The Comparison of Two Translated Novels[1]_intheperiodof用法

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The Comparison of Two Translated Novels

Xiaoyun Zhao1

(Nanjing College of Information Technology)

Abstract:In this eay, the author will first look at the two source texts and give a brief introduction of their contents, social contexts and positions in literary history in each country.Then I will show how they have been translated, readers‟ reaction to the translated versions and analyze the reasons for different readers‟ reactions.Finally, I will go further to touch on the present situation of translated foreign books in the Chinese market and translated Chinese books in other markets.摘要： 这篇文章先介绍了两部原著的内容，社会背景以及在各自国家的文学史上的地位。接着，对比分析了两部原著的翻译特点，读者对两部原著的译本的反应，并分析了造成迥然不同的读者反应的原因。最后，提到了国外书籍的中译本在中国市场上的现状和已被翻译成其他语言的中文原著在国外市场上的现状。

Key words: Two translated novels;Comparison

关键词： 两部翻译的小说；对比

Introduction

With wide international communication, more and more translated texts appear in the book market all over the world.From translated texts, people can not only learn science and technology, but also understand different social and cultural systems of other foreign countries.Since the Chinese government adopted the policy of “Reform and Open-up”, many translated texts have come into existence in the Chinese market.At the same time, some famous Chinese texts have been translated into other languages.I choose two novels and their translated versions to compare.One is Chinese source text红楼梦(Hong Lou Men), translated into English as The Dream of the Red Chamber;the other is the English source text Jane Eyre, translated into Chinese as简 • 爱(Jian Ai).Source texts

Introduction of the contents

红楼梦(Hong Lou Men)was written by Xueqin Cao and E Gao in the 18th century.It centres on the prosperity and decay of a feudalistic official family and the love story between young Chinese couples.Baoyu Jia was born in a rich official family and was doted on by his grandmother Jia Mother.Daiyu Lin was an orphan and lived an unhappy life in the same family.They fell in love with each other.However, this kind of free choice of lovers was in contradiction with the feudalistic custom and was forbidden during that period.His grandmother chose another bride Baocai Xue who was believed to be more suitable for him.They told him a lie that he would be married to Daiyu for fear of his refusal of being married to Baocai.As a bride in feudalistic society must be masked with a red cloth on her head in marriage ceremony, Baoyu did not know the truth.When Daiyu knew the bride was not her, she was so heart-broken that she died because of it.Baoyu left the family and became a monk when he learnt the truth later.At the same time, the former prosperous family went bankrupt after a series of attacks.Jane Eyre was created by Charlotte Brontë in 1947.The heroine Jane Eyre was also an orphan.Differently from Daiyu, she lived an independent life and knew how to control her own destiny.When she found that Mr.Rochester still had an insane wife, she left him without any hesitation.Finally she decided to marry him after a terrible fire even though he was handicapped and all his fortune was destroyed.Social backgrounds

红楼梦(Hong Lou Men)reflects the social background of China in the 18th century.During that period, China was governed by the last dynasty, the Qing dynasty.Though it was still in “Kang and Qian Prosperous Period”, it could not change the whole historical trend that feudalism was doomed to collapse.The bankruptcy of the prosperous feudal family Jia embodied the inevitably dying feudal system.At the same time, love and marriage was an important social problem in the Chinese feudalism.Free choice of lovers was totally forbidden during that period.The love tragedy between Baoyu and Daiyu reflected the social phenomenon exactly.As a result, the novel depicts Chinese feudal society vividly and completely.In contrast, though the time interval between the two novels was no more than one hundred years, Jane Eyre reflects a totally different social system – capitalism.The story happens in a transitional period in the United Kingdom – from an agricultural country to an industrial one.During this period, though the aristocracy was still at the top of the social ladder, their position was increasingly threatened by the bourgeoning capitalist.The capitalist advocated the spirit of freedom and equity in order to break the social bondage and to win more political rights.1

Through the new independent and rebellious woman image of Jane Eyre, the author reflected the spirit of the period.Translated versions

红楼梦(Hong Lou Men)has been translated into English by many translators.However, many of them shortened the original book and lost its original style.The English version translated by Minford in 1982 was unabridged and ran to five volumes in total.The English title The Dream of the Red Chamber was translated according to the meaning of Chinese title.Different from 红楼梦(Hong Lou Men), as early as 1935, Jane Eyre was translated into Chinese by Guangjian Wu.His Chinese title 孤女飘零记(Gunu Piaolingji)was translated on the basis of the content of the whole story.Next year, another translator Jiye Li created a new title简 • 爱(Jian Ai).This title was translated according to English phonetics and it embodied the character of the heroine Jane Eyre: plain, honest and full of love.As the title was true to the original and aumes connotation in Chinese, it was adopted by all the later translators.(Zhang, 1999)Since China carried out the policy of “reform and opening-up”, more different Chinese versions have been published.The version translated by Huang(1994)is one example.I will choose his version to compare it with the English version of 红楼梦(Hong Lou Men).In the following section I will discu how红楼梦(Hong Lou Men)and Jane Eyre were translated.Criticize the two translated texts

红楼梦(Hong Lou Men)

红楼梦(Hong Lou Men)was written in ancient China.It is not very easy to understand for a native Chinese reader if he/she has not had a good command of ancient Chinese.The novel depicts Chinese feudal society completely and has depicted more than five hundred characters.Consequently, it is difficult to translate.Furthermore, it is not easy for western people to understand the complicated relationship among the many characters and the special social and cultural background of ancient China.Minford kept all the content of the source text and did his utmost to make the translated version comprehensible to English readers.Generally speaking, Minford adopted the method of domesticating(Venuti 1995: 225)the foreign text.In the following section I will analyze his translation in detail.To begin with, I look at how he translated Chinese name.On the one hand, he translated some of the names according to the pronunciations and adopted the Chinese Pinyin system.However, he did not change the order of Chinese names.According to Chinese custom, the first name is the family name;the second one is the given one.He kept this tradition, which might cause confusion to English readers.On the other hand, he translated many maids‟ names according to the meaning of their names.These names are meaningful and beautiful in Chinese and embody some feature of the characters.For instance, the Chinese name of the maid of grandmother Jia was 鸳鸯(Yuanyang).鸳鸯(Yuanyang)is a special Chinese bird and if one bird of a pair dies, the other one will die with it.The maid commits suicide when the grandmother dies.Consequently, Minford gave her a meaningful English name Faithful, which showed the connotation of her Chinese name.Second, I turn to the way he translated personal titles.In Chinese feudal society, the relationship in a large family was so complex that even a native speaker in modern Chinese society might not understand it clearly.In the source text, the titles, such as 大老爷(Da laoye), 老爷(Laoye),二爷(Erye)and 姨太太(Yitaitai), do not havesuitable counterparts in English.Consequently, Minford replaced the titles with the names that they represented, which could not reflect the true social situation in that period.However, it can help English readers to know the exact person that the title represents easily.Third, how did Minford translate the Chinese customs in the source text? As the source text truly reflected the social life in Chinese feudal society, it mentioned many Chinese customs, which might be difficult for western readers to understand.Consequently, the translator mainly tried to explain the aim or action in English.For instance, he translated two key Chinese customs in the following ways.On page 826 of the source text, grandmother Jia believed that Baoyu must娶了金命的人帮扶他, 必要冲冲喜才好.It was translated into “Marry a lady with a destiny of gold, to help him and support him.He must be given a marriage as soon as poible to turn his luck.” on page 326 of the target text.It mainly explained the aim of the custom冲喜(congxi)is to “turn his luck”.This kind of translation can only partly help readers to understand the meaning.If the translator explained the details to them by the aid of appendices or other form of annotation, it could not only help reader to understand Chinese customs, but also help them to know the reason of the tragedy love.Baoyu became a little insane because of the lo of his jade, which was bad luck;his marriage with Baocai was regarded as a great happy(喜xi)event.It is said that a great happy(喜xi)event can change the trend of one‟s bad luck in that period, which was called冲喜(congxi).That was why grandmother Jia was eager to arrange his marriage with Baocai.It is a pity the translator did not explain this in detail.Fourth, He did not adopt the strategy of the archaism advocated by Pound(Venuti 1995: 197)when he translated poems in the source text.In this way, his translation lost the beauty and poetry of the original one.However, it is easy for English readers to understand the meaning the poems conveyed.Fifth, in order to make the complicated novel intelligible to English readers, he added some more sentences to help readers to understand it when neceary.On the one hand, some words in the source text were omitted because of Chinese taboo in feudal society.For instance, on page 824 of the source text, Zheng Jia mentioned her daughter‟s death as贵妃的事(the thing of Her Grace).It was directly translated into “Her Grace‟s death” on page 327 of the target text.As she was an imperial concubine, it was taboo to mention her death directly even for her parents.However, when Minford translated it, he did not take it into account and added the word “death” directly.It can help English readers to understand the event easily.On the other hand, as the novel was written in ancient Chinese, it was concise.If it was also translated concisely, it might not be easy to understand.Consequently, Minford added some more sentences of his own understanding.For example, on page 924 of the source text, the sentence 这几天怎么办呢was not translated into “What can we do in a few days” according to the verbal meaning.He added the reason “There is not enough time.”(Minford 1982: 327)This could help readers to understand the sentence.Sixth, Minford added some words common in English oral communication when he translated the conversations in the source text.He added words, such as “Mm, ma”(Minford 1982: 331), “come on”(Minford 1982: 323)and “poor darling”(Minford 1982: 325), in the target text.This could cater for the conversation habit of English readers and make them forget the fact that they are reading a translated text temporarily.Lastly, Minford occasionally adopted foreignizing strategies(Venuti 1995: 41)to translate some words that existed only in the special period of Chinese society.He translated them according to their pronunciations.For instance, he translated 炕(kang, a special kind of warm bed heated by the burning of wood used in northern China), 衙门(yamen, a kind of court in Chinese feudal society)into “kang”(Minford 1982:329)and “yamen”(Minford 1982: 322).It is not a bad strategy because it can provide readers with knowledge about the culture of the source language.However, as he did not explain these translated words any further, it could not make sense to readers without any background knowledge.In general, Minford mainly adopted domesticating strategies to make the target text intelligible to English readers.However, as Toury points out, “no translation is ever entirely acceptable to the target culture because of its estranging structural and verbal elements”.(Gentzler 1993;131)It is especially the case for the translation of 红楼梦(Hong Lou Men).There are many cultural differences between China and western countries and Chinese language system is totally different from that of English.Furthermore, as红楼梦(Hong Lou Men)reflects Chinese feudal society and was written in ancient Chinese, the time interval enlarged the cultural and verbal difference between the source text and the target text.Naturally, the target text still has some unintelligible points to English readers.Jane Eyre

As 19th century English is almost the same as that of today, Jane Eyre is easy to understand for modern people.Many Chinese translators have translated Jane Eyre into different Chinese versions of简 • 爱(Jian ai).The version translated by 黄源深Huang, Yuanshen is one of the better ones.He adhered to the principle of “Faithfulne, Communicability and Elegance” put forward by Fu Yan.(Hung & Pollard 1998: 371)The principle of 信, 达, 雅(xin, da, ya)is widely accepted in Chinese translation circles and has become a norm used to evaluate the quality of translation in China.In the following section I will analyze how he implemented the principle in his translation.First, Huang translated the source text faithfully and presented a true picture of British life in the 19th century to Chinese readers.In the source text, Brontë quoted many literary references originating in the Bible, the works of Shakespeare and other claical works, which are unfamiliar to most Chinese readers.Huang adopted the transliteration method to translate the names of the characters.As it was still difficult for Chinese readers to understand the connotation of the references, he added footnotes to provide further information about them.Moreover, as Brontë wrote some conversations in French in the source text, Huang kept the French in the target text so that readers could enjoy the original style.At the same time, he added a footnote to translate each French conversation into Chinese.Second, the language in the target text is fluent and communicative.Huang did not translate the source text word for word.He changed word order or other syntactic features according to practical requirements.Occasionally, he changed the syntax of some source sentences completely if it was neceary.For example, on page 139 of the source text, the sentence “Nature did it” was transformed into a noun phrase 造化的圣绩(the achievement of nature).(黄Huang 1994: 152)This is more suitable and can be more cohesive in the Chinese context.Third, Huang succeeded in restoring the elegance of the source text.He carefully chose suitable words to expre the meaning.Sometimes he used Chinese idioms to make the target text more concise and elegant.For

instance, he translated the sentence “I am quick at interpreting its language”(Brontë 1977: 140)into Chinese 我可是很善于察言观色的(黄Huang 1994: 153).Here he used Chinese the idiom 察言观色to expre the meaning of “interpreting its language”.However, the target text still has some points that cannot be fully understood by Chinese readers.For instance, on page 137 of the source text the sentence “now I flatter myself I am hard and tough as an Indian-rubber ball” was translated into Chinese according to the meaning.However, Chinese readers might not understand the reason why Indian-rubber ball was regarded as a tough one.Huang did not explain it at all in the target text.In brief, compared with红楼梦(Hong Lou Men), the language and cultural difference between the source and target text of Jane Eyre is not as significant as that of红楼梦(Hong Lou Men).It is especially the case for language difference.Influenced by the grammar of western languages, the syntax of modern Chinese is much closer to English than that of ancient Chinese.Consequently, there does not have great difference between the source and target text of Jane Eyre.Huang succeeded in translating the source text.It provides Chinese readers with a good chance to enjoy the art of Jane Eyre even though they do not understand English.Readers’ reaction

红楼梦(Hong Lou Men), one of the fourmost famous Chinese claical novels, is very influential in China.However, it was introduced to western readers only about twenty years ago.Furthermore, when it was translated into English, the influence in western countries was very small.The number of English readers was limited and readers‟ reaction to the target text was indifferent.By contrast, Jane Eyre was published in 1877, about one hundred years later than 红楼梦(Hong Lou Men).When it was first published in the UK, it was not widely accepted by English readers.Some readers even criticized the novel vehemently.However, as early as 1935, it was translated into Chinese.Later it was translated by many different translators.(Zhang 1999: 180)Consequently, Chinese readers knew the novel quite early.Especially when the film Jane Eyre was shown to Chinese audience in the 1980s, they were deeply moved by it.Many Chinese turned to the translated novel because they wanted to know more about it.It was listed as one of the ten most famous claical novels of Chinese and foreign literature.From these facts we can know how widely and warmly Chinese readers like to read简 • 爱(Jian Ai).Analyze the reason

The source texts of红楼梦(Hong Lou Men)and Jane Eyre are both famous in each country and warmly welcomed by native readers.Why are the readers‟ reactions to the target text so substantially different? In my opinion, it can be attributed to two main reasons.One is the source text itself;the other is general social and cultural factors.In regard to the source texts, though the two novels centre on love stories, they depict totally different societies.The society in Jane Eyre is much closer to modern society.Especially the heroine Jane Eyre embodies a new type of independent women.When the translated text was published in China, the Chinese feudal system had only been demolished twenty four years ago.In feudal society, Chinese women were totally dependent on men.In the 1930s, Chinese were in need of a new type of women.Consequently, it was easy for Jane Eyre, a new type of women, to strike a sympathetic chord among Chinese readers.By contrast, 红楼梦(Hong Lou Men)depicts feudal social life in China.The social custom and regulations in the novel are familiar to Chinese readers.However, it does not make sense to western readers.Especially the key belief of金玉良缘(the good bond of gold and jade)that leads to the tragedy of the love story is full of superstitious colour, which cannot be fully understood by western readers.In short, the whole story is so remote and strange that it cannot be admired by western readers.Furthermore, as红楼梦(Hong Lou Men)was written in ancient Chinese, the task of translating it was all the more difficult.Although Minford adopted domesticating strategies to make it relatively easy to understand for English readers, some points still remain unintelligible to English readers.In comparison, the language used in Jane Eyre is almost the same as present English.It is much easier to understand and translate than红楼梦(Hong Lou Men).Chinese readers can understand the translated version without any effort.Naturally, it is much easier for Chinese readers to accept it.In respect to the general social and cultural factors, it can be attributed to the fact that achievement of economy and advancement of science and technology in a country can also promote the admiration of its culture.From an historical point of view, as the burgeoning place of Industrial Revolution, Great Britain was in the foreground of the world economy during the period between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.In comparison, the Chinese economy was backward during that time.Many Chinese scholars were anxious to look for ways to develop the Chinese economy.They were not merely satisfied with learning advanced science and technology from western countries.They still endeavoured to explore the deep reasons behind it and they began to study western politics and culture.Naturally, literature, an important mirror of culture, was not ignored.As a result, Jane Eyre, one of the representative novels, was introduced to Chinese as early as 1935.Conclusion

Readers‟ different reaction to the two texts is only an epitome of the real world.It reflects the fact that many books translated from English are welcomed by Chinese readers and can be sold in large quantities in the Chinese market;whereas, the influence of books translated from Chinese is limited in the western market.On the one hand, although every year China exports more than three million books on average, only a small number of books are translated into other foreign languages and Chinese claical literature books account for a large portion of these books.The majority of exported books are written in Chinese and aimed at foreign libraries, government departments and Chinese overseas.In fact, the limited number of translations does not sell well in overseas markets.On the other hand, every year China imports many foreign books from other foreign countries and Chinese publishers buy translation and reprint rights in large numbers so as to publish translated versions in China.Many translated books sell well in the Chinese market.Reference:

Brontë, Charlotte(1877)Jane Eyre, London: Smith, Elder, & Co.曹雪芹Cao, Xueqin & 高鄂Gao, E（2001 年 7 月 第 1 版）红楼梦（上、下）, 北京: 中国文史出版社 Gentzler, Edwin(1993)Contemporary Translation Theories, London: Routledge Inc.黄源深Huang, Yuanshen(1994)简 • 爱(Jian Ai), 南京: 译林出版社

Minford, John(1982)the Dream of the Red Chamber, Middlesex: Penguin Books

Hung, Eva & Pollard, David(1998)„Chinese translation‟, Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, London: Routledge, pp.365-376

Venuti, Lawrence(1995)The Translator’s Invisibility: a history of translation, London: Routledge

Zhang, Shuyu(1999)“Brontë Research in China”, Brontë Society Transactions, 24/2:174-181

CRL(2003)