Chapter five mainly concentrates on approaches to pragmatic equivalence. The study includes theme-rheme structure, information structure and thematic progression. The theme-rheme structural analysis and information structural analysis are important in observing how speakers realize texts and how the information focus is highlighted. This part is mainly supported by Halliday's theory of Systematic and Functional Grammar. As to how speakers develop texts, the thematic progression theory serves that purpose.Finally, the thesis comes to this conclusion: Literary translation embodies the integration of science and art. In the science and art dichotomy, science prevails over art. In translating, one inevitably has to adopt scientific approaches to achieve artistry. The scientific nature of literary translation is realized from semantic and pragmatic perspectives.