| Robert Burns was a well-known Scottish national poet and forerunner of British poetry of Romanticism.Most of his poems were written in Scottish dialect and drew nourishment from local life and folk songs,being a hybrid combination of existing songs and new lyrics added by himself.Burns was the first English poet to be introduced into China,and many of his poems were widely spread in China.The first collection of translated poems of Robert Burns was published by Yuan Shuipai in 1944,named My Heart’s in the Highlands----Selected Poems of Burns and A.E.Housman,followed by Yuan Kejia’s Poems of Robert Burns(1959),Wang Zuoliang’s Selected Poems of Robert Burns(1959)and Li Zhengshuan’s Selected Poems of Robert Burns(in English and Chinese)(2016).These four collections contributed much to the translation and study of Robert Burns,each with its own characteristics,reflecting translators’ different translation pursuits and the significance of Burns’ s poetry in different times.Domestic studies on the translation of Burns’ s poems mainly focused on the comparative studies of different translation versions,which were conducted from a stylistic perspective,involving the vocabulary,syntax,pronunciation,rhetoric device and so on,and often guided by some translation principle.Although there were some studies that involved the translator’s subjectivity in the translation,the translators’ behaviors,however,due to the limited space,were not explained and analyzed in detail,and social reasons for different translators’ behaviors received little attention.Furthermore,there were quite a few comparative studies of these four translators’ behaviors in rendering Burns’ s poems and most of them were limited to famous poems of Burns.“Translator Behavior Criticism” was an original theoretical system put forward by Zhou Lingshun.Taking the translator as the object of study,it explored the interaction between the translator and translated text from the intra-translation and extra-translation dimensions,making the translation criticism more comprehensive and objective.Based on the theory of “Translator Behavior Criticism”,this thesis selected four translators to study their translator behaviors for rendering Burns’ s poetry into Chinese and explored the reasons for their behaviors,so as to evaluate the translators’ rationality and the quality of translations.In addition to the introduction and conclusion,the thesis mainly consists of four parts.The chapter one studies Yuan Shuipai’s translator behavior.As for the intra-translation dimension,the truth-seeking study is conducted from words,sentences and rhyme;as for the extra-translation dimension,the utility-attaining study is conducted from the historical context,cultural background and target readers.The chapter two studies Yuan Kejia’s translator behavior.As for the intra-translation dimension,the truth-seeking study is conducted from the rhythm,style and spirit;as for the extra-translation dimension,the utility-attaining study is conducted from the poetic thoughts,social identity and cultural background.The chapter three studies Wang Zuoliang’s translator behavior.As for the intra-translation dimension,the truth-seeking study is conducted from the form,language effect and atmosphere;as for the extra-translation dimension,the utility-attaining study is conducted from the academic background,social identity and target readers.The chapter four studies Li Zhengshuan’s translator behavior.As for the intra-translation dimension,the truth-seeking study is conducted from the rhyme,emotion and tone;as for the extra-translation dimension,the utility-attaining study is conducted from the translation purpose,attitude towards culture and target readers.As for the intra-translation dimension,Yuan Shuipai tended to be faithful to the literal meaning of words,sometimes failing to convey the word’s contextual meaning and feeling-tone.Occasionally,there were misunderstandings and mistranslations.Yuan Kejia transplanted the original rhythm as much as possible.Occasionally,the translation couldn’t express the meaning of the original exactly due to the transplantation of rhythm.Wang Zuoliang conveyed the semantic meaning of the original poem most faithfully.Occasionally,there was creation in his translation.Li Zhengshuan pursued equivalent understanding and proper expressions,trying to translate the original to the utmost.His translation was faithful to the original greatly.It could be concluded that Li Zhengshuan’s degree of truth-thinking was the highest,followed by Wang Zuoliang,Yuan Kejia and Yuan Shuipai.As for the extra-translation dimension,these four translators’ behaviors were closely related to society.They all had reader awareness,but Yuan Kejia made the fewest statements about it.It was the historical and cultural background that mainly accounted for Yuan Shuipai’s literal translation and abridged translation.It was the“Poetry-centered” and “Human-centered” poetic thoughts,social identity as a combination of a translator,poet and critic and the cultural background of the construction of Chinese new poetry that accounted for Yuan Kejia’s emphasis on the rhythm transplantation and the overall effect of the translation.It was mainly the academic background and the social identity as a poet and professor of poetry that accounted for Wang Zuoliang’s creative translation and verse-for-verse translation.And it was the translation purpose of presenting the true image of Burns,concept of equal status of different cultures that accounted for Li Zhengshuan’s pursuit of faithful equivalence in translation.All translators had a high degree of utility-attaining.Through the analysis of the intra-translation dimension and extra-translation dimension,it can be seen that all translators’ behaviors affirm the thought“truth-seeking being the base with utility-attaining as the aim.” Hence,their translator behaviors are rational on the whole.Besides,Li Zhengshuan’s truth-seeking is exactly the utility-attaining and the converse is also true.His translator behavior thus enjoys the highest degree of rationality. |
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