A Study Of Chiang Yee’s Translation Of Chinese Calligraphy From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

With the strategy of“Sharing Chinese Culture with Other Countries" and the establishment of Confucius institutes in many other countries,a number of textbooks in English about Chinese calligraphy come out.There are many covert and overt translations in these textbooks,whose research work is of significance to the international dissemination of Chinese calligraphy.Chiang Yee published Chinese Calligraphy:An Introduction to Its Aesthetic and Technique in the 1930s(Chinese calligraphy for short).It is the only book Chiang Yee wrote about Chinese calligraphy and sold very well in western countries.Up to now,it is still the appointed textbooks in English about Chinese calligraphy for many overseas colleges and universities.Chinese Calligraphy was written in English,but is about Chinese calligraphy and culture,the phenomenon of which is defined by Wang Hongyin as "Foreign Language Writing".In the process of introducing Chinese culture in English,the transferring from one language to another is unavoidable.Thus,translation is inevitably involved.In Chinese calligraphy,Chiang Yee’s successful experience of translation plays a very important role in the compilation of Chinese calligraphy.Combined with quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis,this thesis carries out the research on Chiang Yee’s translation strategies of Chinese Calligraphy from the perspective of Jauss’s Reception Aesthetics theory.This thesis makes an analysis of Chiang Yee’s translation on Chinese calligraphic terms,adaptation of others’ translation,and translation of Bei(碑)and Tie(帖).This thesis finds that,Chiang Yee’s translation strategies are of great originality,which is featured by his great attention paid to readers’reception.His translation strategy on calligraphic terms is predominated by "Thick Translation" and "transliteration",which appear to be more foreignizing as a whole.From the Reception Aesthetics,Chiang Yee’s"Thick Translation" strategy meets the readers’expectation horizon and promotes the fusion of horizon.Firstly,it reconciles the irreconcilability of "domesticating" and"foreignizing" to some extent.Secondly,it improves the quality of reproduction.Its overall"foreignizing" strategy highlights the Chinese cultural identity and makes western readers closer to foreign culture,which increases the aesthetic distance.In Chinese Calligraphy,Chiang Yee quoted the passages from Sun Guoting’s Shu pu and adapted Sun Dayu’s English translation of Shu pu.By comparing Chiang Yee’s adaptation with Sun Dayu’s original translation,we can find that the awareness of "implied reader " was shown in both Chiang Yee and Sun Dayu’s translation.The "implied reader" in Chiang Yee’s creation is western reader who wants to learn Chinese calligraphy but lacks Chinese or calligraphy knowledge.Thus,Chiang Yee’s translation is more fluent in language and removes a lot of expression of literary color,which makes the translation more operable.In addition,Chiang Yee is a calligrapher and teacher who does translation under the whole system of calligraphy thoughts.From the aspect of translation of Bei(碑)and Tie(帖),Chiang Yee promotes the fusion of horizon in his translation,as it is consistent in the whole text with intratextuality.