Chinese
names are problematic in English literature. They often have meanings that are easily
identifyable to the Chinese reader, whereas this does not occur so much with
English names. They can also be difficult to pronounce for those who are not
familiar with pinyin. They then present an even larger issue for literary
translation as they get repeated so much, and can be connected to other
elements of narratives such as naming ceremonies or word plays. Looking at
Cognitive stylistics on the MA in Literary Translation course at the UEA, has
helped me see how the translation of names may work, in theory.
When
aproaching the theory and practice of translating literature, one idea strikes
me as particularily crucial to understanding what happens. This was put forward
by Roman Jakobson, and it is the idea that 'languages differs essentially in what
they must convey and not in what they may convey.' This is a
haunting idea in terms of translating languages. I work on translating Chinese
literature into English, and this idea haunts the decisions which I must make
about how to express exciting literary features of a Chinese text in English.
Chinese does not have articles, gerunds, plural noun forms or tenses displayed
through verb forms, but English does. Whilst a Chinese text may convey the
meanings of such grammatical structures, it often doesn't need to, whereas in
English the text must explicate these aspects. Most of the time the situation
of the text, especially in prose texts,
gives an indication of what tense or article should be used. However,
the translation of names presents another issue of what is explicated in the
Chinese, but what is not obvious to the readers of English from the sound of
the Chinese names.
《射雕英雄传》(She Diao Ying Xiong Zhuan -The Eagle Shooting Heroes/ The
Legend of the Condor Heroes) Is a Kung Fu classic in Chinese literature. It is
currently being translated online, and I recommend anyone take a look at it. It
is an exciting novel about the interweaving and action-packed lives of kung fu
masters in ancient China, and to me the online translation project of it is
just as exciting. The issues of the translation of character names, though, is
an interesting one in terms of Chinese-English translation. Even translating
the Author is interesting; should I use the English 'Louis Cha' or pinyin 'Jin
Yong'? The meaning of Chinese names is often a lot more obvious than it is in
English names. Therefore linguistically, one must consider for the purpose of
translation what 'must' the names say, and what 'may' the names say. Below is
an example in which a key character is introduced in the novel;
这位是杨铁心杨兄弟。
Zhe wei shi Yang
Tie Xin Yang xiong di.
This is Yang
Tiexin, brother Yang.
The Chinese character's name is Yang Tie Xin, in
Chinese, but will this do in English? The literal meaning of the name is 杨 (poplar) 铁 (Iron) 心 (heart). This meaning of these characters
in this character's name is available clearly to the reader of the Chinese, so
it can be argued that the names should be translated by meaning. One way of
looking at this issue, and perhaps trying to solve the problem, is to consider
the notions of foreignisation and domestication, as explored by Lawrence
Venuti, and make a decision according to the principles of the translator. This
is problematic as both translations of 'Yang Tiexin' and 'Poplar Ironheart' are
perhaps so unusual as English language names, that they would be foreignising
(calling attention to the foreign elements of the text within the target
language). I believe, however, that the way to look at this problem, and the
way which is perhaps more useful to allow communication between the two
drastically different languages of Chinese and English, is to consider the
cognitive effects of the style of the text, and in this instance the names.
The arguments about the cognitive effects of
language on the reader, as explored by Ernst Gutt, suggests that when
translating areas such as this, it is important to consider the processing cost
of the target language, in this case the way that the names are written in
English. Keeping the names with the pinyin would make the words clear as names,
therefore the reader would not need to connect the words deeply to their
understanding of their names in reference to English lexis, so this would
involve a relatively low processing cost. However, if the character's name were
to be translated as 'Poplar Ironheart', then the name would involve the reader
in the process of associating the character with the elements and images
related to the English language.So this would involve a relatively high
processing cost.
Looking at such translation issues in this way
allows the translator to think of what the processing cost will be to the
reader of the target text; so that they can translate according to what they
believe will be the processing cost of the target text in comparison to the processing
cost of the source text. As the name in translation of 'Yang Tiexin' involves a
relatively low processing cost, which it would to the Chinese reader as it
would be taken as a name first before a series of connected meanings, and as
the novel is wide spread in popular culture, so demanding a high processing
cost over the reading of a name would be antagonist to the source text's
popularity, it is perhaps the better choice of translation. Throughout this
process the reader is then haunted with this idea; What is the name saying in
Chinese, that I 'may' say in English, and what is it saying that I 'must' say?
This idea is perhaps so haunting, at least to me, because maintaining the
style, in cognitive terms, often means obscuring some of the interesting lexis
from the target text. Translating often involves such an engagement with the
source text that, as a translator, my instinct is to celebrate its complex lexis, and even
interesting functional language, and favouring one thing over another is often
frustrating. However, by understanding more about these theories of
translation, I can see that the translation of names, especially from Chinese
to English, is no simple matter. And the pronounciation of Chinese names for
non-reader or speakers of Chinese pinyin, is also not easy, but I shall leave
it there. What was the man's name again...? Yang...?
Thomas Newell translates from Chinese into
English, and is currently a studying for an MA in Literary Translation at the
UEA as well as an interning for Arc Publications. Contact
thomashenrynewell@gmail.com
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