Translation criticism on the Translation of Zhuangzi

（天津外國語大學，天津 300204）

【Abstract】： China now is the world’s second largest economy， however China is a big but not a strong country in culture. Most Chinese youths indulge in Hollywood movies， Japan cartoons and South Korea TV dramas. People can’t remind themselves of Chinese culture products. This paper tries to criticize Zhao Yanchun’s translation of Zhuangzi and analyses some culture factors in his translation. And this paper will use Katharina Reiss’ principle of translation criticism to make criticize on Zhao’s translation.

【Key words】： Zhuangzi， translation criticism， Katharina Reiss

One wants to make criticism on a translation he should make clear the typology of the text. According to Katharina Reiss， there are four kinds of text： content-focused text， form-focused text， appeal-focused text and audio-medial text. Zhongzi belongs to the second text type—the form-focused text. In a form-focused text a translator should find a way to keep its literary and esthetic function. After decided the text type we can move to the next step. We can analyze the translation from two kinds of aspect one is the linguistic components and another is extra-linguistic determinants. Today this paper will analyze the translation from the aspect of linguistic components. The following is the translation of Zhao Yanchun and the criticism this paper made：

北冥有魚，其名為鯤。鯤之大，不知其幾千里也。化而為鳥，其名為鵬。鵬之背，不知其幾千里也。怒而飛，其翼若垂天之云。是鳥也，海運則將徙於南冥。南冥者，天池也。

“There in North Sea lives a fish called Minnow， which has a body spanning about a thousand miles. When transformed into a bird， it is called Roc， which has a back spanning about a thousand miles. With a burst of vigor， it flies up， whose wings are like clouds hemming the sky. This bird， skimming tides， flies to South Sea. And this South Sea is called the Pool of Heaven.”

Talking about the lexical elements， we find that Zhao translated “鯤” to Minnow which means a small cyprinid. The Minnow is so small that it only has small body which spanning about a thousand miles. And he translated “鵬” to Roc which means a legendary bird of great size. On the one hand the translation keeps the semantic elements of the original text and what most important is he keep the writing style of Zhuangzi—hyperbole. On the other hand Zhao translated these Chinese unique images by using natural and native language， which made the translation easily understood by the target readers.

Conclusion： As one of the great classic literatures in Chinese history， Zhuangzi has profound influence on Chinese literature. A good translation of this kind of books can help the target language readers understand the real Chinese culture. When referring to the culture differences a translator should not only have good cultivation in different cultures but also be guided by correct translation principles.

Bibliography

[1] Ernst-August Gutt， Translation and Relevance. I. （2004） SFLEP， Shanghai. P.149.

[2] https：//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi_（book）

[3] Katharina Reiss， Translation Criticism--The Potentials Limitations. I. （2014）， London： Routledge. P.47-65.

[4] James， Paul； with Magee， Liam； Scerri， Andy； Steger， Manfred B. （2015）. Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice： Circles of Sustainability. London： Routledge. P. 53.