On Lin Yutang: A case of His Version of Six Chapters of a Floating Life

YanlingTong

Abstract:From the translation theoretical strategies of “domestication” and “foreignization”, Lin Yutang's translation of Six Chapters of a Floating Life provides three ways to deal with the cultural differences : using idiomatic expressions of the target language, retaining Chinese linguistic characteristics and changing the syntactic structures. His usage of simple but proper words and idiomatic expressions endows his translation with naturalness and fluency. Lin 's culture attitude-a combination of both eastern and western culture.

Key Words:Lin Yutang translation strategy domestication foreignization

Lins couplet“兩腳踏中西文化,一心評宇宙文章”,was his cultural attitude to introduce Chinese culture to the world. In 1933, Lin Yutang put forward his translation standard in his thesis On Translation. Lin Yutang clearly points out three requirements for a translator: a thorough understanding of the source text; a good command of target language; and adequate practice in plus correct understanding of translation criteria and strategies. To ensure a better understanding of these requirements, Lin puts forward three translation criteria: fidelity (to the source text and author); mellifluence (to the target text reader); and aesthetic beauty (to the art).Lin's theory transcends those by offering not only theory, but also practical strategies and specific examples.

Lin had the "eastwards person introduction west, face west the square person introduction east" as his duty, in his Memoirs of a Quadragenarian he said "One mind seeking the learning of ancients and moderns; two legs straddling the cultures of east and west". Lin's translation of Six Chapters of a Floating Life is a masterpiece, which well illustrates his superb and genius art of translation. The following two aspects will be used to appreciate and analyze Lin Yutang's art of translation: his faithful and aesthetic expression in translation and his successful translation of cultural context.

The following section illustrates how Lin used "domestication" and "foreignization" the terms for explaining two kinds of translation strategies first put forward by Laurence Venuti in the Translator's Invisibility in 1995, at ease and successfully translated the cultural context.

Ⅰ.Domestication Applied in Lins Translation of Six Chapters of a Floating Life

Eg. (1)東坡云:“事如春夢了無痕,”茍不記之筆墨,未免有辜彼蒼之厚 (Lin Yutang, Six1) .The translated version: Su Tungp said,“Life is like a spring dream which vanishes without a trace.”I should be ungrateful to the gods if I did not try to put my life down on record (Lin Yutang, Six2).

Religion forms an important part of human culture and different religions are the reflections of different cultures. In the West, people mainly believe in Christianity, while in China, there are quite a number of people believing in Buddhism and Taoism. The word"蒼”is not the same as“God”,but here, Lin translated“蒼”as“God”. This is because Lin Yutang from the early years was educated by Christianity and also because he wanted to shorten the distance between the author and the Western readers. It is a typical example of Lin's use of domestication strategy in the cultural translation.

Eg. (2)惠來以番餅二圓授余,即以贈惠。曹力卻,受一圓而去 (Lin Yutang, Six158) .The translated version: Hueilai gave me two Mexican dollars which I gave to Tsao, but Tsao would not take them; only after my insistence did he receive one dollar before going away (Lin Yutang, Six 159) .

In order to achieve the domestication, these examples replaced the cultural imagery, shortened the distance between the reader and translator. The following translation of “園亭布置” is also use domestication. The language is naturally and fluently, it seems the original English.

Ⅱ.Foreignization Applied in Lins Translation of Six Chapters of a Floating Life

In order to introduce the Chinese culture to the West, Lin also adopted the strategy of foreignization. For instance, Lin used transliteration to translate“馬褂”as“makua”,“餛飩”as“wonton”,and chose“spending money like dirt”instead of the English idiom“spending money like water”as the translation of“揮金如土”, which vividly conveyed the implicative cultural information and also maintained the characteristic of Chinese language and culture.

Eg. (1)其形削肩長頸,瘦不露骨,眉彎目秀,顧盼神飛,唯兩齒微露,似非佳相 (Lin Yutang, Six 7) .The translated version: Of a slender figure, she had drooping shoulder and rather long neck, slim but not to the point of being skinny. Her eyebrows were arched and in her eyes there was a look of quick intelligence and soft refinement. The only defect was that her two front teeth were slightly inclined forward, which was not a mark of good omen (Lin Yutang, Six 8).

Eg. (2)余曰:“卿果中道相舍,斷無再續之理。況‘曾經滄海難為水,除卻巫山不是云'耳!” (Lin Yutang, Six 172).The translated version:“Even if you should leave me half way like this,”I said,“I shall never marry a gain. Besides, it is difficult to be water for one who has seen the great seas, and difficult to be clouds for one who has seen the Yangtze Gorges!” (Lin Yutang, Six 173).

“曾經滄海難為水,除卻巫山不是云”is from the poem《離思》by Yuan Zhen(元稹), a poet in the Tang Dynasty, which expresses the poet's deep sorrow and nostalgia for his deceased wife. The poet compared his wife to the clouds that were transformed by the goddess, and his feeling to wards his wife to the vast seas, which surpassed any waters or clouds. Lin Yu-tang maintained the images of water and clouds of the original and rendered them literally in English, and achieved the transplantation of the feelings. This is a typical example of Lin's use of foreignization strategy in the cultural translation.

From the above detailed discussion we can reach the conclusion that in general, Lin's translation is faithful to the original; simple and explicit in expression. His translation accords with his three standards for translation being faithful, smooth, and aesthetic. With the purpose of introducing Chinese culture to the English readers in mind, Lin Yu-tang employed both domestication and foreignization skillfully. With his deep understanding of the differences between Chinese and English at sentence level from the grammatical perspective, Lin succeeds in rendering Chinese sentences characterized by parataxis into its counterparts characterized by hypostasis. His propositions on translation on the basis of sentences and with naturalness in expression are fully revealed through his practice in Six Chapters of a Floating Life.References:[1]Lin Yutang. Six Chapters of a Floating Life. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1999.

[2]Schute, W. & Biguenet, R. Theory of Translation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

[3]Munday, J. Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications. London: Routledge, 2001.