(East-West Question) Li Guishan: How to achieve cultural mutual learning in the joint translation of "Dunhuang Stories" between China and Canada?
China News Agency, Tianjin, March 20th, Question: Li Guishan: How can China and Canada jointly translate the "Dunhuang Story" to achieve cultural mutual learning?
Author Zhang Shaoxuan
Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes is the most magnificent treasure house of Buddhist art in the world.
Letting the world know the beauty of Dunhuang is of great significance for promoting Chinese civilization and enriching the achievements of world civilization.
How to let foreign readers see and understand the story of Dunhuang, and then bring the beauty of oriental art represented by Dunhuang to the western world?
Professor Li Guishan, the former director of the Institute of Multiculturalism of Tianjin University of Technology, recently accepted an exclusive interview with "East-West Question". Based on his personal experience in translating Dunhuang's works for many years, he discussed how to convey Dunhuang stories and Chinese culture to foreign countries through Sino-foreign cooperative translation. reader.
The following is a summary of the interview transcript:
China News Service reporter: When did you come up with the idea of translating Dunhuang works into English and disseminating them overseas?
Li Guishan:
In the 1970s, I was fortunate to study at McGill University in Canada as an international student selected by the state.
Before going abroad, our group of more than 20 people went to the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang.
That was the first time I touched Dunhuang. At that time, I hoped to translate these beautiful stories into English one day, so that the world can understand Dunhuang art.
After returning to China, I went to Lhasa as an aid teacher for Tibet, passed through Dunhuang and stayed for a day and a night, collecting a lot of materials on Dunhuang murals.
During my teaching aid to Tibet at the Tibet Teachers College (renamed Tibet University in 1985), I further read Dunhuang historical documents and began to translate them.
Due to the difficulty, translation progress is slow.
After supporting Tibet and returning to Tianjin, I began to systematically translate Dunhuang works, and successively completed Chinese-English translations of Dunhuang culture, such as Dunhuang Legends, Dunhuang Mural Stories, and Dunhuang Mural Stories.
The Chinese-Canadian co-translation of "The Wonderful Stories in Dunhuang Murals" published the book cover.
Photo by Zhang Shaoxuan
China News Service reporter: Dunhuang culture is extensive and profound. Are there any difficulties in the translation process? How did you get over it?
Li Guishan:
Differences between different cultures are reflected in differences in thinking, religion, values, traditional cultural concepts, lifestyles and psychological associations. These differences will bring difficulties to translation work.
From the perspective of functionalist translation, we fully consider many factors that affect translation strategies, such as target language readers, text types, original author's intentions, and the specific cultural context in translation.
Therefore, I collaborated with Naomi McPherson, a professor of anthropology at Columbia University in Canada who loves Chinese culture. I first translated the original text into English, and then he did a second translation according to the context.
This translation method, which is mainly based on semantic translation and supplemented by communicative translation, tries its best to preserve the Chinese cultural image and cultural heritage form in the original work.
From the perspective of cultural imagery, we have also taken the initiative in cultural imagery and dealing with problems.
The strong cultural color contained in the cultural image usually makes it language untranslatable and cultural untranslatability to a certain extent.
The former means that the target language does not have a language form corresponding to the original language text, and the latter means that the contextual features related to the original language do not exist in the target language culture.
"The Wonderful Stories in Dunhuang Murals" contains rich cultural information. More than 130 stories involve various types of stories, and the cultural images are complex. Although there are many difficulties in translation, we still use the reserved images, retained images and annotations, changed images, and replaced them. Strategies such as imagery and omission of imagery are more successful in dealing with imagery problems in many stories, and effectively deal with the relationship between the translatability and untranslatability of cultural information.
Specifically, one of the difficulties encountered in the translation process is how to accurately express the names of dozens of "Buddhas" and make them understandable to foreign readers.
This requires mastering the background knowledge, consulting the connotation of proper nouns in Chinese, and then consulting related materials in English, such as Mahabodhi, Gungade, Ganjanivari, etc.
In order to accurately translate the corresponding English of these proper nouns, we consulted authoritative experts, Ji Xianlin's office, Dunhuang Cultural Center and Dunhuang Research Institute, etc., and at the same time read a lot of authoritative Chinese and English books about the frescoes of the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang.
The second difficulty is how to translate the storyline of Dunhuang into words that foreign readers can easily understand.
Chinese and English belong to different language systems, and the grammar and syntactic structure of Chinese are completely different from those of English.
In this regard, foreign co-translators use their native English to improve the text during the translation process.
For example, when translating the story of "The Nine-colored Deer", "with a sparkling coat of nine colors", the Chinese translator translated it as "with a sparkling coat of nine colors", but native English-speaking experts believe that sparkling and bright are unnatural, Inappropriate, and "in gay colors" means bright colors, and it's more appropriate here.
Sino-Canadian co-translation of "Fantastic Stories in Dunhuang Murals" published the inside page of the book.
Photo by Zhang Shaoxuan
China News Agency reporter: In the process of cooperation, how to achieve both "emotion" and "meaning" in language?
Li Guishan:
At the beginning of translation, we followed the principles of letter, express, and elegance.
The translation should not only conform to the language characteristics of the target language, but also take into account the content, structure, literary style, accuracy, smoothness and literary quality.
During the translation process, we employ a variety of translation techniques and methods.
For example, the "additional translation method" supplements the implicit but unspoken words in the original text to ensure the integrity of semantics and grammatical structure.
There are also many uses of the "split translation method". The original long sentence is divided into several single sentences, which is easy for readers to read.
Some paragraphs also use the "inversion method" to reverse the Chinese sentences before and after, and express them in a logical English word order according to English habits.
This "inversion method" is clearly reflected in this translation: "When she came to the underside of the linden tree, she saw a fascinating scene. Flowers were blooming, bees were flying, birds were singing, pond water was rippling, and lotus flowers were blooming. When the buds were about to bloom, she was instantly refreshed and enlightened. She breathed the fresh air greedily, and enjoyed the shade of the tree."
The English translation of this passage reads: "On the eighth day of April of the 10th month of Queen Maya's pregnancy, she again visited her garden pavilion to enjoy the fresh air and shade. As she stepped under the Bodhi Tree, a fantastic scene materialized before her . Every imaginable flower bloomed in a riot of color, and birds and butterflies flitted among the delicate blossoms. The rippling water of a lake was ablaze with the brilliant hues of Lotus blossoms.”.
The use of this translation method is not only easy for Western readers to accept, but also takes into account the essence of the expression.
China News Service: What is the significance of choosing to co-translate Dunhuang's works with a Canadian translator?
Li Guishan:
Translation is a medium of cultural exchange, a process of reproducing the text of another culture in one culture. The translation inevitably reflects the characteristics of the two languages and cultures.
In the process of co-translation, the relationship between culture and translation is dealt with from multiple perspectives and levels, including the application of existing translation theories and the cultural differences in the translation of Dunhuang stories. The purpose of "the cultural turn of translation" proposed by the cultural school represented by Weir.
During the translation process, Prof. Naomi Mockerfossen said many times that what touched her the most about the Dunhuang frescoes was the extraordinary brushwork and aesthetic style of the ancient Chinese.
"Through the translation of Dunhuang murals, I know what is 'lan leaf drawing', 'folded reed drawing' and 'iron line drawing', bringing the beauty of oriental art to the west, allowing more people to deeply appreciate the charm of art without borders. It's an honor," she wrote in the letter.
Professor Merckpherson argues that oral traditions are fragile, and that once the storytellers die, so too will the historical record.
The original author, Mr. Chen Yu, spent decades with the people of Dunhuang, sorting out their oral accounts and comparing them with the Dunhuang murals one by one, which is the connection between human beings and ancient history.
To translate this work is to spread civilization and spread the lives, thoughts and actions of people throughout history.
As a necessary means of cultural exchange and dissemination, translation is not only a way of language conversion, but also a way of conveying, recording and constructing culture.
Dunhuang writings contain extremely rich cultural information, including ecological culture, material culture, social culture, and religious culture.
In the process of co-translation, we took into account the phenomenon of cultural vacancies and adopted corresponding strategies to supplement information in a timely and appropriate manner, and finally successfully conveyed this splendid civilization to foreign readers.
Li Guishan at the home of Naomi Merckpherson.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee
China News Service reporter: What is the "essence" of Chinese thought conveyed by Dunhuang's writings?
Li Guishan:
Artists such as Zhang Daqian, Chang Shuhong, Duan Wenjie, etc. have all expressed the view that "people who have never been to Dunhuang do not know what the history of world painting is".
The Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang are the most magnificent treasure house of Buddhist art in the world. The true meanings conveyed in them are selflessness, dedication, integrity and kindness.
Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes.
Photo by Zhang Yanjun issued by China News Agency
Letting the world know the beauty of Dunhuang is of extraordinary significance to Chinese civilization and even world civilization. It shows China's cultural soft power and is an effective way to show a real, three-dimensional and comprehensive China to the world.
During the process of translating Dunhuang's works, the co-translators communicated constantly and went to Dunhuang for field investigation together.
Dun, big also; Huang, Sheng also.
Hua is beautiful; summer is great.
Feel the desolation of the Gobi, the holy land of Sanwei Mountain, the majesty of the Mogao Grottoes, the thickness of Mingsha Mountain, the softness of the Crescent Moon Spring, and the coldness of Yumen Pass... Canadian linguist Artem Lawrensky (Artem Lawrensky), who is in charge of proofreading Lozynsky once said that the spring, summer, autumn and winter of Dunhuang, every grass and every tree, are his source of inspiration.
Through words, he accepted the washing of Chinese civilization and praised sincerely: "The grand splendor of Dunhuang and the elegance and grandeur of China are the ingenuity of history. As the throat of the Silk Road, Dunhuang is a grand gathering, a concentration of splendor, and a An elegant projection is a symbol of grandeur, and the world should admire it.” (End)
Interviewee Profile:
Li Guishan, former dean of Tianjin University of Technology International Business School and director of the Institute of Multiculturalism.
He is currently a special consultant on Chinese education and culture at the Royal Canadian University and a special consultant on multiculturalism at Trinity Western University in Canada.
He has been engaged in teaching and research work in North American society and culture, education internationalization, and bilingual teaching for many years.
He has published 6 monographs and 6 translations, edited 9 English textbooks, translated books "Stories of Dunhuang" and "Wonderful Stories in Dunhuang Murals", etc., edited "English-Chinese Dictionary of Economics and Management" with more than 1.7 million words.