Abstract:
Zhang Guruo lists few systematic theories on translation; however, he has unique insight into translation. From four aspects his views will be illustrated in this paper: on faithfulness; on idiomaticness; on notes; on readers. On faithfulness, Zhang’s view is that “the content is like the matter and substance while the form like the words and expression. ” He has been in pursuit of idiomaticness for all his life. From the perspective of translation, he advances translating idiomatic originals into idiomatic Chinese. From the perspective of humanity, he advocates the translator must be a genuine person first in order to do the genuine translation. Notes are important parts of Zhang Guruo’s translation works. Notes should be done before …show more content…
Zhang’s translation theory. This opinion is first advanced by Zhang himself in the preface of the first edition of translated Tess. But what he uses the first time is daodi rather than didao. In Chinese word-book, meanings of daodi are listed as follows: (1) genuine, true, especially refers to products; (2) to be thoughtful or considerate of others…(Xia Zhengnong，2002：301, my translation) In this way, daodi describes matters on the one hand, and people on the other. But little by little, doadi is replaced by didao in Chinese and in the latter claims of Zhang’s, he also adopts didao. In 1980, he published an article named “idiomatic source language and idiomatic target language”, in which he mentioned two principle of translation: “Avoid mechanical word-for-word translation; idiomatic source language must be reproduced by idiomatic target language”. The meaning of idiomaticness (didao) also possesses at least two meanings: genuine or standard, i.e. in accordance with the particular nature or structure of a language, dialect, etc. Specifically, if the language is formal in the source text, so does in the target text; on the other hand, if the source language is dialectal, so should be the target language. The last two points in the above four aspects of equivalence are in fact inclined to this quality. In western world, idiomatic translation is also discussed. It refers to a translation strategy …show more content…
His views on notation are classified into several points as follows:
(i) Notes should be done before translation and be used to address those unsettled or puzzling problems. Annotation is not to copy simply from dictionaries. Of course, translation still can do without notes, but that should be free from a responsible translator. This point reflects Zhang’s rigorous scientific attitude toward notes, or in another word, toward translation. His great efforts on notation attract our attention to this problem.
(ii) Annotation is also research work. For those popular novels which vanish as soon as they appear, it may be unnecessary to give notes. But some books which are able to withstand the test of time and have been affirmed their own inbuilt values. If translation does well enough to be viewed as a classical work that is worthy of being studied by later scholars, notes in this kind of version become naturally research work. Zhang lists several examples to illustrate this point. We just take one from chapter 40 in Tess as an example. There is a dialogue between Miss Mercy Chant and Angle
Zhang Guruo lists few systematic theories on translation; however, he has unique insight into translation. From four aspects his views will be illustrated in this paper: on faithfulness; on idiomaticness; on notes; on readers. On faithfulness, Zhang’s view is that “the content is like the matter and substance while the form like the words and expression. ” He has been in pursuit of idiomaticness for all his life. From the perspective of translation, he advances translating idiomatic originals into idiomatic Chinese. From the perspective of humanity, he advocates the translator must be a genuine person first in order to do the genuine translation. Notes are important parts of Zhang Guruo’s translation works. Notes should be done before …show more content…
Zhang’s translation theory. This opinion is first advanced by Zhang himself in the preface of the first edition of translated Tess. But what he uses the first time is daodi rather than didao. In Chinese word-book, meanings of daodi are listed as follows: (1) genuine, true, especially refers to products; (2) to be thoughtful or considerate of others…(Xia Zhengnong，2002：301, my translation) In this way, daodi describes matters on the one hand, and people on the other. But little by little, doadi is replaced by didao in Chinese and in the latter claims of Zhang’s, he also adopts didao. In 1980, he published an article named “idiomatic source language and idiomatic target language”, in which he mentioned two principle of translation: “Avoid mechanical word-for-word translation; idiomatic source language must be reproduced by idiomatic target language”. The meaning of idiomaticness (didao) also possesses at least two meanings: genuine or standard, i.e. in accordance with the particular nature or structure of a language, dialect, etc. Specifically, if the language is formal in the source text, so does in the target text; on the other hand, if the source language is dialectal, so should be the target language. The last two points in the above four aspects of equivalence are in fact inclined to this quality. In western world, idiomatic translation is also discussed. It refers to a translation strategy …show more content…
His views on notation are classified into several points as follows:
(i) Notes should be done before translation and be used to address those unsettled or puzzling problems. Annotation is not to copy simply from dictionaries. Of course, translation still can do without notes, but that should be free from a responsible translator. This point reflects Zhang’s rigorous scientific attitude toward notes, or in another word, toward translation. His great efforts on notation attract our attention to this problem.
(ii) Annotation is also research work. For those popular novels which vanish as soon as they appear, it may be unnecessary to give notes. But some books which are able to withstand the test of time and have been affirmed their own inbuilt values. If translation does well enough to be viewed as a classical work that is worthy of being studied by later scholars, notes in this kind of version become naturally research work. Zhang lists several examples to illustrate this point. We just take one from chapter 40 in Tess as an example. There is a dialogue between Miss Mercy Chant and Angle