描述
开 本: 16开纸 张: 胶版纸包 装: 平装-胶订是否套装: 否国际标准书号ISBN: 9787302460183
Contents
Foreword Ⅰ
Acknowledgements Ⅴ
Preface
Chapter One Introduction 1
1.1 Purpose of the book 5
1.2 Scope of the study of translation
history 9
1.3 Structure of the book 13
Chapter Two The Translation and Review of SGYY in English 15
2.1 A brief introduction to the Chinese
novel SGYY 15
2.2 Sinologists’ comments on the popularity
of SGYY 18
2.3 The translation history of SGYY into
English 20
2.3.1 Data
collection 20
2.3.2 A
brief introduction to the English translations 21
2.3.3 Periodization
of the history 37
2.4 The review history of SGYY in the
English language 39
2.4.1 Data
collection 40
2.4.2 A
brief introduction to the English reviews 40
Chapter Three The Early Period (1820–1924):
Expatriates’ Endeavors 51
3.1 Other identities of translators 56
3.1.1 Identities
of foreigners in China during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries 56
3.1.2 Identities
and perspectives of translators 57
3.2 Translation
purpose and translation object 63
3.2.1 Influence
of Chinese culture on the choice of the translator 65
3.2.2 Sinologists’
views on the novel as a literary form 66
3.2.3 Translation
as leisure-time reading material 69
3.2.4 Translation
as language learning material 72
3.2.5 Translation
as research 75
3.3 Translation
strategies 77
3.3.1 Translation
strategies 77
3.3.2 Reasons
for the translation strategies adopted 80
3.4 The
journal as a unique outlet for translations and reviews 84
3.5 Conclusion
89
Chapter FourThe Middle Period (1925–1975):
An Age of Diversity 91
4.1 Three
translations of the same episode 94
4.1.1 Z.
Q. Parker’s translation 94
4.1.2 Yang
Xianyi and Gladys Yang’s translation 95
4.1.3 Cheung
Yik-man’s translation 98
4.2 Charles
Henry Brewitt-Taylor and his Romance of the Three Kingdoms 100
4.2.1 Charles
Henry Brewitt-Taylor 100
4.2.2 The
reason why Brewitt-Taylor undertook the translation 101
4.2.3 Target
reader 107
4.2.4 Translation
strategies 111
4.2.5 Publisher’s
role in the formation of the translation 119
4.2.6 Mistranslations
122
4.2.7 Reception
of the translation by Brewitt-Taylor’s
contemporaries 131
4.2.8 Influence
of Brewitt-Taylor’s translation 133
4.3 Conclusion
137
Chapter FiveThe Late Period (1976– ): The
Academic Turn 139
5.1 Translation
purpose and target audience 141
5.2 Production
under ideal circumstances 142
5.3 The
academic turn and the translator’s subjectivity 143
5.3.1 The
translator as a scholar 144
5.3.2 The
translator’s subjectivity and translation strategies 148
5.4 Patronage
158
5.5 Reception
of Roberts’s translations 159
5.5.1 The
1976 edition 159
5.5.2 The
1991 edition 161
5.5.3 The
1999 edition 164
5.6 Mistranslations
in Moss Roberts’s versions 164
5.7 Conclusion
166
Chapter Six Conclusion 169
6.1 Historical
tendencies of the English translation of
SGYY 171
6.1.1 Transformation
of the subject of translation activities 171
6.1.2 Transformation
of the translation purpose and readership 172
6.1.3 Transformation
of the translator’s cultural orientation 173
6.2 Retranslation
and its causality 175
Bibliography 179 Appendices 193
Appendix A: A Catalogue of English
Translations of SGYY (in chronological order) 193
Appendix B: A Catalogue of English Reviews of SGYY (in chronological order)
196
Appendix C: An Interview with Professor Moss Roberts 198
List of Tables 201
Preface
In 1820, The Asiatic Journal published the
very first translated excerpt of Sanguo yanyi; a work entitled “The Death of
the Celebrated Minister Tung-cho,” translated by P. P. Thoms. A Historical
Survey of Sanguo yanyi in English Translation is the first attempt to make an
overall descriptive study of the English translation history of Sanguo yanyi.
The translation history is divided into
three periods: the early period (1820–1924), the middle period (1925–1975) and
the late period (1976– ). The description of each period encompasses all types
of paratexts attached to the versions (the preface, afterword,
acknowledgements, annotations and titles, etc.) and a variety of documents
introducing the novel to the English-speaking world (book reviews, translation
reviews, encyclopedias, anthologies and bibliographies, etc.).
In the early period it was mainly
expatriates in China who engaged in translation activities. As interested
amateurs, they produced versions of texts adapted, summarized or excerpted from
the original to help the local expatriate communities and those in their home
countries gain a first-hand knowledge of China. Versions appeared in the form
of leisure-time reading material, language learning material and research. As
the texts were comparatively short, English journals published by expatriates
in China served as their major outlet.
In the middle period translation activities
show a greater diversity in terms of translator, purpose and target readership.
The scope of translation expanded significantly, individual books becoming the
dominant publication format. This period witnessed the appearance of the first
complete translation of Sanguo yanyi.
The late period has seen a noteworthy
academic turn. Moss Roberts, Professor of Chinese at New York University, has
retranslated the novel to meet the requirements of teaching and research in the
English-speaking countries. His translation, published in its entirety and in
an abridged edition, has been patronized by Chinese as well as American presses
and academic institutions. It is accompanied by academic paratexts.
Thus the work’s translation history shows a
transformation of translators from amateurs to professionals, an expansion of
readerships and shifts of cultural orientation from domestication to
foreignization, from simplification to amplification. This book points out that
the language ability and interculturality of the translator and his readership
are the decisive factors over the cultural orientation of the translation.
This book contains historical and textual
analyses of the translation activities of the past nearly 200 years. It devotes
much attention to the social and cultural environments that have generated the
various versions and promoted their dissemination, and avoids using contemporary
standards to evaluate those produced in earlier periods. It also cites numerous
instances of the textual characteristics of different versions, extending the
discussion beyond abstract theorization. The overall analysis will therefore
prove a reliable source for future studies on the English translation and
dissemination of the novel.
1.2 Scope of the study of translation
history
In Method in Translation History, Anthony
Pym (1998: 5) subdivides translation history into three areas: translation
archeology, historical criticism and explanation. A further definition of each
area is given as follows:
Translation archeology is a set of
discourses concerned with answering all or part of the complex question “who
translated what, how, where, when, for whom and with what effect?”. It can
include anything from the compiling of catalogues to the carrying out of
biographical research on translators. The term “archeology” is not meant to be
pejorative here, nor does it imply any particular Foucauldian revelations. It
simply denotes a fascinating field that often involves complex detective work,
great self-sacrifice and very real service to other areas of translation
history.
Historical criticism would be the set of
discourses that assess the way translations help or hinder progress. This is an
unfashionable and perilous exercise, not least because we would first have to
say what progress looks like. In traditional terms historical criticism might
broadly cover the philological part of historiography, if and when philology
conjugates notions of progress as moral value (and the best of it used to). Yet
the resulting criticism cannot apply contemporary values directly to past
translations. Rather than decide whether a translation is progressive for us
here and now, properly historical criticism must determine the value of a past
translator’s work in relation to the effects achieved in the past. This would
be the difference between historical and non-historical criticism…
Explanation is the part of translation
history that tries to say why archeological artifacts occurred when and where
they did, and how they were related to change. Archeology and historical
criticism are mostly concerned with individual facts and texts. Explanation
must be concerned with the causation of such data, particularly the causation
that passes through power relationships; this is the field where translators
can be discovered as effective social actors.…A history that ignored causation
would perhaps be able to describe actions and effects, it might even have a
one-dimensional idea of progress, but it would not recognize the properly human
dimension of documents and actions as processes of change. (Pym, 1998: 5–6)
For any kind of translation history,
translation archeology always lays
the foundation. It basically involves
document collection, information
retrieval, reading and reviewing. Success
in translation archeology can be
a good start for the whole project. In the
aforementioned book, Pym elaborates on neither historical
nor non-historical criticism because, as he
states, “they both require
degrees of ideological certitude for which
I await revelation” (1998: 5).
Indeed, “progressive moral values” is hard
to define. But such concepts
评论
还没有评论。