学位论文-—英语专业(大众传播媒介)

1.Introduction

The development of new science and technology, especially the innovation of mass communication media, brings people of all nations closer. The appearance of the Internet and the extensive use of email shorten the distance between people. As M. McLuhan says, the whole earth is like a global village[1]. People begin to realize more their needs to communicate with each other. But the shortening of space cannot automatically reduce cultural and psychological distances. Differences in cultural orientation, social standard, and ways of thinking will undoubtedly cause misunderstanding and cultural shocks. It is inevitable that people of different ethnic group have to re-understand themselves. They have to re-examine their own cultures by comparison with other cultures in order to be more adaptable in their intercultural communication. Even though, some cultural factors, which rooted in the different countries and societies, affect the translating deeply. It makes that the source message unable to be translated into the target message completely. But if we find out some useful methods, we would like to transfer the untranslatability into translatability possibly.

2.Definition and Premise of the Cult ure’s Translatability

2.1The premise of the untranslatability

If we want to talk about the translatability, we should know the reasons that make troubles to translators. On the other hand, I want to talk about the untraslatability first. The premise of the untranslatability lies in the culture region and it is just a relative concept. As we know, culture is a product of human and it is developing with the development of human being. However, human being originated in different places and didn’t know there were other peoples living in other places. So human being living in different places creates their culture in different ways. Different languages will carry out the core soul of the culture, which belonged to different palaces. On the other hand, language is the carrier of culture [2].

The culture region is mainly expressed in the languages, which reflected the

difference of culture. There are many factors decide the languages’ difference.

2.1.1. Influence of Environment and Weather upon Language

The language is rooted in the natural and social environments deeply. Natural environments play a very important role in the formation of regional cultures or national cultures. It was obviously expressed in the ancient times when economies were not developed. The relationship of culture then reflects that natural envi ronments determine people’s ways of living, means of production and behavioral patterns or norms [3].

As is known, Britain is a country built up by many islands. Fish culture and seafaring are the mainstay industry in their traditional economy. However, Chinese are living in the main continent for thousands of years, and people cannot live without the soil. Due to the differences of the regional culture, there are many phrases about the sea and aquatics product in English. It is hard to find the exact equivalents in Chinese to those phrases, such as:

Rest on one’s oars（暂时歇一歇）

Keep one’s head above water（奋力图存）

All at sea（不知所措）

Have other fish to fly（另有其他要紧事要做）

Drink like a fish（牛饮，狂喝）

All is fish that comes to one’s net（捕到网里都是鱼）

Never offer to teach fish to swim.（千万不要班门弄斧）

Climate not only gives effect to the people’s living environment, but also to the way of human’s thinking and language. China lies in the East Hemisphere’s semitropical region. The main Climate is the continental Climate. So Chinese tend to take east wind, as it is the symbol of the spring. It will bring the hope and new life to the earth. However, the west wind is the symbol of winter and also brings the dreariness to the earth. So it is always used as the forces of coming down. If westerners do not understand the special meaning of the east and west wind, it is hard for them to understand Chairman Mao’s line “东风压倒西风”. However, Britain, which lies in the West Hemisphere and the North Temperate Zone, belonging to the oceanic Climate. So the west wind is the symbol of the spring. In

spring, the west wind brings much water to the soil. The West Wind Eulogy, which is written by the famous poet Byron, is just a sing to praise the spring. The similar example also exists in China’s summer culture. In China, the summer is always related to the torridity. “赤日炎炎似火烧”，“骄阳似火”are often used by describing the summer’s hot days. But the Britain’s summer is a cool and comfortable season. It brings the people’s imagination of loveliness, goodliness and blandness. So Shakespeare compared his lover to the summer:

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art lovelier and more te mperate.”

2.1.2 L ifestyle’s Difference

Different lifestyle was formed in different living environment, and the difference that exists in the lifestyle is represented in languages. For example, the different food of Eastern and Western brings great differences to the language. Britain lies in the North Temperate Zone, and their people’s main food is milk and bread, which often reflected in the various idiom and imagery. Such as: Half a loaf is better than none.（聊胜于无）

Earn one’s bread.（赚钱糊口）

Know which s ide one’s bread is buttered on.（明白自己的利益所在）

Take the bread out of somebody’s mo uth.（抢别人的饭碗）

Don’t quarrel with your bread and butter.（你可不要砸自己的饭碗）

Cry over spilt milk.（做无益的后悔）

Butter to butter is no relish.（千篇一律的东西令人生厌）

Fair words butter no problem.（花言巧语是不中用的）

However, the rice cultivation takes the dominion station in China. The traditional food is rice but bread. No matter what they eat for dinner everyday, Chinese named the action “dinning”. However, different names have been defined to the dinning based on the different times in Britain. In China, the words that extended from food are plenty. For instance,饭碗is equal to the job; 夹生饭is equal to the half-cooked rice; 鱼米之乡stands for the rich places; 生米做成熟饭is compared to the things which have been done; 巧妇难为无米之炊is similar to the problem which a capable person cannot deal with without the essential

ingredients, etc.

2.1.

3. Set Phrases Originated from Mythology, Legendary, Fables and Allusions

Such phrases could reflect the features of the traditional culture. Aesop's Fables, Greece mythology and Homer's epic poetry left a large number of idioms, such as: a Herculean task(艰巨的任务), Achilles’ heel(致命的弱点), Samson’s hair(致命点), a sward of Damocles(达莫克勒斯之剑), the Gordian (‘s) knot(难解之结), between Scylla and Charybdis(腹背受敌), sour grapes(酸葡萄), cry wolf(狼来了), Pandora’s box(潘多拉的盒子；灾难之源), the cat’s paw(猫爪子；被别人利用作为工具的人), etc.

The Greek culture affected the English culture very greatly, such as “Golden apple”（红颜祸水）. In the Trojan War, Greece holding spies in the Trojan horse （木马计）, caused the destruction of the Trojan. So it creates the Greece’s gift (能害人的礼品). The Trojan’s lesson is painful and the Greece’s gift is harmful. The western often say: “It’s Greece to me!”（我真是一窍不通）when they met something difficult to understand. I t may be also substituted by “It is all Chinese to me!” The Chinese words may be too difficult to be understood by the westerners in some way. However, the Chinese idiom is rich and colorful. Such as “牛郎织女”、“楚河汉界”、“守株待兔”、“请君入瓮”、“画龙点睛”、“愚公移山”、“杞人忧天”、“黄粱美梦”、“南柯一梦”、“叶公好龙”、“嫦娥奔月”，etc.

2.1.4. Man and God

The western people believe in God and the creation of the world. The Holy Bible has great effect to the whole western culture. So it is easy to understand why there are too many idioms originated from the Bible and the Christianity. Such as : to bow down in the house of Rimmon（向异教徒屈膝投降）, a covenant of salt （不可背弃的盟约）, grid up one’ s lions（准备行动）, Judas’ kiss（死亡之吻）, the last supper（最后的晚餐）, the forbidden fruit（禁果）, no coming to heaven with dry eyes（眼无泪水，难进天国）, the way to heaven is by the weeping cross （忏悔受难，得升天堂）, as poor as a church mouse(家徒四壁),bear one’s

cross(背负十字架). But Chinese have their ancient mythologies, such as: “夸父追日”、“洪水灭世”、“女娲补天”、“精卫填海”、“神农尝百草”、“大禹治水”。The Buddhism and the Taoism is also important consistent in the Chinese culture. Just like the Christianity, the stories bring uncountable idioms to Chinese, such as: “苦海无边，回头是岸”、“佛法无边”，“不看僧面，看佛面”、“阎王要你三更死，哪得留你到五更”、“八仙过海，各显神通”、“放下屠刀，立地成佛”、“灵丹妙药”，“点石成金”、“狗咬吕洞宾，不识好人心”,etc.

2.1.5. History

China has been a vast agricultural country for thousands of years. A.D. Lindsay, Master of Balliol at Oxford in the late forties, discussed in his lectures on democracy the difficulties of large size. As a matter of fact, it requires a Herculean effort just to hold such a country together. Disunity or fragmentation usually led to long years of war and destruction, bringing untold suffering to the people. So, the phrases that originated from the war have been used in every aspect of life. Such as: “知己知彼，百战不殆”、“围魏救赵”、“暗渡陈仓”、“进退维谷”、“背水一战”、“投笔从戎”、“投鞭断流”、“步步为营”、“坚壁清野”、“运筹帷幄”、“破釜沉舟”、“临阵磨枪”，etc. The idiom “to meet one’ s Waterloo” is originated from the Waterloo war of Napoleon, which has the similar meaning of “一败涂地”. In the Britain’s history, war also constantly happened. So the quality of idioms related to the war also big. Such as: mark time(踌躇不决), mask one’s batteries(掩盖敌意), stick to one’s guns(坚持立场), and have been in wars （在生活中吃过苦头）and the story of horse for a kingdom(一匹马换一个国王).

The popes and kings rule the Britain for a long time; the phrases that reflect the anger and hatred are plenty. Such as:

The king and the pope, the lion and the wolf (国王教皇，狮子豺狼).

Kings go mad, and the people suffer form it（军王发疯，百姓遭殃）.

Kings have a long hand.（勿与帝王争）

More royalist than the king.（比极端分子更极端）

Pope’ s nose（煮熟的鸡屁股）.

The pleasures of the mighty are the tears of the poor.（富豪纵欲，穷人流泪）The king sends his carriage.（囚车来了）

And the proverb “kings and bears often worry their keepers” is similar to the “伴君如伴虎”. The Chinese have been tyrannized by the landlord for thousands of years, and exploited by the malfeasant and dealers. So lots of phrases were produced to reflect the society, such as:“苛政猛于虎”、“富家一席酒，穷人半年粮”、“朱门酒肉臭，路有冻死骨”、“黑漆衙门朝南开，有理无钱莫进来”、“为富不仁”、“无官不贪”、“只许州官放火，不许百姓点灯”、“官官相护”。

Almost invariably, great emperors in Chinese history were those who maintained or restored-the unity of the country and strengthened central authority at the expense of regional separatism. To rule over a country of far-flung territories a good part of which are difficult of access, one has to stress discipline and authority.

2.2The Premise and the Condition of the Translatability

2.2.1Definition of the Translatability

Translatability is mostly understood as the capacity for some kind of meaning to be transferred from one language to another without undergoing radical change. Debates ensure when one tries to specify what kind of ‘meaning’ is involved. Few theories claim that all meanings are always translatable. Translatability, inevitably coupled with untranslatibility, is an operative concept in the sense that it actively helps structure an entire field of decisions and principles. It can open up ways of solving practical problems and can offer new approaches for the discussion of more theoretical and fundamental issues. The question of translatability is also sometimes used to illustrate general methodological concepts. Any agreement over what is or is not translatable, and exactly what criteria constitute translatability, will thus crucially depend on the different sectors of practice and research involved: the question of translatability may focus on the source or the target of translation; it may refer to the translation of literary, cultural, referential or pragmatic texts, or to the translation of entire life words and cultures [5].

2.2.2. Culture Vs. the Super Culture Region

Human have common basic need, lifestyle and emotions. Therefore, the same culture could be created in different places at the same time. Such culture cannot be called as the regionally culture in a specially place, but the common culture in every place or the human culture. People living in different places all need to eat as well as to wear clothes. They all need safe place to defend the bad weather, such like wind, rain, snow, and hail or other dangers. As an individual, they all need respect and love from others. The Theory of Human Motivation, which was written by the American psychologist Maslow, cited five levels of needs, may be adapt to all people. The different crowds need to perfect themselves through reconstructing the external world. Thereby, the crowds do different levels of jobs and invent tools. No matter what their skin’s color and race are, they all have emotions and have their effective ways. Almost everyone in the world is likely to express their happiness, sadness and angry by laugh, tear and glower individually. Such community or human culture ought to reflect in the language, and make a great number of equivalents or the similar phrases in the different languages, which make it possible to communicate between different cultures and different languages. A language could re-expressing the content and mind that have been expressed by another language. The Bible exhort people “Do as you would be done by”, and Confucius edify people “己所不欲，勿施于人”. The phrases have the similar meaning expressing it in different ways. The Greek philosopher Herakleitos firstly brought forward the philosophic concept “Logos”, and indicated it is the law that abided by the world commonly and last forever. Jus t at the same time, “laozi”, the founder of the Taoism brought forward the philosophic concept “Tao” and indicated that “道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物”. He tried to describe the development of the world used “Tao”. The two concepts have the similar meaning.

[6]. It is surprising that everyone. Even through the two dependable philosophic systems didn’t have any exchange ever before, there are numbers of equivalence and the similar ingredient between two languages. “自食其果”、“趁热打铁”、“祸不单行”are the words that have the similar m eaning to “eat one’s fruit of one’s own doings, strike while the iron is hot, misfortunes never come singly”; “空中楼阁”、“乱七八糟”“添油加醋”is similar to “ castle in the air, at sixes and sevens, and add spice to”; “一箭双雕”、“画蛇添足”、“无风不起浪”is similar to “kill

two bird wi th one stone, paint the lily, and there is no smoke without fire”. There are many phrases like such examples. The community and the human culture are also reflected in the lingual structure. Thousands of languages in the world have the same structure, which are the structure of subject and predicate and the structure of the verb and object. The commonly lingual logic is the basically condition for translating between different language. Jin Di and Nida indicated, “There is great community existing in the di fferent language and culture, which makes it possible to exchange thoughts and ideas. [7]” So we can conclude that the existing of the community and human culture is the premise of the translatability of culture.

2.2.

3.The Quality of Super Culture Region

The culture came into being and developed in some places firstly and then accepted and absorbed by other regional culture through spreading. Therefore, such cultures, which have been accepted, become the super regional culture even to be the human culture. With the fast developing of traffic and communicational technology, the intercultural communication intensify and the people’ outlook bright constantly. The range of amalgamation of the regional culture is broadening day by day. The cultural differences become smaller and smaller, which makes it possible to translate the different culture. More and more people have realized that the moon in the west countries is no rounder than China’s moon. People could make gorgeous human culture only when the different culture could absorb the advantage from each other’s culture and correct their weakness. The super culture region reflected in the languages and the languages absorbing from each other even to achieve assimilation. “Have you eaten?” have been substituted by “hello” in China as the greeting sentences today. A lot of people don’t say “where, where” but “thank you” when they got other’s compliment. Young people like to say “see you” when they say goodbye to each other but “walk slowly” any more. “Fell guy”, “be ar med to the teeth” and other western words have been widely used in our life and cannot make misunderstanding today. It also exerts a subtle influence on people’s thinking way, value and aesthetic. The assimilation of the different culture and language making the obstacles which exist in intercultural communication become

smaller and smaller and make it easier to communicate. Therefore formerly untranslatabilty can be transferred and the hard nut can be solved easily. “Democracy” and “science” is hard to tra nslate at the beginning of 20th century, and just be called “德先生” and “赛先生” by people at that time. But even children have known the “民主” and “科学” in China now. “Salad”, “disco” and “Cupid” can understand by transliterating and adding notes at the old time. But “色拉”, “迪斯科” and “丘比特” have been well known toward people without adding notes no longer. In conclusion, the second aspect of the super original quality of culture is the culture’s assimilation caused by the broadcast and communication of culture. It is also the external condition for the untranslabality transfer to translatability.

2.3.The Requirements of the Translator.

The conditions that we just have mentioned make the untranslatability transfer into the translatability is just external and impersonal condition. We have to attach importance to the inherent and internal condition, which is intrinsic factor. The crucial factor is whether the translator could grasp the principles of translating toward the cultural difference creatively. The translatability of the culture includes three level meanings: Firstly, translator is able to understand the cultural information of the original; secondly, translator could re-express their understanding of the cultural information, which is contained in the original, by the target language; thirdly, the aim reader could accept the cultural information that the translator have expressed. “Understandable”, “expressible” and “acceptable” are relative and restrict with each other’s and construct the balance that the translator played between the relations of writer and reader [8]. In order to reach this aim, the translator should grasp three things: Firstly, translator should grasp the culture difference through observing and comparing. Secondly, the translator also needed to master the culture region and the super culture region. “Translator should do as a really culture man. Individual words are what they have to deal with but culture differences are what they encountered. ” Wang Zuoliang said [9]. It is also the reason that we should study the ancient Chinese culture now. Secondly, translator should master the writer’s created aim, train of thought and what he

really wants to transfer by studying the writer’s life, works, mentality and the background. As a culture man firstly, the translator has their culture traits or the pre-structure in his sub consciousness. The translator is also based on the limited experience and knowledge when they are transacting, which could cause misunderstanding and limitation. This point is also decided the relativity of the translatability. Thirdly, translator should grasp the degree that the reader accepting their way of re-expressing the source culture. It has much more operational meaning for translation. Yang Xiaorong indicated that “Acce ptability has much more important meaning because it is related to the translatability which is the important problem in translations closely. Plenty of things that seemed untranslatable are the things that unaccepted by readers at a time” [10]. “纸老虎” was translated into “paper tiger” have been accepted by English readers and even gathered into the English vocabulary but not affected by political reasons. However, the translation of “龙”, which was translated into dragon, haven’t been accepted by lots of English readers. Because the culture connotation of the two words is too difficult to be accepted by them even to cause their repellent minds. The reader’s acceptability is dynamic. It developed with the developing of the culture broadcasting and the degree of culture communication. “Crocodile tears” can be translated into “假慈悲” or “猫哭耗子” using the method of free translation. It may be surprising if we translate it into “鳄鱼的眼泪”. But we have accepted it as a vivid imagination today. As an intercultural action, translation is also accelerated the transferring of untranslability into translatability.

2.4.Translating Criterion and Cultural Equivalence

The very notion of translation assumes the existence of some language-neutral concept, which can be communicated to some degree in both the source and the target languages. This basic assumption, however, has been challenged more than once in linguistic and philosophical grounds. The philosopher Quine, for example, claimed that translation is possible only to the extent that there is identity across the linguistic systems of the source and target languages [11].

The main argument of scholars who question the possibility of translation has been that language and culture are intrinsically connected and thus cultural

diversity makes translation impossible. If language is considered as the product of a particular society, which inextricably links language and thought, then the re-expression of thought in another language is at best an interpretation, but not a translation. Nida and Taber, who discussed the notion of “dynamic equivalence” in biblical translation, maintain that while translation must aim at to the source text “the response of receptors to the target text can never be identical to the response of receptors to the source text for the cultural and historic setting are too different [12].

The language we speak determines our ways of thinking and conceptualizing. In its strongest form, this linguistic determinism would suggest that we are, in fact prisoners, of the language we speak and incapable of conceptualizing in categories other than those of our native language. However, the very fact that people are capable of learning a second language to a higher degree of competence and fluency considerably weakens the hypothesis. And translators are in fact, successful in relaying meaning form one language into another.

Sager makes the important point that “all the arguments for and against the possibility can be reduced to a question of the scope of the definition of the concept of translation [13]. Sager points to a resolution of the dilemma: he denies the possibility of an abstract ideal translation, and refers instead to translatability as relative concept: translation may be optimal for particular user groups, for particular concept: for particular purposes, and for particular historical situations. If translatability is recognized as relative concept, it is now possible to speak of degrees of translatability as defined by existence of units of equivalence between the source and target languages at different levels of analysis. In the translation example, we see that indeed it is very often the ease that while complete translatability does not exist at “equivalence” may nevertheless exist at a “higher” level of linguistic and semantic analysis.

3.Conclusion

Judging from the above examples in the perspective of Chinese-Western comparative culture, we could infer that classical culture is both translatable and untranslatable at different levels. The binary opposition between the translatability

and untranslatability of culture is thus deconstructed. On the level of word, sentence, passage and even text and to the extent of content and basic meaning, the ethnic culture is translatable. Yet since classic Chinese poetry in particular is characterized by polysemy, symbolism, frequent use of artistic images, anecdotes and allusion (which are often rather subtle and ambiguous even to Chinese readers without the prerequisite knowledge of history and poetic cultivation), it is untranslatable: the translated version is bound to lose something, especially its beauty in form and in sound when it is translated into English [14]. In other ways, absolute equivalents can never be reached although relative equivalents can be achieved at different levels depending on the cultural capacity, aesthetic attainment and skills of the translator. Exclusively translator can never deal with culture-related problems since their main responsibility is to operational issues, but they can, at least, call attention to their factor[15]. We can only approach such equivalence but it will never be complete. Perhaps that is due to the huge difference in culture and convention between China and the West. In this respect, the present article is just an attempt to narrow the cultural gap and approach the truth.

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