论文总字数：33029字

摘 要

文化是每个民族最深处的宝藏，尤以宗教文化最为瑰丽。了解一个民族最好的办法就是探究它的宗教文化，这样就免不了产生翻译活动。翻译是万千文化进行相互联结的桥梁，其重要性由此可见一斑。由于宗教文化的传播是各国进行的最早的翻译活动，这使得宗教文化早已渗透于世界的方方面面。众所周知，英汉翻译理论来源于宗教翻译，尤其是圣经翻译和佛经翻译。本文深刻剖析了中西方宗教文化的来源，传播以及发展，并研究了其对中西方宗教经典翻译的影响。由于存在中西方宗教文化的差异，翻译时会产生很多语言应用，语句处理不当的现象，为尽量多的避免此类现象，本文针对性地提出了相应的翻译策略，除了常用的直译和意译，还提出了增译、虚实互化、减译，并延伸了直译和意译语言层面的意义，介绍了归化和异化在翻译策略上的应用。

关键词：宗教; 文化；英汉翻译；翻译策略

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. The Origin and Transmission of Religious Cultures 2

3.1 The Definition of Religious Culture 2

3.2 The Origin of Religious Culture 3

3.3 The Spread of Religious Culture 5

4. The Impacts of Religious Culture on Translation 6

4.1 The Impacts of Western Religious Culture on Translation 7

4.2 The Impacts of Chinese Religious Culture on Translation 8

5. The Strategies to English-Chinese Translation 10

5.1 Literal Translation and Free Translation 10

5.2 Addition 11

5.3 Conversion 12

5.4 Omission 12

6. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 15

1. Introduction

Language, as an important part and carrier of culture using symbols to display the material form of it, is deeply influenced and constrained by culture. Translation is a comprehensive discipline which means information transmission between two civilizations in broad definition. Translation only changes the linguistic symbols rather than culture itself. The transformation of linguistic symbols should be subjected to that of similar cultural information, not only the symbolic approximation. Cultural conveyance is a major part and mission to translators. “Translation is the communication between two kinds of cultures. For a truly successful translation, it is more important to be familiar with two cultures than to master two languages, because words only make sense in their cultural context.” (Nida 2001: 10) All these prove that it is necessary to combine the two cultures when translating. Translating without cultural background, you will be impossible to achieve the real communication between two languages.

Culture is so complicated a system that great efforts have been made by the world to define the term. The definition of culture is the deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, actions, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and artifacts acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and striving (Larry A Samovar, Richard E. Porter and Lisa A. Stefani 2001: 25). After several-thousand years of historical and traditional precipitate, a culture has evolved into a synthetic complexity with very rich ethnic connotation, which prevents people from other cultures forging a complete fusion into it. Culture permeates into every aspects of the world.

Religion, as a special form of human culture, almost simultaneously emerged from and developed with human culture. Religion, as a part of culture, can be said having the deepest and widest impact on human and our society, which not only affects economy, politics, science, education, philosophy, literature and arts, but also deposits in the deep cultural and psychological structure of human to influence various thoughts of human beings for a long time.

This thesis will contribute to improving reader’s understandings of translated religious scriptures and putting their own views on translating. Meanwhile, those translating strategies will help reduce appearing stiff translating and avoid the phenomenon that more lane words which may mislead readers.

2. Literature Review

Many significant translation theories are originated from translating religious literary works. Faithful translation is an important translation principle. Faithful translation standard refers to translating in accordance with the real meaning of the original sentences or texts (Liu Hongwei 2010: 12). Religious culture is an ingredient of culture, and it is one of the most important factors to influence the process of translating. If one doesn’t understand the religious impacts, he will never perform a wonderful translation work. Christianity, Buddhism and Islam are the three major religions all belonging to the world religion (Yu Ke 2001: 2). Christian culture is deeply embedded in the western culture, while Buddhist is in the Chinese culture. Many Chinese famous scholars all have found the power of religious culture and the methods in translating.

3. The Origin and Transmission of Religious Cultures

3.1 The Definition of Religious Culture

Religion is a special cultural phenomenon appearing in the process of the evolution of human beings, which is an important part consisting of mankind’s traditional culture. Religion influences many aspects in our lives, such as thoughts, consciousness, and living customs and so on. Broadly speaking, region itself is a faith-centered culture. And at the same time, it is a component of the whole social culture. For thousands years, religious culture, as a part of our traditional cultures, plays an important role not only in the spiritual life of congregations but also in the spiritual and cultural life of the community.

Firstly, religion is a special social ideology. Religion is transmitted as a kind of spiritual thing, ideology and a part of superstructure. Religion is a product which is originated from the oppression both from nature and society. Religious consciousness is a vital factor to form and develop religion. Every religion has its own belief, which is a core point of religious consciousness. Secondly, religion is a kind of world view. Religion is a creation of the human mind. Thirdly, religion is also a real social force.

Religion is also transmitted as an organization, a specification and an activity. First, religion, thought and culture rely on each other. On the one hand, the emergence and development of religion rely on certain cultural background to some degree. On the other hand, religious doctrine and ideology have their own influences on the growth of kinds of styles of cultures in the world. Religion has become an important and necessary part of spirit and culture all around the world. It is one of the main carriers of human culture. Second, religion is contradicted with culture. One is between different religions, and the other is between religious and secular culture. In a word, religious culture infiltrates all aspects of our existing world.

3.2 The Origin of Religious Culture

Every culture has its own history, so does religious culture. There are many cultural differences between the west and the east, including the origin of religious culture. What is popular in the west is the Christianity, while Taoism and Buddhism play a dominant role in China. So researching the history of each culture is of great importance.

3.2.1 The Origin of Chinese Religious Culture

Humane and Shinto is complementary in the Chinese culture, but humanity and ration is dominant on the whole. Among the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the Xia Dynasty respected spirits and personnel than Shinto, the Shang Dynasty laid emphasis on the Shinto while neglected the humanity, while “cultural ritual” of the Zhou Dynasty was comprehensive and innovative, which integrated Humane and Shinto to a high degree. Since then, Confusions used morality and reason to remodel religious ritual and cultural of the Zhou Dynasty, integrating religious mourning rituals such as sacrifice and so on, making it serve for the humane, which brings a significant impetus in that era. On the one hand, the Han Dynasty reconstructed ancient national religion and made it further complement, providing the basis for divine kingship. On the other hand, from the era of the Han Dynasty, Confucianism was established as the official philosophy, which occupies a dominant position in the ideological and cultural fields in China. Then it dominated Chinese spiritual world for more than 2,000 years. When Confucianism gained the ascendancy, state religion never enjoyed the domination, even given the main ideas space to Confucianism, but it still stood side by side with Confucianism and cooperated with each other to jointly maintain the spiritual life of society. During the Han Dynasty, Buddhism from India spread into China. In the late Han Dynasty, Taoism produced here in China. The two, Buddhism and Taoism, through growth, became equal to the Confucianism sharing the utmost situation in the Chinese history. Confucianism as the backbone and Buddhist, the supplemented wing, became the most basic and stable cultural patterns before the early Qing Dynasty of China which was about 1600 years in the ancient Middle Ages. Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism are the three spiritual pillars of Chinese society, which comprehensively spread to all areas of social culture.

3.2.2 The Origin of Western Religious Culture

Western culture refers to European culture, which is derived from the combination of the ancient religious culture from Hebrew and people-centered culture from Greek rationalism, and later spread to the United States, Canada, and Australia. From the generation of Christianity, it is the crystallization of “two Greek civilization”. The Jewish and Greek philosophy, the new Stoic, and the neo-Platonism were the earliest to combine Jewish faith with the ancient Greek philosophy, which set the ideological foundation of Christianity. The integration of “Two Greek civilization” basically completed in the late Roman Empire. Augustine culminated godfather philosophy and made him a master, integrating the ancient Greek philosophy and Christian faith as one, which provided systems and models for the establishment of the entire Christian philosophy and affected all the development of the Western thoughts and culture after then. From the Middle Age to the Modern Time, antagonistic conflict between faith and reason, and inherent blending constitutes the main line of the development of the western culture. During thousand years of history in the medieval Europe, the Christian faith by means of political power of the Christian Church monopoly all the ideology and culture. In addition, the church performs as the leading power in the social life. Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment broke through the full control of Christianity in the thought and the society and redeveloped the spirit of human rationality. In the Modern Time, Western rationalist philosophy rapidly developed and science and rationality dominates in all fields. Christianity lost its dominance in Western societies, but its spirit is integrated into the modern Western culture as a kind of cultural background and basic force, and always maintains the Western spiritual world, and continues to giving profound impact on a wide range of social life.

3.3 The Spread of Religious Culture

3.3.1 The Spread of Chinese Religious Culture

Buddhism was introduced into China since the Han Dynasty, whose history has extended more than 2,000 years by now. It performs a profound impact on China’s traditional thought and culture. Buddhism, in different historical periods of Chinese society, possesses different characteristics, and these periods can be roughly divided into the following four parts:

The first period was Buddhism with Chinese characteristics. It was the time that Buddhism had been introduced to China. During this time, the main dissemination activity is still Buddhist Translation, especially Zen. Translating work at this stage laid the initial foundation for the future development of Buddhism in China.

The second period was Buddhism in the Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasty. With Buddhist Translation as a basis, there were a lot of Buddhist translators appearing in China and many Buddhism scriptures began to be translated. Besides, Chinese Buddhist monks began to create their own treatise. At that time, Buddhism flourished in China.

The third period was Buddhism in the Sui and Tang Dynasty. The Tang Dynasty was the heyday of Chinese Buddhism, and this period was extremely rich in the volume of translated Buddhism scriptures. With the political and economic development, strengthened trends of cultural exchange and the unprecedentedly prosperous development of Buddhism, it has created many new sects.

The fourth stage was Buddhism in the Ming and Qing Dynasty. This phase of Buddhism was gloom and doom. Although the rulers of the Northern Song Dynasty adopted Buddhism protection policy, new sects didn’t arise. Founding Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty just used Buddhism to help him consolidate the early regime he established. In the late Qing Dynasty, China also appeared a number of famous Buddhist researchers, but there was no innovation in the Buddhist theory.

3.3.2 The Spread of Western Religious Culture

There are three periods of Christianity.

The first period was the Early Christianity. The Roman Empire was the early stage of Christianity. This stage of the Christian laid emphasis on saving the grace of Jesus. Although the church suffered great persecution in the second and third century, the church still flourished during that time.

The second period was the Medieval Christianity. The medieval Christian culture was gradually formed during the integrated events by triple and cultural factors which included West Germanic culture, Christian culture and Greco-Roman culture. It provided the most important foundation for medieval culture, and constituted the core concept of medieval culture.

The third period was the Contemporary Western Christianity. Since the modern society, its diversified development of Western Christianity led to far-reaching impact. Christian thought has interdisciplinary characteristics and was closely linked with the social and cultural trends of contemporary Western context. As owning the largest number of believers in the world, Christianity has become the spiritual base of social groups in the Western world.

4. The Impacts of Religious Culture on Translation

There are numerous religions in the world, most of which beyond our knowledge. The religions committed by the international organizations are Christianity, Islam, Buddhist, and Taoism and so on. Because of the different religious beliefs between China and the west, such differences have also embedded in the languages. Religious cultures, to some extent, are the basis of the national cultures. Dozens of eminent literary works reflect both the religious cultural background and social issues.

4.1 The Impacts of Western Religious Culture on Translation

In the west, religion, which has become one of the main cultural characteristics, plays an important role in social life and ideological culture and permeates into all parts of life style, customs, civilization and art. Medieval theologies have almost dominated all the spiritual fields. It is beyond no doubt that religion enormously affects English. The formation of modern English is closely related to the religious reform and the Bible translation.

Bible translation ranks higher than any others in the western translation history. In light of the history, Bible translation can be regarded as the first source of western translation, and it is the original root to make western translation theory develop and become mature.

The cultures appeared in the English are mainly the Christian culture, as Christianity is one of the key religious and has a history of more than 2000 years. Throughout the formation and development of the western civilization, the Bible has made the invaluable contribution. During the popularity of the Bible, many English idioms are developed, as well as many figures and stories. For example, as old as Methuselah, as rich as a Jew, as wise as Solomon, in which Methuselah is Enoch’s son. It is said that in 969, ancient Jews became rich because of usury, then, Jew is the synonym of the rich. Solomon, who is known for his intelligence, was an ancient Israel emperor listed in the Bible.

This wonderful mythical legend, the Bible, is impressed in people’s hearts and spreads to all households. There are proverbs which can be found anywhere concerning the Bible or the Christian, like god, devil, heaven and cross etc..

For example: The devil can site Scripture for his purpose. 魔鬼引《圣经》，不会怀好意。

No coming to Heaven with dry eyes. 眼无泪水，难进天堂。

The way to Heaven is by Weeping Cross. 忏悔受难，得升天堂。

Better go to heaven in rags than to hell in embroidering. 与其锦衣裹身下地狱，不如衣衫褴褛上天堂。

The devil lurks (or sits) behind the cross. 魔鬼常常躲在十字架后面。

Crosses are ladders to heaven. 十字架是登上天堂的梯子。

Man proposes, God disposes. 谋事在人，成事在天。

With the depth and breadth of Sino-West communication expanding, there are few Chinese proverbs which are gradually related to the Christian. Most of such proverbs are directly translated from English ones. For example, the proverb recorded in the Old Testament,“ 以眼还眼，以牙还牙” (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth) and in the New Testament, “旧瓶装新酒” (put new wine in old bottle).

4.2 The Impacts of Chinese Religious Culture on Translation

China is a country with kinds of religions co-existence, and Buddhist and Taoism have possessed a long communication history, which can not be separated from Chinese culture. Therefore, many Buddhist scriptures become more and more popular and have been put into translation.

From the beginning of 2 century AD, China starts Buddhist translation for the spread of Buddhist has profound meanings to Chinese civilization. Buddhist translation is not only the translation of religious classics but also the philosophical theories as well as cultural translation. The Buddhist translation theories established from the development of Buddhist translation discuss translation form a view of literature, which has a close relationship with medieval Literature and Aesthetic Theory. In fact, developing until modern time, Chinese translation theory still adopts Chinese traditional Literary Aesthetics to express its theoretical opinions.

The Chinese proverbs are deeply affected by the Buddhist and Taoism ideas. For example:

借花献佛: present Buddha with borrowed flowers-borrow something to make a gift of it.

临时抱佛脚：seek the temporary remedy to tackle the present emergency.

跑了和尚跑不了庙: no excuse found to escape from punishment/ nowhere for one to hide from the penalty.

魔高一尺，道高一丈：the justice prevails over the vice/ the Taoism beats the devilish craft.

菩萨心肠：merciful/ kind heart.

修身养性：cultivate one’s morality and temperament.

蓬莱仙境：fairyland.

天宫瑶池：heavenly palace and fairy paradise.

以其人之道还治其人之身：deal with a man in a way he deals with you.

It is can be seen from the comparison between Chinese and English proverbs that English idioms have much to do with he Christian while Chinese ones with Buddhist and Taoism, which all reflect the different cultural and religious briefs between the two nations.

No matter the Chinese traditional translation theory or the western ancient arguments, all are bases on the practice of Buddhist translation or the Bible translation which provides impetus of theoretical ideas, evolution and development for the English-Chinese translation. Chinese Buddhist stresses the perception that pays close attention to intuitive experience rather than logical induction which means the internal transcendence. It believes that beauty is the internal transcendence, the experience of life and in the reality beyond the external. The western theology values God’s appeal and it believes that beauty which is an experience of transcendence and creativity is not in reality but in the other side of the world. As a result, Chinese translation theory has subtle expression, fuzzy and non-term oriented, and it is concise but no lack of insight. While western theory is typical of clear conception, large number of terms and strong reasonable logic. These main features along with different religious, social, historic and cultural backgrounds form translation theories in various levels.

The different religious beliefs and historic allusions melt with their own language expressions. Only to comprehensively understand the diversity of Eastern and Western culture and the cultural connotation embedded in the language can we avoid mistakes in translation in order to fully play a role in cultural exchanges. For instance, the Dream of Red Mansion is one of classic works in Chinese literature, full of Buddhism and Taoism ideas. Mr. Yang Xianyi made use of English proverbs to translate the word “god” into “heaven”, which reserved the original religious meanings. But Hawkes directly cited the English proverbs turning the Buddhism meanings to Christian ones, which may be more natural and accepted by foreign readers but transformed a person having a Buddhism belief into a Christian belief. Such translation can not be admitted by our own people.

5. The Strategies to English-Chinese Translation

During the process of translation, we often counter with cultural differences and conflicts. Sometimes, it is hard to find the proper expressions which have the corresponding significance of source culture and the same cultural information in the target language. Cultural conflicts in the English-Chinese translation can be reflected in the various aspects of cultural concepts. As “嫦娥“、“牛郎”、“织女”in Chinese and Jesus, Christ, Jupiter in English, such referent words all have their profound cultural backgrounds in their own language, but you can not find the reference with a same cultural connotation in the translation process.

Because of the differences between the source language culture and the target language one, symbols of source language and target language are almost impossible to correspond in referential meaning and pragmatic meaning with each other. The diversity of religious culture between China and the west has its own vocabulary and expression in their language. According to the religious cultural connotation in the source language, we can use those strategies to help translation as follows.

5.1 Literal Translation and Free Translation

When translating cultural contents, we use literal translation to directly translate the cultural meanings in the source language into the target language, which not only reserves the original culture but also makes it more easily to accept by the foreign readers.

“我只保佑明儿得一个咬舌的林姐夫，时时刻刻你可听‘爱’呀‘厄’的去。阿弥陀佛，那才现在我的眼里。“

“I just pray you that you will marry a husband who talks like me, so that you hear nothing but ‘love’ the whole day long. Amida Buddha! May I live to see that day!”

Free translation is a method often used by Yang Xianyi couple in translating the Dream of Red Mansion. This method displays the traditional religious culture in the source language and let foreign readers understand authentic Chinese culture. For example:

刘姥姥道：“阿弥陀佛，这全仗嫂子方便了。”

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