Thesis Submitted in Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts
June 1999
Abstract
‘信、达、雅’， a translation standard put forward by Yan Fu in the
19th century， has always been a practical rule to the translators.
In this standard， ‘信’ means ‘faithful (to the original)’. Obviously，
‘faithful’ is the most important among the three， and it is the first
responsibility to a translator. However， there are disparities between
one language and another – disparities in the lexicology， in the linguistic
structure or even in the tradition and culture. So ‘absolute faithfulness’
is impossible. And this article emphasizes on how to achieve the real
faithfulness in a possible sense – a faithful translation in good
formality with not only the original context， but also the original form
and style. To achieve such an effect we should do well in two aspects.
On the one hand， faithful to the original doesn’t mean to give an
equivalent correspondence to each word literally. While doing this we
should take these factors into consideration – idiomatic translation；
the false faithfulness resulted from obligatory categories； different
classifications in different cultures. On the other hand， faithful to
the original also requires the translator to bring to the readers the
feeling-tone of the original. In doing this we should pay enough
attention to the figures of speech as well as the sound effect. As
long as we observe these rules in translation， we will be able to bring
to the readers perfectly the same feeling as the original will give them.
Content
This thesis centers about the faithfulness in translation.
It comprises four major parts.
Part one introduces the importance of the faithfulness in translation.
Part two puts forward the difficulties concerning faithfulness
when we translate one language into another.
Part three explains at length how to achieve real faithfulness. This
part consists of two aspects.
On the one hand， faithful to the original doesn’t mean to give an
equivalent correspondence to each word literally.
On the other hand， faithful to the original also requires the
translator to bring to the readers the feeling-tone of the original.
Part four summaries the qualifications we should possess in the
respect of faithfulness.
‘There are translations and translations.’ The Chinese meaning is ‘有各式各样的
译本，有好也有坏’. It is a sentence that can’t be translated literally. Because
in English the word ‘translation’ has both its singular and plural forms， while
in Chinese no same case with ‘译本’. Translation has connections with a lot of
aspects， and a translator always has his own emphasis， so there are different kinds
of translations. ‘信、达、雅’， a translation standard which was put forward by Yan Fu
in the 19th century， has always been a practical rule to the translators. In this
standard， ‘信’ means ‘faithful (to the original)’. Since what a translator really
does is expressing other people’s idea in a different language， so the content of
his translation must strictly comply with that of the original. And it is very clear
that ‘faithful’ is the most important among the three， and it is the first
responsibility to a translator.
However， there are disparities between one language and another – disparities in
the lexicology， in the linguistic structure or even in the tradition and culture. And
to maintain that there is always an equivalent correspondence in one language that can
match the one in another is a naive thought. Take English and French for instance.
Although there is only one strait between them， although they have mutual influences
onto each other for about one thousand years， although English has loaned a lot of words
form French， the two peoples will at times meet difficulties in finding a equivalence
to the one in another language. The English have always said that in French there
isn’t an equivalence to the word ‘home’ or ‘gentleman’， while the French believe
that in English there isn’t an appropriate translation to the French expression
‘Rassemblement du Peuple Francais’ (the literal meaning is ‘法国人民大会党’).
Although English is the native language of both England and America， the same case
will at times happen to these two peoples. The American can’t find the British match
to their word ‘sissy’. And they always complain that the word ‘compromise’， a
derogatory term in their language， turns out to be a commendatory one in British
English. For hundreds of years， the American has invented a lot of new words， but
many of which don’t work in England. In 1922， the American writer Sinclair Lewis
wrote a novel named ‘Babbitt’， a book full of idiomatic local American language.
After ‘Babbitt’ arrived in England， the British added over 120 terms of annotations
for fear that their people can’t well understand the American English. But later on
the British found that there were a lot of mistakes in their annotations. So it is
not an exaggeration to say that even the British can not fully understand the American
English， and even the British English can not faithfully defined the American English
well enough.
Even the languages belong to the same family can not reach the entire faithfulness， not
to say the translations between two language families. Chinese， different from English，
is the language belonging to the Sino-Tipiden Family. ‘切磋’、‘疏通’ 、‘隔膜’ 、
‘砥砺’ 、‘不通’ are the words that can’t find an equivalence in English. Since
‘absolute faithfulness’ is impossible， we needn’t take pains to achieve it. And
what a translator should do is to try every means to achieve the real faithfulness in
a possible sense. That means a translation should be in good formality with the
original context， form and style. And the real faithfulness includes two aspects.
On the one hand， ‘faithful to the original’ doesn’t mean that a translator should
give an equivalence to each word literally. What a translator should be faithful to
is not the meaning of the odd words but that of the grammatical structure which is
made up by these words. Take a short letter for example. ‘昨奉大函，诵悉一是。尊稿极佳，
惟篇幅甚长，本志地位有限，故不克刊登，良用歉然。’ It is the letter written in ancient
Chinese and please compare these 2 translations.
Translation 1: I received your letter yesterday， and on reading noted all its contents.
Your article is very good. But it is very long， while this magazine has only limited
space， so that it cannot be published. Thus I have much cause to be sorry.
Translation 2: I received your letter yesterday. Your article is very good， but I am
sorry that owing to pressure of space， I find it too long to be published.
Obviously， on the surface， the first translation is more ‘faithful’ than the second
one， for it has translated out such expressions as ‘诵悉’、‘一是’、‘良用’， etc..
But it seems rather rigid and too formalistic. In the second translation， I think it
is wise not to give an correspondence to each word as ‘诵’ ‘悉’ ‘一’ ‘是’. For
since ‘I received your letter yesterday’， and ‘I’ didn’t just receive (奉) without
reading（诵）or read（诵）without noting its content（悉）， the sentence ‘I received
your letter yesterday’ itself has already contained the meaning of the grammatical
structure‘诵悉一是’.
To do well in this respect， we should pay enough attention to the following three points.
First， idiomatic translation.
Each language has its own idiomatic way of collocations， and in most cases it is
impossible to find an expression in one language that is entirely equivalent to the
one in another. For example， in Chinese we say ‘此路不通’， but you can’t take it
for granted that the English version is ‘This road doesn’t go through.’. Although
you have translated out all its meaning， the English version will not， at least not
remind the English of a signpost saying ‘No Thoroughfare.’ Or ‘Not a Thorough street.’
In Chinese there is a saying going like ‘招贴即撕’， and in English there is also a
saying ‘Post No Bills’. You must have heard of ‘rain cats and dogs’ in English.
Someone says that this expression is originated from a North European mythology， which
tells us that the heavy rain is caused by the mischief of cats and dogs. And someone
says it is a metaphor to the fighting between cats and dogs. However， there are no
such sayings in French， German， Russian or even Chinese. In Chinese， we say ‘大雨滂沱’.
For such a saying， although a literal translation can present a correct meaning， it is
not idiomatic and it does not comply with the original in function， so it is by no
means faithful.
Second， the false faithfulness resulted from obligatory categories.
Some translations seem to be quite faithful， while in fact they are not. The reason is
that each language has its own obligatory categories， which differ from language to
language. For instance， in English nouns have both their singular and plural form and
verbs have both their past and present tense， which it is not the same with nouns and
verbs in Chinese. Also in English， ‘cousin’ means ‘child of one’s uncle or aunt’，
so it does not make it clear that whether this ‘cousin’ is male or female， whether
he/she is elder or younger than the speaker， whether he/she has the consanguinity with
the speaker’s father or mother. However， in China， when we call somebody ‘堂兄’
‘堂妹’ ‘表姐’ ‘表弟’， we point out all these characteristics. Thus problems occur
in translation. But as long as such obligatory categories are not just as important， we
can make a brief translation. Take ‘早上好，表妹’ for example， a brief translation
‘Good morning， cousin.’ is enough. Otherwise we should say ‘Good morning， my
female-cousin-on-mother’s-or-paternal-aunt’s-side-younger-than-myself’. And in
Chinese as well as in Russian， ‘嫁’ and ‘娶’ is not the same thing， while in
English ‘marry’ means both. So the time we need to translate ‘嫁’ or ‘娶’ into
English， ‘marry’ is enough.
Besides， we should avoid a tendency – to translate a verb into a verb， an adjective
into an adjective， a noun phrase into a noun phrase， etc.. It is because different
language has different ways of expression. In Chinese， we say ‘真讨厌’ (an adjective
phrase)， while in English a noun phrase ‘What a nuisance’ is more often heard than
an adjective phrase ‘How annoying’. French people say ‘Quelle merveille!’ (a noun
phrase)， while the English say ‘How marvelous!’ rather than ‘What marvel!’. A
Chinese adjective phrase ‘真好玩’ should be translated into English as a noun phrase
‘What fun’， for the adjective phrase ‘How funny’ means ‘ridiculous’. Since the
root of ‘可人’ is ‘人’(person)， it may seem all right to translate it into English
as ‘personable’， while the appropriate version should be ‘lovable’.
Sometimes， not only should a translator avoid making a verb-to-verb or a noun-to-noun
translation， he should even avoid using the same hierarchical structure. Under such
circumstances， we should make a change to its language structure. Let’s think about how
to translate a very popular Chinese saying ‘好是好’ into English? Maybe someone will put
it like this ‘(As for being) good， (it) is good.’. Unfortunately， this English version is
too limited to the Chinese linguistic structure， so it can’t translate out the hidden
meaning successfully. Then how to translate out its original meaning? To make a change to
its Chinese linguistic structure is a good means. We can say ‘It’s good， but …’ And
still to this sentence， I think we can make a good use of intonation. So the best and the
most vivid translation should be ‘It’s good， but …’.
Third， different classifications in different cultures.
Different culture has different means to classify things， either in the nature of things
or in the fields of numerical expressions， weights and measure， etc.. In Chinese，
although the Pingying ‘ta’ has three written forms as ‘他’ 、‘她’and‘它’， they
pronounced the same； while in English， ‘he’、‘she’ and ‘it’ are totally different
either in the written form or in the pronunciation. So the Pingying ‘ta’ has the
different nature with either ‘he’， ‘she’ or ‘it’. Also， the Chinese character ‘桌’
means both the ‘table’ and ‘desk’ in English， and ‘虾’ means both ‘prawn’ and
‘lobster’. Even ‘车’does not only mean ‘vehicle’. So when translating， we should
choose a most appropriate match to these words. For instance， ‘青’ has a wide range
of meanings in Chinese. And the English version for ‘青衣’ should be ‘black dress’
while ‘青天’ be ‘blue sky’. However， sometimes it is impossible for us to do so.
In England， ‘teenager’ is directed to the young men at the age of between eleven
and nineteen； while in Chinese， there is not a corresponding word representing such an
age group. In US， they use ‘feet’ and ‘inches’ to measure human’s height， and they
use ‘pounds’ to measure human’s weight； while in China， the measurements we have are
the metric system as ‘meters’， ‘centimeters’， and ‘kilograms’. In British， they
have their weights and measures as ‘acre’， ‘fathenheit’， ‘pints’， ‘gallons’，
‘drams’， ‘stone’， ‘grains’， ‘ounces’， ‘miles’， ‘bushels’， ‘pence’， etc.
However， we don’t employ these systems of unit in China and we don’t have the
ready-made words at hand. And all these arise problems while we do translations.
Suppose we read from a book that ‘这个人身高五英尺六英寸’(‘This man is five feet six
inches tall.’)， we Chinese will can’t help wondering what exact the height he is. And
for the first time we learn that ‘它有16盎斯重’(‘It weights 16 ounces.)， in fact we
don’t know it really weights 28.35 grams. To solve these problems， the most popular
means the translators adopt is to add a footnote saying ‘5 feet 6 inches is equal to
1.68 meters.’， or ’16 ounces is equal to 28.5 grams.’. In most cases this adoption
will achieve the original faithfulness， but under certain circumstances such a footnote
will not work and we should employ a popular and idiomatic way of expression. For
example， the popular Chinese saying of ‘at sixes and sevens’ is ‘七零八落’ or
‘七颠八倒’. And the idiomatic English saying of ‘半斤八两’ is ‘tweedledum and
tweedledee’ or ‘much of a muchness’.
On the other hand， ‘faithful to the original’ means that a translator should not
only translate out all the original content， but also pass to the readers the
‘feeling-tone’ of the original lines. ‘feeling-tone’ which is originated from
the word ‘Gefuhlston’ in linguistics， simply means the meaning between the words.
Language is used not just to express one’s idea， what more important is， to convey
one’s feelings， or even to move the readers， to persuade the readers into thinking
what the author is thinking about. Poets are good at exert the influence of language，
to give readers a kind of hint， a kind of impulse. When we read the two lines ‘山重水
复疑无路，柳暗花明又一村’， we are influenced by the magic of language， and we can’t
help imagining as if， we ourselves were just on the scene.
To successfully convey the ‘feeling-tone’ of the original， a translator should pay
enough attention to the following two aspects.
First， figures of speech.
Words used in their original meanings are used literally， while words used in
extended meanings for the purpose of making comparisons or calling up pictures in the
reader’s mind are used figuratively. Only does a translator convey the extended meaning
to the readers can we say that he is faithful to the original. There are various kinds
of figures of speech – metonymy， metaphor， simile， personification， irony， alliteration，
etc.. But in translation， the most popular figures of speech a translator would come
across are metonymy and metaphor.
Metaphor is the use of a word which originally denotes one thing to refer to another
with a similar quality， and it is used to make the article more vivid. In the sentences
like ‘he is the soul of the team’， ‘irrigation is the life blood of agriculture’，
‘soul’ and ‘lifeblood’ are used metaphorically. Sometimes these metaphors can be
translated literally. For example: ‘He ran his administration as a one-man show， and
loved to exercise authority.’ Here， ‘one-man show’ can be translated literally as
‘独脚戏’. In the sentence ‘Arthur Krock reported that “he was the boss， the dynamo，
the work”.’， ‘the boss， the dynamo， the works’ can also be translated literally as
‘是老板，是发电机，是钟表的发条’. Sometimes， a metaphor in English corresponds to
another metaphor in Chinese. Take this sentence for example ‘Once she wondered whether
her outspokenness might be a liability to Franklin.’， here the metaphor ‘liability’
corresponds to the metaphor ‘包袱’ in Chinese. And we can see from the above that in
most cases we can find a rather faithful and vivid expression in Chinese to match the
one in English. But in certain cases， we have to speak clearly what the original
metaphor really means. For instance， ‘…discrediting the BEF became the official
line… Some of the dirt was bound to stick.’. For the latter part of the sentence， we
have no choice but to make it clear that ‘受过污蔑就洗也洗不掉’.
To the metonymy in English， we can add some Chinese to achieve its original sense，
but we can seldom reach its original brevity. For example， ‘No phrase was borrowed；
it was pure Roosevelt.’. The appropriate translation for the metonymy ‘pure Roosevelt’
is ‘纯粹是罗斯福的口吻’. The sentence ‘She … set what was conceded to be the finest
table in White House history.’ Can be translated as ‘她的食谱据说是白宫历史上最讲究的。’
. Let’s take a look at this sentence: ‘If Main Street didn’t understand this， Wall
Street did.’ In this sentence， ‘Main Street’ and ‘Wall Street’ also have their
context meaning. So the rather faithful translation should be ‘这一点，一般人不理解，
华尔街那些大老板们却是明白的。’ The same case with this one ‘The Army cost roughly a
quarter of one percent of today’s military juggernaut and looked it.’. Considering
its context meaning， a rather perfect translation ‘… 果然，一分钱一分货。’is adopted.
And we Chinese must be familiar with these lines ‘知否? 知否? 应是绿肥红瘦.’ In the
third line， ‘绿’ refers to the leaf while ‘红’ to the flower， so ‘肥’ and ‘瘦’
also has its context meaning. And the English version is ‘But don’t you know/Oh， don’t
you know/ The red should languish and green must grow?’ However， only does a translator
have a clear understanding of its original context meaning should he faithfully translate
out its extended meaning. Please have a look at this line ‘君不见，玉环飞燕皆尘土.’
We Chinese know that ‘玉环、飞燕’ were the beauty of beauties， but they were apt to
envy others. Here， ‘玉环飞燕’are the metonymy to all the beauties who are apt to envy.
So we can translate this line as ‘Have you not seen， all jealous beauties turn to dust?’
But if we take their body figures into consideration (YanYuhuan was plump while Zhao Feiyan
was slender)， we can write a more faithful and beautiful line ‘Have you not seen， both
plump and slender jealous beauties turn to dust?’
Second， sound effect.
In the respect of faithfulness， a very important but always been neglected factor is
the sound effect. Sound effect doesn’t only include the onomatope， the words in imitation
of the sounds associated with the thing concerned (such as ‘gurgle’ and ‘cuckoo’).
What more important is， we should pay due attention to the elements as phonology and
symmetry. To the poems， more attention should be paid to the meter， rhyme and rhythm.
Since there are various kinds of discrepancies in different languages， the translations
will inevitably be longer or shorter than the original. Sometimes a translator has to
reject or add something to retain its original style. Take the Chinese sentence ‘我的
心扑通扑通地跳.’ for example， the translation ‘My heart palpitates.’ has already
achieved its Chinese meaning， but the sentence ‘My heart goes thumpety thump.’ is
better in the style of sound effect. So the latter is a more faithful translation.
However， such an effect is more important in the idioms and proverbs. To the English
proverb ‘As ye sow， so shall ye reap.’， the Chinese version ‘种瓜得瓜，种豆得豆。’
is a good choice. To the Chinese saying ‘养兵千日用兵一时’， it may be all right to say
‘Armies are to be maintained for years but used on a single day.’. But it is better to
say ‘Armies are to be maintained in the course of long years but to be used in the
nick of time.’. For the expression ‘in the course of long years’ is more symmetrical
to the expression ‘in the nick of time’. Let’s have a look at the English saying
‘One boy is a boy， two boys half a boy， three boys no boys.’. The literal meaning of
this sentence is very clear， but how to make a translation reach its original meaning at
the same time not destroy its original sound effect? The Chinese saying ‘一个和尚挑水吃，
两个尚抢水吃，三个和尚没水吃。’ is a perfect choice in the respect of true faithfulness.
When translating a foreign prose or poem， a translator will always lay emphasis on its
original meaning while neglecting its original rhyme and rhythm. So in most cases a
translator should make some changes to maintain its balance， beauty and entity. Take
these lines for example:
In a Wonderland they lie，
Dreaming as they go by，
Dreaming as the summers die.
Please ponder the translation:
本来都是梦里游，
梦里开心梦里游，
梦里岁月梦里游。
In the original， the second and the third lines roughly possess the same meaning. In
the translation， although the translator has added something to the second line and
mingled its original order， these changes haven’t changed the original meaning at all.
On the contrary， these changes descend the ‘feeling-tone’ from the original and the
Chinese version does bring to the readers the spirit hidden in the original.
In conclusion， as long as we have a solid language foundation， as long as we grasp a
wide range of both Chinese and English vocabulary， as long as we have a broad knowledge
of different cultures and traditions of different countries， we will bring to the readers
perfectly the same feeling as the original will give them.
Bibliography:
漫谈翻译
翻译论集
神似与形似
Faithfulness In Translation[全文结束]
