论文总字数：39204字

摘 要

文化专有项是文学翻译中的一大难题。文化有时会造成翻译中的“词不达意”，甚至是曲解。有鉴于此，不少学者提出过针对文化专有项的可行翻译方法。本文将借鉴Nida、Newmark、Franco Aixelá及Nord等学者的研究成果，对赵文伟《A.B.C.谋杀案》译本中文化专有项的译法进行分类分析。

《A.B.C.谋杀案》是阿加莎侦探小说的代表作品，包含丰富的文化特色。本文探讨了赵译本中文化专有项的中译方法，认为译者在翻译过程中主要考虑了两个重要因素——读者个人背景和读者期待。

关键词：《A.B.C.谋杀案》；赵文伟译本；文化专有项；翻译方法

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements i

Abstract ii

摘要 iii

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Agatha Christie and The A.B.C. Murders 1

1.2 Research objective and research questions 3

Chapter Two Literature Review 6

2.1Culture-Specific Items 6

2.2 Reader-oriented approach to translation 9

Chapter Three Classification and Translation Approaches to Culture-Specific Items in The A.B.C. Murders 11

3.1 Culture-Specific Items in The A.B.C. Murders 11

3.2 Analysis of translation examples 12

3.2.1 Retention 12

3.2.2 Substitution 14

3.2.3 Explanation 16

Chapter Four Conclusion 18

References 19

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Agatha Christie and The A.B.C. Murders

Agatha Christie, famous as “Queen of Crime”, gave birth to 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections during her lifetime. Thanks to her elaborate details and appealing plots, her works has sold around two billion copies, which ranks third in sales volume of the world’s best sellers. With 103 language translation versions, she also makes herself one of the most-translated individual author all time. She successfully featured a plain but perspicacious detective Hercule Poirot, who makes frequent appearances in her novels and short stories.

Though not as famous as Sherlock Holmes, a genius detective created by Conan Doyle, Mr Poirot also wins a large group of readers and sparks heated discussion on Christie’s works, both negative and positive. Critic Raymond Chandler once threw negative comments on Christie’s works in his essay “The Simple Art of Murder”. However, millions of people who read Christie’s detective novels still agree that she does great contribution to this field for her perfect utilization of logic and literariness. The Times Literary Supplement of 11 January 1936 concluded that, "If Mrs. Christie ever deserts fiction for crime, she will be very dangerous: no one but Poirot will catch her."

Agatha’s works enjoys high popularity among readers not only in English-speaking countries, but also in countries with different languages and cultures. Since 1980s, Christie’s detective novels and short stories have experienced three main translation and publication primes in China. Her works was first introduced to Chinese readers by Yuanjing Press, Taiwan, and received positive comments though the translation works did not fully meet the literary taste and habit of mainland readers. The second versions, published by Guizhou People’s Press in 1998, also raised heated collections. In 2013, New Star Press republished Christie’s works, which makes more and more people know “Queen of Crime” and her works.

The A.B.C. Murders is one of her Poirot series. This book features Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings and Chief Inspector Japp. Adopting the narrative approach, which combines first and third person narrative, The A.B.C. Murders shifts its narrative perspectives to push the plots. The novel was well received in the United Kingdom and America when it was first published. One critic said it was "a baffler of the first water," and another reviewer said it was "A classic, still fresh story, beautifully worked out."

The investigation of serious crimes is mostly recorded by Arthur Hastings, Poirot's old friend. Poirot receives typed letters signed by A.B.C., in each of which is given the date and location of the next murder. The murders carry out alphabetically: Alice Ascher, a tobacco shop owner, is killed in her shop in Andover; Betty Barnard, a beautiful waitress, is strangled to death in Bexhill; Carmichael Clarke, a wealthy man, is hit near his house in Churston. Each time after A.B.C. kills someone, he leaves an A.B.C. railway guide beside each victim.

After meeting with Lady Clarke, the third victim's widow, Poirot realizes one generality for each of the three murders: a man who sold silk stockings appeared the days of the murder. He sold a pair to Mrs. Barnard and to Mrs. Ascher, while being sent away from the Clarke home. A.B.C. sends his next letter, which directs everybody to Doncaster. As the St. Leger horse race will be held that day, Poirot wishes to seek him out on the course of the race. But instead, A.B.C. strikes in a cinema hall, which killed George Earlsfield, instead of Roger Emmanuel Downes, an intended victim sitting only two seats away. However, Cust, whom neither the Legion nor Poirot knows about, unnoticeably slips out of the cinema hall, after suffering an unconsciousness. Cust, who doesn’t know what happened, finds the weapon of the murder in his pocket and also blood on his sleeve, and realizes the implications.

Tom Hartigan cautions Crome, while Lily cautions Cust. He tries to flee, however walks into the Andover police station unconsciously. When being taken into custody, he believes he is definitely to be guilty. The police search his rooms and find lists of clients, silk stockings, the complete paper of A.B.C.'s letters to Poirot, an unopened box of A.B.C. railway guides, and the bloody knife used in the last murder in the hall. The police find out that Cust was never employed by the stocking company and the letters were typed on the typewriter, which he claims was given to him by the firm. Poirot then meets Cust, but doubts whether he is guilty after hearing Cust's full story; Cust has a firm alibi for the Bexhill murder, and doesn’t remember any murder. Poirot calls a Legion meeting. He then proves that Cust is not the murderer categorically. In the early stage, when discussing the Churston letter, Hastings remarks that the letter was meant to go astray. Poirot realises this simple solution is correct. The murderer wants no probability of the police finding that murder. Poirot discloses that A.B.C. is Franklin Clarke actually. The cases are finally solved.

In The A.B.C. Murders, Agatha Christie elaborates plots and hides the truth behind these fantastic series killings. She leaves readers enough thinking room and surprises them in the ending. This novel also includes many culture background which deserves researching.

1.2 Research objective and research questions

China witnesses three high tides of translation through its history. First is the translation of Buddhist classics from Han Dynasty to Song Dynasty, lasting for about one thousand years. The second tide is the translation of western science from late Ming Dynasty to early Qing Dynasty. The third tide is mainly the translation of western philosophy and literature in the last century, during which fiction occupies the largest part (Yu 2004). Among all fiction works, the translation of detective fiction has been studied by a lot of scholars at home. Zhao Liang (2009: 359-360) pointed out many factors influencing translation of detective fiction: poetics, ideology and sponsors. He also analyzed the translation of detective fictions from Nina’s dynamic equivalence theory.

A good detective fiction is an epitome of a society, and a good translation of a detective fiction opens a window to foreign countries. These days, the translation of detective novels becomes a new trend. Reasons are as follows. First, crimes in detective novels often reflect hot spots of the society. The topics of this kind of fiction usually involve heritage scheme, robbery, adultery and murder for money. These novels can enclose the dark side of human beings, and the process of solving these kind of crimes echoes with readers’ sense of justice. Second, detective fictions often portray many lively images who catch audiences’ long-time attention. For example, Sherlock Holmes, the representative of famous detective who appears frequently on the screen and wins popularity among the audiences. Third, detective novels often have many ups and downs in plots. A good detective fiction always reveals clues to the readers, pushing them to ponder who is the murder. This feeling of suspense becomes a strong appeal to the readers. Thus, detective fictions have a large group of readers.

Generally, a detective fiction includes a murder or murders, some suspects and many clues. The common means of solving the murder needs intuitive logic, careful observation and reasonable inference. Usually, writers would provide readers with a large number of clues, some of which are useful while others are not. Readers need to keep these clues in mind and follow up with the detective’s thinking steps. This requires readers to understand every single possible clue in the text. Thus, how to make sense of culture-specific items becomes a major problem in translating procedure.

Compared to other kinds of literature, detective novels involve readers in the novel to a larger degree. It is essential to make readers fully absorbed in the plots so that they can follow the detective and ponder who is the murder. However, in detective novels and short stories, many essential clues are bound with culture background. Readers who have the same culture background may easily catch the hidden clues behind some words, while readers who don’t may miss the important link. Different translators may adopt different translation strategies to deal with these some common translation strategies for later.

These days, with the growth of urban intelligentsia, detective novels are gaining more and more popularity among the public. However, detective novels at home perform far from satisfaction. At this point, translating good foreign detective novels becomes an urgent mission. The detective novels of Agatha, queen of crime, always enjoy high reputation in detective domain. Thus, this paper chooses the translation of The A.B.C. Murders, one of Agatha’s representative detective works, as research objective because it contains a variety of culture-specific items, worthy of being analyzed. And this paper chooses Zhao Wenwei’s translation version as research object. The reasons are as follows.

First, Zhao’s version is the newest one among all three translations of The A.B.C. Murders. Drawing lessons from previous translation versions, Zhao’s translation has fewer mistakes and is more reader-friendly. Second, the sales volume of Zhao’s version ranks first among three translation versions, which means his translation has a large group of readers. It is worth a careful analysis of his translation strategies.

Attempts will be made to answer the following questions:

1. What is the classification of culture-specific items in The A.B.C. Murders?
2. When translating The A.B.C. Murders, what major translation strategies do Zhao Wenwei adopt?
3. What does Zhao take into consideration when he chooses some specific translation method?

Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Culture-Specific Items and translation

The concept of culture-specific items is first proposed by Javier Franco Aixelá (1996). Newmark (2001) refers to culture-specific items as cultural words, while Robinson and Schäffneramp; Wiesemann (Schäffneramp; Wiesemann 2001) label them realia. All these labels can be generally defined as “words and combinations of words denoting objects and concepts characteristic of the way of life, the culture, the social and historical development of one nation and alien to another” (Florin, 1993: 122-128). Aixelá (1996: 64) points out “a culture-specific item can be identified only with reference to a particular source text and a particular target language”. Thus, culture specific items are not independent of the text. A culture specific item is like a conflict resulting from different culture background.

During the procedure of translation, we can easily find that language, culture and translation have strong connection. Translation builds a bridge between not only two different languages, but also two different cultures (Bu amp;Wang 2009). Nida (2001) holds the opinion that the role of language within a culture and the influence of the culture on the meanings of words and idioms are so pervasive that hardly any text can be adequately understood without careful consideration of its cultural background. In his opinion, a good translation must consider readers’ access to the relevance of culture both in understanding the source background and in representing the meaning in a target language-culture (Zhao 2013).

When it comes to the classification of culture-specific items, Newmark (2001) introduces five detailed categories of culture:

1. Ecology culture, which includes geography, aerography, plants, plains and hills;

2. Material culture, which refers to appliances, clothes, food, places and transport;

3. Social culture, which refers to jobs, social ties and leisure;

4. Activities, customs, organizations, concepts related to political, administrative, religious and artistic activities;

5. Gesture and habits.

These five categories almost include all possible culture-bounded words in the text. However, his classification is not that systematic. Thus, Christine Nord (2001) employs another way to categorize culture-related elements:

1. Specific form of address. Eg: Professor Liu, Miss Green, Sir.

2. Regional dialect. Eg: yer honor: your honor, nay: no.

3. References to culture-bound reality. Eg: burrito, brownie, turkey, to let, Caramel Macchiato, mocha.

4. Persons or conventions. Eg: brunch, feet, penny, Queen Elizabeth, Jack the Ripper.

5. Culture-specific proper names. Eg: Tony, Tom, Lily, Romeo, Cinderella, the leaning tower of Pisa, pyramid.

Scholars at home also propose their classifications of culture-specific items. Chen Hongwei (2000) thinks they can be divided into three large categories:

1. Material culture: all manufactures.
2. Institutional culture: society, region, ceremony, education, kin.
3. Spiritual culture: behaviors, belief, values, thinking model, concept.

Audiences with different culture background have different view to the world. Thus, they may get confused when coming across these elements. To overcome obstacles posed by different culture, a number of scholars rack their wits to come up with various translation methods of culture-specific items.

Aixelá (1996) proposes eleven translation methods of culture-specific items: (1) repetition, which means literal translation; (2) orthographic adaptation, which refers to the transformation of original alpha system or transliteration; (3) linguistic translation ,which requires translators to remain the denotation to the utmost; (4) extratextual gloss, which refers to the explanations after the text, such as footnote, endnote and comment; (5) intratextual gloss, similar to the previous one, but including the explanations in the text; (6) synonymy, which uses synonymy to translate culture-specific items to avoid repetition; (7) limited univeralization, which means translating the original item into another CSI in the target language that readers are familiar with; (8) absolute univeralization, adopting another expression (not culture-specific item) to convey the original meaning; (9) naturalization, translating one culture-specific item in source text with another one in target language; (10) deletion, which means deleting those culture-specific items which are hard to be accepted or understood by the target readers; (11) autonomous creation, which means creating a new culture-specific item. Apart from these eleven translation strategies, Aixelá also mentions some other methods such as compensation, dislocation and attenuation. However, Aixelá’s translation methods are designed for English-Spanish translation. Thus, Zhang Nanfeng (2004) makes some revisions to better guide the translation practice of English-Chinese translation. He changes orthographic adaptation into transliteration and synonymy into redundancy.

Newmark (2001) also made early attempts to deal with culture-specific items. Transference and naturalization have always been the heated translation strategies discussed by scholars. According to Newmark, transference is a strategy when a source language word is transferred into a target language in its original form. It’s a kind of cultural borrowing which can be understood as transliteration when a text is transferred into Chinese which accounts for an important source of loan words. For example, the English word sofa is translated into “沙发”. Newmark suggests that this translation method is better for the condition when translators want to evoke a sense of intimacy between the text and the audience by imitating the sound or image.

According to Newmark (2001), neutralization means paraphrasing at the word level. He labels the strategy of paraphrasing as neutralization on the grounds that a source language word becomes neutralized or generalized when it is explained using some culture-free word.

Scholars at home also make their efforts to develop translation strategies on culture-specific items. Wang Dongfeng (1997) concludes five methods which are similar to some of Aixelá’s theories, including extratextual gloss, intratextual gloss, naturalization, deletion and literal translation.

2.2 Reader-oriented approach to translation

Although the source text is objective, translators can hardly transport everything completely objective during the process of translation (Fan amp; Liu 2002). The choice of a particular translation depends on various factors such as the purpose of the target text, generic, the intended readership, and the importance of the cultural item itself. Differences in translations can be accounted for three basic factors in translation: the nature of message, the purpose of the author and, by proxy, of the translator and the type of the audience. This paper is going to discuss the role readers play in translation.

Nida’s theory of dynamic equivalence points out the importance to keep the relationship between receptor and message substantially the same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message (1964). He initiates the receptor-based orientation in translation procedure. For Nida, language is above all a multi-functional tool of communication. In order to be communicatively efficient, linguistic utterances must be receptor-oriented. Christiane Nord points out when writers produce literary works, their texts are primary addressed to target readers who have specific expectations. Thus ,when it comes to the translation of culture-specific items, reader-orientation should be taken into consideration.

The reader orientation focuses on the receivers or the readers of the target text, trying to figure out criteria in the calibration of translation, especially for the culture-specific items. According to Aixelá (1996), reader orientation can be roughly discussed from the following 4 factors: readership, reader’s expectation, reading experience, cultural backdrops and ideology shared by target readers.

The basic question in reader-oriented translation is for whom. Persons of different ages have different decoding abilities. According to Newmark (2001), decoding ability in any language has at least four principal levels: (1) the capacity of children, whose vocabulary and cultural experience are limited; (2) the double-standard capacity of new literates, who can decode oral messages with facility but whose ability to decode written messages is limited; (3) the capacity of average literate adult, who can handle both oral and written messages with relative case; (4) the unusually high capacity of specialists when they are decoding messages within their own area of specialization. A translation for children is definitely different from that for adults because their decoding abilities differ. Thus this requires translators to adopt different translating strategies.

Readers’ expectations are similar to receptors’ interests, which also have influences on translation. For example, a translation for pleasure must be quite different from a translation for users’ direction. Moreover, a translation which explains the universe to persons who want to satisfy their curiosity must be different from that for experts to carry on their research in this area. Translators have to keep in mind what his target readers want to draw from his translation and try to supply them with their intended translations.

Readers’ reading experience cannot be ignored during translating procedure. Reading, as the most important method to gain knowledge, helps to broaden the horizon of readers. Readers’ reading experience can direct reading methods. For example, when we read science magazine, we adopt a different reading method from when reading a fairy tale because our interpretive community or experience have taught us that science magazines involve many scientific articles, so we have to read them in a certain way. In another word, the reading experience of a person is influenced by the writing convention or habits reflected in the reading materials.

剩余内容已隐藏，请支付后下载全文，论文总字数：39204字