With the rapid development of cultural exchanges, more and more Chinese literature works are highly praised to be translated into foreign language. As an important component of Chinese classical poetry and prose, Chinese reduplicated words draw a great deal of attention of linguistics. However, there are so many differences between Chinese and the West that it is hard to translate Chinese reduplicated words into English effectively and properly. English versions can hardly realize the original formal effect of the reduplication in Chinese. The public usually accept the version which is coincident with their cultural background and custom. In order to cater to their attitude to the quality of translation, a translator should try to express the nature of translation- faithfulness and beauty. Consequently, to reproduce the unique charm and beauty of reduplicated words, the author of this paper intends to comparatively further study the translation of Chinese reduplicated words from the perspective of aesthetics.
Chinese reduplicated words combine the beauty of phonology, form and artistic conception. According to Webster’s New World Dictionary Third College Edition (Neufeldt, 1988: 87), “Aesthetics is the study of theories of beauty and of the psychological responses to it; especially the branch of philosophy dealing with art, its creative sources, its forms and its effects.” It is a firm basis of the reflection of such triple beauty and Chinese distinctive cultural character.
The first chapter is a brief introduction to Chinese reduplicated words and the definition of aesthetics. The author believes that translation aesthetics is a comparatively effective way to express the unique beauty of Chinese reduplicated words. The second chapter provides a brief introduction to translation aesthetics. It is analyzed into aesthetic subjects and aesthetic objects. On the basis of Fu Zhongxuan’s theory, there are three aesthetic subjects: the translator, the editor and the reader, and aesthetic objects refer to both the original text and the translated version. In addition, the author ventures to point out that the nature of translation is first being faithful and then beautiful, which is also the nature of translation aesthetics. The third and the fourth chapters respectively analyze Chinese reduplicated words from the perspective of aesthetic subjects and aesthetic objects. In view of her own understanding of translation aesthetics, the author doesn’t discuss the editor at length in this chapter. Under the three principles of the translation, the fifth chapter makes the discussion focusing on the translating methods with a combination of concrete examples and analyzes the limitations existing in the translation of Chinese reduplicated words. The last part is a systematic conclusion of the whole paper.
2 A Brief Introduction of Translation Aesthetics
The beginning of the study of aesthetics could be traced back to the 18th century. A great German Enlightenment ideologist, philosopher and aesthetician named Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten first introduced a new subject Aesthetics in his book titled as Aesthetica (see 杨,2007: 5).
The main idea of translation aesthetics theory is that translation is not simply a transformation of language, but a transformation of ideas, contents and expressional modes. The task of translation aesthetics is to analyze, explain and solve aesthetic problems in this transformation with the help of basic principles of modern aesthetics.
2.1 Aesthetic Subjects
In literary translation, there are three aesthetic subjects: the translator, the editor and the reader. The translator is the aesthetic subject of the original text, the editor, of both the original text and the translation, and the reader, of the translation. Among these three subjects, the translator obviously plays the major role. (傅, 1993: 118)
2.1.1 The Translator
The process of translation is firstly that of translator accepting the original information. The translator actively accepts the information with his own aesthetic sense. In aesthetic activity of the translation, translator’s aesthetic sense plays an extremely important role. The aesthetic sense completely and emotionally reflects reality through greatly essential definition in reality and perceptual particularity (傅, 1989: 68). Translator’s aesthetic taste of the original depends on the level of his aesthetic sense which is decided by inpidual talent and ability. 英文论文汉语叠词的英译(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_3315.html