A Study On The Significance Of Shin Wi's Chinese Translation Of Soahkbu

In translating literature works,one should not only present accurately the content of the original work,but also display the original language style and implications in a different language.Poetry,as a literary genre,has always been difficult to translate due to its strong rhythm and different associations of various images in different cultures.Many scholars acknowledge that it is very difficult to achieve full equivalence in translation,especially in literature.Therefore,translators often try to make the closest translation by adding subjective interpretations and following the approach like "in other words".The untranslatability of literature makes it possible that the translator has more leeway in interpreting the work,which is less common in other types of translation.Shin Wi is a famous scholar and the "master of poetry,calligraphy and painting" in the Joseon period.This paper focuses on his Chinese translation of Soahkbu.The study explores the significance of this work in poetry translation as well as the translation principles reflected in it.In particular,pluralism,an attribute both of his era and in his works,prompted Shin Wi to carry out a more flexible tra nslation of poetry.The earliest Sijo was handed down orally,rather than by written records.The Korean writing system had yet to be in existence when Sijo firstly appeared.Thus,there could be a difference between the time when some Sijo was created and the time when it was recorded.Considering the compiling purpose of Soahkbu,the collected works in it may not be the original Sijo.Therefore,in a sense,neither the existent research nor this study explores the Chinese translation work of the "original" Sijo.However,Shin Wi is a figure of the 19th century,when all the three major collections of Sijo had already existed,and the compiling time of these collections is close to the era in which he lived.Therefore,this paper is not affected much by the possibility that the original Sijo may be lost in oral transmission.This paper mainly refers to Korean research materials for the research on Sijo translation and Shin Wi.Because in China there are very few studies onSijo,which as a literary type appeared in the late Goryeo period and prevailed in the Joseon period.There are only 19 related dissertations and journal papers,most of which probe the China-Korea relations from the perspective of Sijo.There are even fewer studies on the Chinese translation of Sijo.However,in the Korean academia,Sijo is a hot research topic.Works of some Korean scholars on this topic are also available in China.Even so,whether in papers or monographs,there is still not much research on the Chinese translation of Shin Wi's Soahkbu.The reason for this may be that departments of Korean language and literature in Korean universities pioneer most of Sijo studies in Korea.Their focus is generally "Sijo" rather than "Chinese translation of Sijo ",which is more often regarded as a "derivative" of the traditional Sijo.In such context,research on Chinese translation of Sijo has limited significance in Korea.This paper consists of three parts:the introduction to Chinese translation of Korean Sijo,the analysis of Shin Wi's Chinese translation,and the analysis of Shin Wi's translation principles.Firstly,as the research background,this paper introduces the Chinese translation of Korean Sijo.The introduction is divided into three sections:the subjects of translation,the forms of translation,and the purposes of translation.Because of its la rge content,the first two sections mainly focus on the conventional translation and seven-character quatrains related to Shin Wi's Chinese translation.Secondly,at the beginning of the second part,the paper briefly introduces the compilation of Soahkbu.This section,however,does not present and analyze all the 40 poems in Shin Wi's Soahkbu.Other researchers have done this work.Besides,the paper' s main purpose is not to explain the difference between one specific Sijo and its Chinese translation by Shin Wi,but to explore the significance of Shin Wi' s Chinese translation through such analyses.Next,the paper examines the forms and content of Shin Wi's Soahkbu.In the terms of the forms,this paper mainly probes the three forms of Shin Wi's Soahkbu.In terms of content,the paper finds that Shin Wi omitted or added interpretations cleverly.Finally,in the third part,the paper analyzed the background against which Shin Wi' s translation principles in Soahkbu were formed.Shin Wi did not specifically talk about translation principles,except for the brief mention of translation motivation in the preface to Soahkbu.Besides,with only a few articles on the expression of poetry theory,there is no systematic collection of related articles.Therefore,this part focuses on the external factors such as the background and Shin Wi' s life with their reflections in the Chinese translation of Soahkbu.In the following section,the paper analyzed the two translation principles in Soahkbu,in particular,omission and adding interpterion as mentioned above.In conclusion,in terms of wording and translation techniques,Shin Wi's translation has been influenced by the society in which he lived.On the other hand,considering his selective interpretation of images and the ideas expressed in other articles,the translation reflects his own subjective consciousness.In other words,his translation techniques can be understood as an attempt to present the meaning of the original text in a different cultural and linguistic system.This kind of translation is the most intuitive way to show the interaction between the two languages and between the two cultures.