摘 要

《简·爱》作为英国著名女作家夏洛蒂·勃朗特的代表性巨著, 自19世纪问世以来，就因其曲折动人的故事情节、优美流畅的文字语言及极富美感的环境氛围等一系列特性吸引了一代代的读者，成为英国文学史上的经典巨著。不仅如此，这本书也是各国学者们以及翻译家们的宠儿,被译成了多国语言。从国内来看, 《简·爱》也有多个译本, 其中，市面上流传最多的就是祝庆英翻译的《简·爱》 (上海译文出版社, 以下简称祝译本) 和黄源深翻译的《简·爱》 (译林出版社, 以下简称黄译本) 两个译本。

由于汉语和英语分属不同语系, 很多情况下, 一个英文单词在汉语中可以翻译成多个同义词, 而在汉语中, 即使是同义词，也存在着一定的差异。因此，本文将主要通过对比祝译本与黄译本在选词上的差异，并简要分析产生这种选词上的差异的主要原因。通过对比研究，作者发现，不同的译者由于所处的时代背景不同以及译者主体性的不同，导致译者在选词方面存在着差异，而这种选词方面的差异又会对源文本在人物塑造、环境氛围营造以及故事情节的设置产生影响。

关键词：《简爱》中译本；选词差异；对比研究

Abstract

Jane Eyre is the most representative work of Charlotte Bronte, a famous British female writer in the 19th century. This book has conquered generations of readers and became a classic masterpiece in the history of the times by virtue of its circuitous and moving plot, elegant and fluent language and unique atmosphere rich in poetry and painting. Since the publication of Jane Eyre, it has been favored by scholars and translators all over the world and translated into many languages. In China, there are many versions of Jane Eyre. Among them, Zhu Qingying's translation of Jane Eyre (by Shanghai Translation Press, hereinafter referred to as Zhu's version) and Huang Yuanshen's translation of Jane Eyre (by Yilin Press, hereinafter referred to as Huang's version) are most outstanding.

Because Chinese and English are two different languages, in many cases, an English word can be translated into multiple synonyms in Chinese. However, in Chinese, even the words with identical meanings are different. This paper will compare the differences between Zhu’s version and Huang’s version, and analyse the main factors for the differences. Through the comparative study, the author finds that due to the different social background and the different subjectivity of translators, different translators have differences in word selection. And the difference in word selection will have an impact on the source text in characterization, environment atmosphere building and plot setting.

Key words: Chinese versions Jane Eyre; word selection in translation; comparative study

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Research Background 1

1.2 Research Purpose and Significance 1

1.3 Research procedure 2

1.4 Layout of the Paper 2

2. Literature Review 3

2.1 On Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre 3

2.2 On the Two Translators of Jane Eyre 4

2.3 A Review of Related Literature in China 4

3. A Comparative Study of Translators' Choice of Words in Translating Jane Eyre 6

3.1 Differences in Characterization 6

3.2 Differences in the Construction of Environmental Atmosphere 8

3.3 Differences in the Plots 10

4. Analysis of the Causes of Differences in Translators’ Choice of Words 11

4.1 Different Social Background 11

4.2 Translator's Subjectivity 12

4. Conclusion 13

4.1 Findings 13

4.2 Limitations 13

References 14

A Comparative Study of Translators' Choice of Words in Two Chinese Versions of Jane Eyre

1 Introduction

Research Background

With the development of globalization, the cultural exchanges between countries are also developing. However, cultural communication is inseparable from the transformation of language, which is what we call translation. Translation, in essence, is a social and psychological activity with practical functions. Translation is also influenced by the translator's subjectivity and sociality.^[1] Different translators have different functions of translation.

Jane Eyre, as a popular novel, has been loved by many people since its publication. Since Jane Eyre was first introduced to the Chinese people in 1917, she has been accepted by the public. Over the past 100 years, Jane Eyre has been a favorite of many translators and has been translated into many languages.

Research Purpose and Significance

With the communication between Chinese culture and other cultures is getting closer and closer, the function of translation between different languages is getting more and more important. However, due to the different subjectivity and social background of translators, different translators have great differences in word selection. Therefore, this paper will take two Chinese versions of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte as examples to analyze the differences in word selection between different translators, in order to find a more suitable translation method and direction for Chinese readers and provide some help for the future classic translation work.

Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Bronte, has been widely regarded as Charlotte Bronte's "poetic life portrait" since it was published in 1847. At the same time, Jane Eyre is also one of the most popular English novels. Almost a hundred years later, the work was spread to China. Since the publication of Jane Eyre's first translation in 1935, there have been more than 40 translation works about Jane Eyre. Among them, Huang Yuanshen's version and Zhu Qing's English version are the most popular.

In recent years, there have been a lot of researches on Huang Yuanshen's translation and Zhu Qing's English translation, as well as comparative studies on them. However, most of the studies focus on the comparison of the style and language context of the two versions, and there are relatively few studies on the word selection of the two versions. Therefore, it is of great value to study the translation of Jane Eyre in terms of word selection.

Research procedure

In the research process, it is divided into the following steps.

The first step is to determine the research object. The research object is Jane Eyre and its two Chinese translations.

The second step is to select the texts by determining which two translations to be used in research. Since the two most common versions on the market are Zhu qingying’s version and Huang yuanshen’s version, these two versions are selected as the research objects.