A Comparative Study of Two Translations of Shan Hai Ching文献综述

 2022-08-29 11:08

Analysis on the Translations of Myths in Shan Hai Ching

Abstract：Shan Hai Ching is a Chinese classic text with long history and a compilation of mythic geography and myth. Versions of the text have existed since the 4th century BC, but the present form was not reached until the early Han Dynasty. It is largely a fabulous geographical and cultural account of pre-Qin China as well as a collection of Chinese mythology.The consensus among modern sinologists is that the book was not written at a single time by a single author, but rather by numerous people from the period of the Warring States to the beginning of the Han Dynasty. The book is divided into eighteen sections, with a description of over 550 mountains and 300 channels. The descriptions are usually of medicines, animals, and geological features. Many descriptions are very mundane, and an equal number are fanciful or strange. It contains many short myths, and most rarely exceed a paragraph. And there are few Englidh complete versions. Anne Birrell published ts English cover-to-cover edition, The Classic of Mountains and Seas in 1999, which was characterized in fully literal translation and vulgar Anglo-Saxon vocabularies while Hunan Peoplersquo;s Publishing House published The Classic of Mountains and Seas in 2010, translated by Wang Hong, a senior professor in Soochow University and a bellwether in Chinese classic translation, who always complies with the basic principle of translation, “clarity, smoothness and conciseness”. The two editions are going to be involved by the comparison of the translation of the title, places, animals, mythical figures and names related to religious culture, listed in tables, with the translation principle and translation strategies to figure out a better translation of Shan Hai Ching.

Key Words: English translation of Shan Hai Ching; translation principle; translation strategies;

1. Literature Review

1.1 Precious Study of the English Translation of Shan hai Ching

There are not many papers about the English versions of Shan Hai Ching, which may result from its uncertainties in contents and few complete English version. In 1978, an episode translation was published by Hwa Kang Press, named The Legendary Creatures of the Shan Hai Ching, translated by John William Schiffeler into English, attaching the attention of the academic to its contribution to medicine and myth. In 1999 the American scholar Anne Birrell published her English cover-to-cover edition, The Classic of Mountains and Seas, with fully literal translation and vulgar Anglo-Saxon vocabularies. In 2010, Hunan Peoplersquo;s Publishing House published The Classic of Mountains and Seas, translated completely by Wang Hong, a senior professor in Soochow University and a bellwether in Chinese classic translation, who always complies with the basic principle of translation, “clarity, smoothness and conciseness”. Also, “there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand peoplersquo;s eyes.” People find it difficult in echoing one particular understanding of the Shan Hai Ching because of its discursive style.

According to China National Knowledge Internet, there are two journals mainly telling about the techniques of translating places, animals, minerals in Shan Hai Ching, both written by Zhang Jiaying (张佳颖), who holds the view that transliteration should be adopted together with annotation and scientific names. There are also two works by Cheng Liying, one journal and one paper related to the rough comparative study of two English versions by Anne Birrell and Zheng Xiaojie from the linguistic perspective. In her journal, she analyzed Anne Birrellrsquo;s translation from the perspective of microcosm and macroscopy , evaluating the gains and losses based on such theories as philosophical hermeneutics, skopos theory, communicative translation, and theories concerned foreignization and domestication. And two journals, one by Wanghong, one by Li Yingying introduce The Classic of Mountains and Seas published by Hunan Peoplersquo;s Publishing House in 2010. Another paper by LIu Shifang tells about a competitive study of three English versions of Shan Hai Ching by Anne Birrell, Zheng Xiaojie and Wang Hong on the basis of Lefeverersquo;s manipulation theory and its conclusions include the following three ideas: “firstly, translation is indeed rewriting; secondly, the process of translating is inevitably influenced by poetic, ideology and patronage of the target culture; at the same time, the individual poetics, ideology, the specific times the translators live in as well as the different translation purposes etc, all play a key role in the choices of translation strategies; thirdly, as far as the three translations of Shan Hai Ching are concerned, poetic and ideology play a more important role than patronage in the translation strategies when dealing with different images of culture-loaded words.”

1.2 Strengths and Weaknesses

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