论文总字数：33341字

摘 要

《红高粱家族》作为莫言第一部译作到美国的就进入商业渠道的小说，其出色的代表性引起了国内外学者强烈兴趣，并纷纷进行研究。本文通过对比《红高粱家族》原著和英译本，找出英译本中如何处理具体乡土文化元素，并比较其优缺点，以研究乡土文化的翻译问题。

论文以归化、异化理论和目的论为基础，对《红高粱家族》的汉英语译本进行比较，探求乡土文化的翻译方法。

中西翻译史上都有关于翻译策略的选择问题长久争。为探讨这个人们争论不休的问题，作者将从“目的论”的角度来分析。论文认为，目的论有效的解释译者翻译乡土文化所采用的归化、异化的翻译策略，翻译策略的选择由翻译目的决定，受到各种因素的影响。

关键词：《红高粱家族》；乡土文化；归化；异化；目的论

Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Significance of the Study 1

1.2 Purpose of the Study 1

1.3 Research Questions 2

2. Literature Review 2

2.1 Brief Introduction to MoYan and Red Sorghum 2

2.2 Brief Introduction to Howard Goldblatt and Red Sorghum 3

2.3 Brief Review of Theoretical Framework of Culture Translation 5

2.4 Brief Introduction to Definition and Typology of Local Culture 6

2.5 Previous Studies on Translation of Local Culture 8

3. Translation of Local Culture in Red Sorghum 9

3.1Translation of Religious Culture 9

3.2 Translation of Political Culture 10

3.3 Translation of Address Terms 12

3.4 Summary 13

3.5 Discussion 13

4. Conclusion 14

4.1 Major Findings 14

4.2 Limitations and Further study 14

Works Cited 15

1. Introduction

1.1 Significance of the Study

Nowadays, more and more foreigners want to know more about China. China possesses an important status in the world. Foreigners have more chances to enjoy its landscape and culture because of Chinese policies of reform and opening. Chinese local culture plays a vital role in the Chinese cultural system. It is a significant task to recommend and introduce our traditional local culture to the foreigners and to the whole outside world. Consequently, translating Chinese local culture is very meaningful and valuable.

It is obvious that culture communication is becoming more and more frequent between the west and China. In the 21st century, this trend is highly speeded up due to the effect of Internet. Almost every aspect is communicated by different countries. The power of a nation can be composed of two aspects; one is hard power and another is soft power which is closely connected with culture. This thesis tries to make contributions to the circulation of Chinese local culture. At the same time, this thesis manages to make some efforts to the translation of Chinese local culture.

1.2 Purpose of the Study

The study approaches the problem of translation strategies from a new perspective—the Skopos theory, using a descriptive approach in order to conduct any fruitful discussions. It also makes a systematic investigation into the factors, which affect the translator’s adoption of domestication and foreignization in translation and on this basis to determine which strategy to be employed, which is determined by the skopos. Importantly, the thesis points out in this research that domestication and foreignization are considered to be significant and to be closely connected to each other rather than binary oppositions.

1.3 Research Questions

The paper tries to explore the translation of local culture in the following aspects:

1. What are different translation methods and strategies adopted in translating local culture in Red Sorghum?

2. What can possibly be the factors that impact the translator’s strategy?

2. Literature Review

2.1 Brief Introduction to MoYan and Red Sorghum

Mo Yan (莫言), (whose real name is Guan Moye), is an prominent novelist in China. He was born in Gao Mi Township ,Shan Dong province in 1955 .When he was a child, he went to school at his hometown but later left off his study due to Chinese Cultural Revolution, only to work in the rural area for many years. In 1976, he joined the People"s Liberation Army and became a member of the cultural affairs department. Since the middle of 1980s, a lot of literary works about rural areas developed, and their themes were about the complex emotions of love and hatred for his land. Thus he was categorized as one of the ‘root-seeking’ writers.

In 1986, Mo Yan issued his novella Hong Gao Liang Jia Zu, which caused a great response. As an author of many short stories, some short novels and several novellas, he has almost won each national literary prize in China. Mo Yan and his novel Red Sorghum have been greatly praised by the Western newspapers.

Mo Yan brilliantly and fondly recreates life with writing that reeks of gunpowder, blood and death. Jeffery Kinkley calles Mo Yan “a young, defiantly experimental writer, and his story takes a modernist track, interweaving past and present fragments of a main plot and subplots into a slightly mystifying yet cinematic and classically suspenseful grand narrative—cinematic because of his mesmerizing red symbolism: red sorghum, red blood, red sunsets, red bridal veils, red wine” (Kinkley,1994: 428)

2.2 Brief Introduction to Howard Goldblatt and Red Sorghum

2.2.1 Howard Goldblatt’s Translation Career

Howard Goldblatt, whose Chinese name is Ge Haowen, has been seen as “the most important translator of modern and contemporary Chinese literature in the west”(Shu Jinyu,2005:8) and “the most active and prospective translator to translate modern and contemporary Chinese literature into English”(Liu Zaifu, 1999: 135).

He was born in California in 1939. When he graduated from the college, he joined the army and as a communication officer ，he was dispatched to Taiwan ，which gave him an opportunity to learn Chinese language and culture. Once he admitted that he might be nothing now, if he didn’t have the chance to learn Chinese. After retiring from the army, he returned to America and continued making his research on Chinese literature at San Francisco University and Indiana University. He acquired the Doctor degree in the area of Contemporary Chinese Literature, under his supervisor’s help, Liu Wuji, a famous Chinese scholar.

Howard Goldblatt began to translate Chinese works from 1970s. Until now he has translated more than fifty works of modern writers in China mainland, Macow and Hong Kong. Howard Goldblatt’s translation career started from his research of Xiao Hong and the writers in the northeast China. Now, he works as an editor of Modern Chinese Literature. He is also the author of some critical books on modern and contemporary Chinese writing.

2.2.2 Howard Goldblatt’s Version of Red Sorghum

In the last ten years, the most influential one among Howard Goldblatt’s translated works is Red Sorghum. This English version is primarily published by Heinemann and Viking in 1993.To some extent, we can say the success of Red Sorghum paved the way for more and more Chinese literary works entering the world literature.

Red Sorghum is divided into five chapters, including red sorghum, sorghum wine, sorghum funeral, strange death and dog ways. Red Sorghum is told through several flashbacks that describe events of horrorible set against a beautiful landscape, which is a novel of family and myth through three generations, when the Chinese battle with Japanese invaders in the 1930s.

However, Red Sorghum inspired the Oscar-nominated film and won major literary awards, which is a fable in China. It is a book, where history and legend mix to produce unforgettable fiction. Thus, Mo Yan gains a place in world literature, and his writing will find its way into the reader’s heart. Therefore, it can be seen that Red Sorghum is really popular among the western readers.

Goldblatt’s translation of Mo Yan’s works has been commented by him with these words “My novel could have been translated by someone else and published in the United States, but the English version would never have been so beautifully translated, if not for him. Friends of mine who know both Chinese and English have told me that his translations are on a par with my originals. But I prefer to think they have made my novels better…” (Mo Yan, 2000: 473). These words show that Howard Goldblatt’s translation is a kind of creation making the original better understood by the foreign readers, and is not transformed from one language to another language mechnically.

2.2.3 Howard Goldblatt’s Thoughts on Translation

Howard Goldblatt has made a great contribution to the transmission of Chinese culture to the west. As a translator, he has conveyed his translation thoughts through “The Writing Life” (The Washington Post, 2002), where we conclude his thoughts on translation, they are: translation is betrayal, rewriting, cross-cultural communication, compromise of fidelity and creativity. From several interviews with him, we can also see Howard’s opinion about a translator’s responsibilities. For instance, when asked in an interview who he translated for, he answered, “I believe first of all that, like an editor, the translator’s primary obligation is to the reader, not the writer.” on literary translation conducted by Andrea Lingenfelter (2007). He also pointed that if a Chinese-English translator she doesn’t know Chinese well, it is not a real problem, but he or she should learn English well.

2.3 Brief Review of Theoretical Framework of Culture Translation

2.3.1 Foreignizing and Domesticating Strategies

Domestication and foreignization are regarded as two completely different translation strategies. We can understand these two terms by Venuti’s explanations. “Domestication, an ethonocentric reduction of the foreign text to target-language cultural values, brings the author back home; and foreignization, an ethnodeviant pressure on those values to register the linguistic and cultural difference of the foreign text, sending the reader abroad” (Venuti, 1995:20). More precisely, the former strategy employed is to maximize the target readers’ familiarity to the foreign text; however, the latter points that domesticating strategies “deliberately breaks target conventions by retaining something of the foreignness of the original.” (Shuttleworth and Cowie, 2001: 95)

Domestication mainly focuses on the language whereas foreignization mainly centers on the culture. It is possibly not proper to support one and reject the other. With regard to the purpose of cultural diffusion, if possible, we should adopt foreignization; if impossible, we turn to domestication.

2.3.2 Skopos Theory

Skopos theory was first published by Hans J. Vermeer. Nord (2001: 124) simplifies it as “the end justifies the means”. As the prominent rule for any translation, skopos rule designates the translation activity is determined by itself. It attempts to release the translation from the framework of the original. It is from the aspect of the target language that the aim is to explain the translational action. The skopos theory was explained by Vermeer as such, “each text is produced for a given purpose and should serve this purpose. There are also two subordinate rules in the skopos theory: fidelity rule and coherence rule” (as cited in Nord, 2001: 29). Vermeer (2000) points out that fidelity rule stresses the relationship between the source and target texts. Coherence rule means that the target text must be apprehensible to readers in target language culture. However, it is the purpose of the target texts and the translator’s understanding of the original texts determines the form and degree of the fidelity.

The English version of Hong Gao Liang Jia Zu is faithful to the source text. He transfers the emotion from the words into the target, such as Mo Yan’s strong love for his homeland, great respect to his ancestors and tremendous hatred towards the invaders. Mo Yan can not be so successful in the world literature without the English version. Even Mo Yan admits that Red Sorghum can be regarded a novel better than the source target. However, some changes still exist in the process of translation. Goldblatt once said in an interview “I love to read Chinese; I love to write in English. I love the challenge, the ambiguity, the uncertainly of the enterprise, I love the tension between creativity and fidelity, even the inevitable compromises.” (Zhang Yaoping, 2005: 75-77) We can see that his basic principle is fidelity；besides，some compromise has to be made sometimes.

Skopos theory is the prominent rule for all translation. The translator should be able to justify their choice of a special translation skopos in a translation situation. The skopos theory makes it clear that different translation methods and principles will be adopted in accordance with the purpose of translating (Nida, 1964).

Three skoposis for Howard Goldblatt to translate Red Sorghum can be found in these statements: first, to describe Mo Yan’s Hong Gao Liang Jia Zu in its true color; second, to present and transmist Chinese traditional culture to the West as well as to allow the target text readers to better understand the glorious and exquisite Chinese civilization. So in light of the skopos rule, the strategy found in the Goldblatt’s translation is possibly intertextual coherence. In other words, it means a maximally faithful simulation of the skopos theory.

2.4 Brief Introduction to Definition and Typology of Local Culture

2.4.1 The Definition of Local Culture

Local culture is a native culture. Fei Xiaotong thinks Chinese culture is native, looked from the base. What I called a native base of Chinese society is that there is a layer of relatively incomplete rural society from this base. (Fei Xiaotong, 1998: 7) If from the surface meaning to understand, “local” refers to a mode of agricultural production based on rural community, which is completely different from western society.

Local culture is a sum of material, spiritual and ecological civilization with a great of features of locality, which have been accumulated and fermented in a special area for a long time. It is an ideology, including historical relic, institution, customs, thoughts, language and so on. This paper, centering on address term, politics and religion, analyzes the strategy of translation of local culture in Red Sorghum.

2.4.2 The Typology of Local Culture

2.4.2.1 Address Terms

The address term is a word used to address somebody in speech or writing．The way in which people address one another usually depends on their age，sex, social group and personal relationship．Address terms play a quite important role in social contact．They could show a person’s social rank，power profession，kinship and distance (Du Xuezeng, 1996: 42).There are several groups of address terms in Red Sorghum, such as addressing by names, “刘罗汉” translated into “Arhat Liu”, “路喜” translated into “Road Joy”, addressing by kin terms, “嫂子”translated into “Sister-in-law ”，to name just a few.

2.4.2.2 Political Culture

Political culture is usually defined as the political attitude and belief in the educational circles, and it belongs to a subjective and psychological aspect. It is an American scholar, Gabriel Almond, who initiates the study of polotical culture. He believes the polotical culture is a set of polotical attitude, belief and emotion in a special period, which affects the behavior in this race. (Almond and Verba, 1963: 13) The polotical culture is the study which is subject to the polotical choice of citizens with a certain culture. It includes political knowledge, political emotion, political values, political ideals, political belief, political security, political efficacy and political skills. Just as in Red Sorghum, the translation strategy of Howard Goldblatt is influenced by the political culture in America.

2.4.2.3 Religious Culture

Religious culture is a special culture phenomenon in the development of human beings and it is a important part of traditional culture, which have an effect on the thoughts, consciousness and life habits. In general, religion concentrates on beliefs, and it is an element of social culture. Religion is an ideology, because it makes people believe that there is a supernatural power dominating the society, which makes people revere and worship to it. Essentially, religious culture is the mental labor with the form of religion, is the product of human history and culture, is a kind of sustenance of human feelings, aesthetic, idea and a special way to expression. (Mou Zhongjian, 2012: 33)

2.5 Previous Studies on Translation of Local Culture

Culture is a sum of religion, values, customs and behaviors that the persons use to deal in their society. Various aspects of the society and culture in certain times must be reflected well in literary works especially classic literary works, such as Red Sorghum. Therefore, in this book, the description of local culture, one of Chinese fundamental cultural identities, seems rather abundant and splendid. A variety of local types has been introduced such as religionary culture, political culture, and address terms and so on. Chen (2011) mentions Goldblatt’s translation strategy in translating “灭人香火” (mie ren xiang huo, bring an end to your glorious line), which is embodied with the meaning of taking glory to his ancestors from his posterity. This version shows that the translator follows the culture of the original text. Hu (2008) discusses how Goldblatt translated “小人” (xiao ren) into “your humble servant meant”. In the old times, “小人” refers to “I” when a man of lower social status speaking to his superiors. His translation may cause that western readers possibly think the social division is extremely drastic in China. She carries out a research of the translation of kinship system and units of measurement in the English version of Red Sorghum. She discusses the way to solve the local culture problem in translation. Xu (2013) makes a comparative study between the source text and the target text, takes the translation of local culture as the research material and adopts mensurable analysis to achieve a consequence of different translation methods which are used in Goldblatt’s translation. In a way Red Sorghum can be seen as a work of local culture, and reflects its cultural feature during the Anti-Japanese War.

3. Translation of Local Culture in Red Sorghum

By applying Skopos Theory into analyzing Red Sorghum translation methods, it will help us gain a picture of how translators be decided by his translation purpose and how a target text be affected by the decision of translators. In the following part, the paper will analyze translating strategies accordingly. It goes without saying that the translation of Red Sorghum involves domestication and foreignization. Now let us analyze them from the point view of Skopos Theory.

3.1Translation of Religious Culture

Example1

“奶奶在唢呐声中停住哭，像聆听天籁一般，听着这似乎从天国传来的音乐。”（莫言, 2003：34）

“Grandma stopped crying at the sound of the woodwind, as though commanded from on high.” (Howard Goldblatt，1993:48)

The source description is about Grandma’s feeling when she learned from the bearers that the man she would marry was a leper. When translating the original sentence, the translator omits “像聆听天籁一般” and translates “从天国” into “from on high”. According to Christianity, the music from the heaven should be pleasant. But the sounds made by the musicians are sad. In other words, in the original version, the comparison between sobbing sounds and the music from the heaven is unreasonable. In America, the book should be edited by publishers to remove anything that does not conform to the Christianity. Here the translator employs coherence rule to make the version acceptable to the reader’s situation. For this reason, Howard Goldblatt adopts domestication, because the skopos is to keep in line with the religious belief of the American readership.

Example 2

余司令说：“你好大的命！”（莫言,2003:8）

“The heaven have smiled on you,” Commander Yu said. (Howard Goldblatt, 1993:12)

The source is a common Chinese sentence with no relation to religion. When we say “你好大的命” in Chinese, we really mean that this man can get the fortune to avoid the disaster. Chinese people will not consider that it’s god who helps us out of trouble. Most Chinese people believe in atheism and a lot of Chinese are the members of Communist Party who believe in materialism and Marxism. However, most westerners believe in Christianity which plays an important role in their life. When they are in trouble, at first they will pray to the heaven to save them out of trouble. Once they have success in doing something or avoid the disaster, naturally they will owe the contribution to the god. Therefore, under the guidance of the skopos and coherence rules, it is not surprising that by adopting domestication Howard Goldblatt translates the Chinese sentence “你好大的命” into “The heaven have smiled on you” because of the aim of enabling readers to understand clearly.

3.2 Translation of Political Culture

The background of this story took place in period of Chinese history, when the revolutionary fought wit the Japanese invaders. At that time, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party were the two main political parties. The Nationalist Party was defeated and compelled to withdraw to Taiwan in 1949, but since Peoples’ Republic of China was set up, the Communist Party have started to govern the country. To deal with the political information, Goldblatt directly chooses to leave out the related words or substitute them with some other words.

Example1

“父亲对我说过，任副官八成是个共产党，除了共产党里，很难找到这样的纯种好汉”。（莫言,2003:46）

Father told me that Adjutant Ren was a rarity, a true hero. (Howard Goldblatt, 1993:62)

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