Translation of Cultural Images in Martial Arts Novels from the Perspective of Cultural Turn

—A Case Study of the English Version of The Book and the Sword

By Wang Ruipeng

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement

For the B.A. Degree

Department of English

School of Liberal Arts

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

May, 2018

Translation of Cultural Images in Martial Arts Novels from the Perspective of Cultural Turn

—A Case Study of the English Version of The Book and the Sword

Wang Ruipeng

Department of English

School of Liberal Arts

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

Abstract: All the time, the spread of martial arts novels is limited in Chinese people. In recent years, due to the development of globalization and the ever-increasing influence of China’s culture, Chinese traditional culture has been continuously exporting to the outside world, and martial arts novels have been able to be understood and loved by more and more foreigners. However, due to the complexity of Chinese language and the large number of special cultural images involved, compared to other novels, the translation of martial arts novels is difficult, resulting in the process of translation is very difficult and thus entering an embarrassing situation that foreigners want to read it but cannot touch it. Therefore I chose the English version of The book and the sword, one of the representative works of Mr. Jin Yong as an example, to select the translation of different kinds of cultural images and combine it with the cultural turn theory proposed by Susan Bassnett to study the translation of different cultural images, and with my own understandings to put forward my ideas as a brief reference.

Key words: Cultural Turn, Martial Arts Novels, Cultural Images

摘要：武侠小说一直以来的传播面局限于华人内部。近几年，由于全球化的发展以及我国文化影响力的不断增强，中国传统文化开始不断对外输出，武侠小说而得以被越来越多的外国人所了解和喜爱。然而，由于中文语言的复杂性，并且其中包含着大量的特殊文化意象，使得翻译难度加大，导致武侠小说的英译过程十分困难，因而进入一种外国人想看却看不到的尴尬处境。基于此种现状，我选取金庸先生的代表作之一《书剑恩仇录》的英译本为例，选取其中不同种类的文化意象的译文，结合苏珊巴斯奈特提出的文化转向理论，研究文化意象在转向过程中的翻译情况，并结合自身理解提出自己的想法作为简要参考。

关键词：文化转向；武侠小说；文化意象

Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Purpose and significance of this paper 1

1.2 Research method of this paper 1

2. Literature review 2

2.1 Research abroad 2

2.2 Domestic research 3

3. Cultural images in martial arts novels 4

3.1 Description of cultural images 4

3.2 Classification of cultural images 4

3.2.1 Words of factions 5

3.2.2 Words of kung fu 5

3.2.3 Words of weapons 6

3.2.4 Nick names 6

3.2.5 Idioms and sayings 6

4. Study of translation of cultural images 6

4.1 Translation of faction words 7

4.2 Translation of kung fu words 7

4.3 Translation of weapons 10

4.4 Translation of nicknames 11

4.5 Translation of idioms and sayings 12

5. Translation strategies 13

5.1 Translation strategies of factional words 13

5.2 Translation strategies of kung fu words 14

5.3 Translation strategies of weapon words 14

5.4 Translation strategies of nick names 15

5.5 Translation strategies of idioms 15

6. Conclusion 15

References 17

Acknowledgements 18

1. Introduction

In Chinese literary works, martial arts novels occupy a considerable proportion. Nonetheless, because the complexity of the Chinese language, it is difficult for Chinese martial arts novels to be translated into the English version. Solving the difficulties exist in the process of translation is the key to improving the current situation. And the translation of Jin Yong’s(Louis Cha) martial arts novels into western countries just started a few years ago (Luo, 2011:51), therefore, this paper will select the “The Book and the Sword” as an example to discuss the translation of cultural images in this book, and finally attempts to propose some strategies according to different kinds of cultural images.

1.1 Purpose and significance of this paper

Martial arts novels are Chinese cultural treasures, and they are worth to be known by more people in the worldwide. However, as there is a large number of cultural image words in martial arts novels, and with the huge difference between the Chinese and English culture, the process of martial arts novels translation are pretty limited. The theory of cultural turn thinks the translation is not just the language communication, and cultural exchange is the principle task of translation. The purpose of this paper is to study the cultural images in “The Book and the Sword” with the method of illustrating, and to discuss the availability of the cultural turn in the translation of cultural images. In the end, this paper put forward some strategies according to different kinds of cultural images. The significance of this paper is that I analyze the translation of cultural images in “The Book and the Sword”, and summarize some strategies of translation. This paper fills the blank of “The Book and the Sword” in related topics, and it can be the reference of cultural images translation, which is helpful to the following studies.

1.2 Research method of this paper

This paper mainly studies the translation of cultural images in martial arts novels. And on the basis of the purpose of this paper, I choose the method of analyzing with examples to study the translation of different kinds of cultural images, and to explore strategies of translation according to different kinds of cultural images. Therefore, this paper divided cultural images into several categories in the fourth section, and in the fourth part, I will analyze different types of words with appropriate examples. In the end, this paper propose2s different translation strategies for different types of cultural images.

2. Literature review

2.1 Research abroad

Since the 1970s and 1980s, a large number of famous foreign scholars have studied the translation and put forward their own unique opinion. For example, Susan Bassnett, the leader of the school of culture translation, said “No language can exist unless it is steeped in the context of culture” in her work (Bassnett, 2004:23), she thinks that language exists within the culture, and translators cannot separate translation from culture. In 1988, Hornby expressed her opinion “language is not seen as an isolated phenomenon suspend in a vacuum but as an integral part of culture” in her book (Hornby, 2001:39), she also believes that language exists within the culture, translator should consider the issue of translation under the cultural background of two languages. In 1990, Andre Lefevere believed that when it comes to the translation of culture, interpreters must be cautious about the translation of such texts. Because he thinks “‘unacceptable’ translations may well be seen to subvert the very basis of the culture itself.”(Bassnett, Lefevere, 1990:70). Therefore, when translating cultural texts, translators should consider contexts from the perspective of culture and to achieve the purpose of transferring cultural connotation. The above phenomenon is called cultural turn in translation studies. It has made major changes in translation studies in the international academic community today. (Xie, 2006:1). And many scholars have studied cultural turn. As Simon, a translation scholar also said “cultural turn is the most exciting development in translation studies.” (Simon, 1996:7). Therefore, cultural turn can be the guiding theory of this paper. However, as the spread of martial arts novels is limited, almost no scholars have studied this topic. Therefore, I hold the view that it is important to study the translation of cultural images in martial arts fictions.

2.2 Domestic research

The theory of cultural turn has entered the Chinese academic community since the 1990s, and quite a few scholars have studied it specifically. In 1996, Xie Tianzhen firstly referred the word of “cultural turn” in his book, he quoted some of Susan Bassnett’s views and expressed anxiety about the turn of comparative literature. (Xie, 1996:5). And in the next year, He Qiuhe referred to the cultural turn of linguistics in his articles, he urged scholars to focus on cultural difference and to introduce some new concepts into translation theory (He, 1997:48). In 2000, for the first time, Sun Huijun had made a systematic introduction to the cultural turn in translation studies (Sun, 2000:11-12). In 2006, Xie specifically analyzed the historical origins of cultural turn and its impact on domestic translation studies, and he argued that cultural turn offered a new research field for translation studies (Xie, 2006:1). In addition, different from abroad academic community, there are many domestic scholars who had studied the translation of cultural images in martial arts novels. In 2008, Lei Xiaoting has discussed the translation strategies of cultural images in Outlaws of the Marsh with the guidance of cultural turn, at the same time, she also stressed the importance of culture in the translation studies. (Lei, 2008:42) In 2013, Wei Yin mainly explores the difficulties of translation of martial arts fictions from four sides, including form and content, background of social history, linguistic level and language environment, and language style (Wei, 2013:134). And she also studied the interpretation of some special words. In 2014, Li Bing has studied the translation of cultural images in The Deer and the Cauldron with the method of comparative studies and data analysis, and he also discussed the Minford’s translation strategy in his paper. (Li, 2014:33) Although some scholars have studied this topic, they have not proposed a feasible solution to solve the technical problems existed in translation of cultural images. Thus, I will mainly focus on the translation of cultural images, and put forward my own opinion of translation method.

3. Cultural images in martial arts novels

Almost all literary works contain cultural images, and the cultural images between different cultures are also not the same. And it is precisely because of the cultural images in the martial arts novels that make them unique and attractive. The importance of these cultural images to the martial arts novels is like the capillary in the human body. They are scattered among the characters and form a complete martial arts novel.

3.1 Description of cultural images

Imagery is a concept in literary aesthetics, and cultural image is subordinate to imagery and is relative to natural imagery. Cultural images mostly embody the wisdom and historical culture of various ethnic groups. A considerable part of these cultural images are also related to the legends of each ethnic group. In the long history of years, they constantly appear in people's fables and literary works. Slowly, they form a kind of cultural symbol, which has a fixed and unique cultural meaning, and some of them contain a lot of meaning. It is easy for people to communicate with each other as soon as they are mentioned. And different ethnic groups have various cultural images due to different living environments, cultural legends, historical traditions, and different values. Martial arts fictions as a kind of Chinese literature, which is bound to have a lot of cultural images. These phases can be said to only belong to the Chinese nation. They are bred on this land and they are a kind of linguistic and cultural phenomenon that contains the nation’s wisdom and culture and has formed over a long period of time. Therefore, in the process of translating martial arts novels, it is difficult to find the corresponding words in the target language culture, which also increases the difficulty of translation.

3.2 Classification of cultural images

Because most of the cultural images in this book are proper noun, in order to systematically study these words, I classified the cultural images in this book into five categories with the reference of the principle of classification of proper noun in Chinese and related studies, and with the features of cultural images in this book. The first category is factional word, the second is Kung Fu word, the third is weapon word, the fourth is nick name, the fifth is idiom, and the sixth part are other types of words. Among them, the sixth category contains some words of time, places and incident, etc. And since these words occupy a very small proportion, I classify them as a category for convenience.

3.2.1 Words of factions

The first category is factional word. In Chinese martial arts novels, all the martial arts practitioners will practice different kung fu. And each type of martial arts only belongs to a faction, so the number of factions can be known from the number of martial arts. In addition, there are many heroes who are not lonely fight against the evil, and they will choose to get together and led by a few people to conspire things, just like the Mount Liangshan in the Outlaws of the Marsh. However, they are few restrictions on the translation of these groups, so the difficulty is relatively low compared with the other words in martial arts novels.

3.2.2 Words of kung fu

The second category is kung fu word. The most important part of composing a martial arts novel is not only the plot, but also a large number of people with martial arts. And each person uses different kung fu, so each kung fu have their own name. In order to make these words be familiar to people, and to refine the story, these kung fu words often use idioms or some unique words. Therefore, the words of martial arts are one of the most difficult parts of the translation of martial arts fictions.

3.2.3 Words of weapons

The third category is the word of weapons. The importance of weapons is self-evident, and its role is to highlight the kung fu of martial arts masters are superb. Without weapons, the integrity and excitement of martial arts novels will be affected to a great extent. Names of weapons generally have practical meanings rather than abstract concepts. Therefore, when it comes to translation, it is easier to translate weapons’ names.

3.2.4 Nick names

The fourth category is nick name. In daily life, except the real name, many people also have a nick name which given by friends or themselves. In the novels, characters also have their own nicknames, and the purpose of giving them these names is to highlight characters’ features. However, as nick names often contains other proper nouns, so the translators should deeply understand the cultural background of contexts.

3.2.5 Idioms and sayings

The fifth category is idiom and saying. Idioms and sayings are treasures in Chinese traditional culture. They embody the abundant wisdom of ancient people, and they are also a kind of refinement of traditional culture. In this book, there are many kinds of idioms and sayings and their translation are much more difficult than other cultural images.

4. Study of translation of cultural images

According to the classification of cultural image words, in this part, I will study the translation of these types of words. For each category, I will select some words and corresponding translations for comparison, and put forward my own opinions in combination with what I have learned.

4.1 Translation of faction words

As there are not many restrictions on faction words, hence, the difficulty of translating these words is relatively low. Generally, the translation of these faction words does not produce ambiguity, and they are not difficult for readers to understand.

The number of factions involved in the book is relatively small. Throughout the article, five factions have exact translations including the Red Flower Society（红花会）, the Wudang Kung Fu Sect（武当派）, the Dragon Slayer’s Society（屠龙帮）, the Tianshan School（天山派）, and the Eight Trigrams Sect（八卦门）.

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