Translating Chinese culture for Chinese readers

In such an increasingly globalised world, the prevalence of translingual practice has become more evident and the group of translingual writers ever more expanded. Against this backdrop, myriads of Chinese nationals and Chinese diaspora embark on a journey to narrate Chinese stories to the English or even foreign audiences by their non-native tongues. Amongst them, Dr. Lin Yutang, renowned for his debut novel Moment in Peking, is one of the earliest yet still influential examples. In that context, back translation of works as such becomes a prominent issue in translation studies. This paper investigates the back-translated version of Moment in Peking (Jinghua Yanyun) produced by Zhang Zhenyu. Through the lens of cultural translation theory, the paper intends to analyse how Zhang adopts the very strategies and techniques and renders Chinese cultural elements in a way acceptable to the Chinese audiences. Following Nida’s classifi ation of cultures, the paper divides specifi Chinese cultures contained in Moment in Peking into three categories: material cultural elements, social cultural elements and religious cultural elements. Within these three categories, selected are nineteen typical examples concerning tackling cultural nuances. All cases include the source text (ST), the target text (TT) and the machine translated text of TT (MT). ST is extracted from Lin’s translingual writing in Moment in Peking, TT from Zhang’s back translated version of Jinghua Yanyun, and MT from Google Translate version of TT. Accordingly, it is found that several strategies and techniques are adopted in Zhang’s back translation practice such as literal translation, free translation, transliteration, domestication, omission, amplification and substitution, while foreignisation is the only strategy left. Altogether, they help to convey the Chinese cultures contained in ST to the TT audiences, the Chinese people and demonstrate how Zhang manages to restore Chinese cultures in back translation in a flexible manner. The paper also sheds some light upon back translation of translingual writing texts in general and of texts related to Chinese culture in particular.

在日益全球化的今天，跨语际实践日益盛行，跨语际文学作家群体也日益壮 大。在此背景下，无数华人及海外华人开始用尝试用母语之外的语言，向英语国家 乃至全世界的读者讲述中国故事。其中，以其处女作《京华烟云》闻名的林语堂就 是最早进行跨语际写作的代表人物之一，其文化影响力至今仍不容小觑。在此背景 下，跨语际写作文本的回译成为翻译研究中一个突出的课题。本文以张振玉《京华 烟云》汉语回译本为研究对象，运用文化翻译理论，分析张振玉如何运用各种策 略和技巧，在中国读者能够接受的范畴内，实现中国文化元素的再现。根据奈达对 文化的分类，本文重点将《京华烟云》中富含的特定文化分为三类，即物质文化 元素、社会文化元素和宗教文化元素，并从中选取了19个涉及文化细微差异处理的 典型译例。译例包括源语文本、译入语文本和机器翻译文本，其中源语文本来自林 语堂对《京华烟云》原文的跨语际书写，译入语文本即张振玉《京华烟云》汉语 回译本，机器翻译文本则来自”谷歌翻译”对译入语文本的英译。研究发现，张振 玉在汉语回译实践中，运用了多种策略和技巧，包括直译、意译、音译、归化、省 略、增译和替代，且特意避免异化。此举不仅顺利将英语原文中所蕴含的中国文化 传递给译文受众—— ，也凸显了张氏通过灵活翻译，从而在回译中实现中国 文化还原的有益探索。此外，本文也有望为跨语际写作文本的回译，尤其是与中国 文化相关的文本回译提供些许借鉴。