Name Translation in Domestic Translation Studies

This article was originally published in China Translation, No.3, 2003, pp. 62-64.

Wang Jinbo * (School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200030

This paper points out the puzzles in China's translation studies with a large number of examples. This paper holds that the main reason for the confusion of translation names is that translation researchers are bent on their own way, ignoring translation principles and national translation standards, and ignoring textual research. To solve this problem fundamentally, translation researchers should cooperate with each other, abide by norms and maintain unity.

Keywords: translated name; National standards; Based on some examples, this paper points out the inconsistency in the translation of technical names in China's translation studies. It holds that translation researchers often translate proper nouns at will, and seldom consider recognized principles and national standards. In order to solve this problem, translation researchers should make joint efforts to translate according to national standards. Keywords: translation of proper nouns; National standards; consistent

I. Historical review

As early as the beginning of the 20th century, Chen Duxiu, a pioneer of the New Culture Movement in China, wrote an article on the translation of English names in New Youth (Volume 2, No.4, 19 16), classifying vowels, consonants and vowel consonant combinations in major western languages (English, French, German, Russian, etc.). ) and summarize their pronunciation. "Translating western nationality, Yu Fang surname and weights and measures makes people different. Naming things one by one will be endless. Nowadays, each one is monosyllabic and plans to use Chinese characters. I don't know what to say. ..... On the list, it's just a small outline. Hongda in China, if widely taught, will unify translation. Webster's method is one of the time-saving and labor-saving methods for non-scholars "(and Zhou Zuda,1990:1-17). Subsequently, He Bingsong and Cheng wrote an article "Discussion on the Translation of Foreign Proper Nouns into Chinese" in Oriental Magazine, Volume 23, No.23 1926, and studied the differences between transliteration and semantic translation (with the consent of translation, the author's note) and the similarities and differences between western phonetics. "Today, English, German and French are the most popular languages in China. Therefore, when translating the pronunciation of western proper nouns, the voice of Xi is the main one. Actually, I read German and French in English. Or read English and German in French. However, it is not only that; Someone who transliterates Slavic or Southern European or Northern European languages into English. Thousands of miles away, there are many errors. To correct the pronunciation of foreign proper nouns, we must first be familiar with the proper sound quality of each letter and the proper sound force of each syllable "(Zhang Qizhi, Zhou Zuda, 1990: 18-34).

Shortly after liberation, the translation room of Xinhua News Agency in People's Republic of China (PRC) compiled a number of foreign name translation manuals in different languages, such as English name translation manual, French name translation manual, German name translation manual, Russian name translation manual and Italian name translation manual.

In the mid-1980s, scientist Qian Sanqiang published articles in People's Daily and Science and Technology Daily respectively, pointing out the importance and urgency of unifying scientific and technological terms. "When encountering terms named after foreign natural scientists, we should transliterate the names of foreign scientists in Chinese characters according to the four principles of' following the names of masters',' being established by convention',' obeying the subject' and' respecting norms'. When the name of a foreign scientist appears in different disciplines, it should be coordinated to achieve unity. If there are foreign place names, they should be uniformly expressed according to the standardized place names formulated by the Geographical Names Committee of China "(Zhang Qizhi, Zhou Zuda, 1990: 8- 10).

1993 The Translation Room of Xinhua News Agency has compiled and published a large-scale comprehensive reference book, the World Dictionary of Personal Names Translation, which contains 650,000 entries, involving more than 100 countries and regions, providing great convenience for translators. The translation principle of this large-scale reference book is consistent with the monolingual name translation manuals of various singles: sound is the main thing, form is the auxiliary thing, and convention is the norm. For specific characters, we should first consider the affiliation of names and the continuity of historical translation, and then translate the same names.

To sum up, our predecessors have conducted in-depth research on the unification of translated names, and their far-sighted spirit of unification is amazing. Their exposition on the unification of translation names should not be ignored by future generations; The translation office of Xinhua News Agency has worked hard for more than 40 years, and the translation principles and national standards formulated in cooperation with people from all walks of life have universal applicability, which translation researchers should abide by and implement.

The author has carefully read the articles on translation theory published in domestic and foreign journals in recent years, and found that the translation of foreign translation theorists' names is quite confusing, lacking in standardization, and translation researchers have their own ways, ignoring translation principles and national standards, which is suspected of neglecting textual research. The author writes this article superficially, aiming at attracting more translation researchers to pay attention to the unification of translated names, thus promoting the development of translation studies. I hope that colleagues in the translation field will not hesitate to correct their mistakes.

Second, the case analysis

1. Andre Lefevere was born in Belgium. After teaching at the University of Antwerp for several years, he moved to the United States in 1984 and became a professor of Germanic Department at the University of Texas in Austin. /kloc-0 died suddenly of leukemia in 1996, and he was one of the main representatives of the cultural school of translation studies. He proposed patronage, poetics and ideology.

The official languages of Belgium are French and Flemish (strictly Dutch), while Andre Lefevere was born in Ghent, a Dutch-speaking area in Belgium. The Dutch name Lefevere is often pronounced as the French name Lefèvre, so the whole name can be translated with reference to French pronunciation. Refer to the Handbook of French Geographical Names Translation and the Dictionary of World Geographical Names Translation. André translated "Andre" and Lefèvre translated "Lefebvre". Refer to the Dutch pinyin translation table to understand the pronunciation of the suffix "R". So the author suggests translating it into: Andre Lefevere.

2. José Lambert, a professor at the Translation Research Center of Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, led a group of scholars to engage in literary translation research for more than 30 years. He is one of the representatives of descriptive translation studies, focusing on collecting cases and using systematic methods to study the constraints of target language norms on translation process.

José Lambert is a common French name, which should be translated according to French pronunciation. Consult the French name translation handbook and the world name translation dictionary, both of which can translate "José Lambel". José explains "José" in French and Portuguese, Lambert explains "Lambert" in English, "Lambert" in German, Spanish and Dutch, and "Lambel" in French (because the consonants at the end of words are often silent in French). So the translation name of this case should be: José Lambel.

3. Theo Hermans, a professor in the Department of Dutch and Comparative Literature at University College London, is a representative of the Manipulation School. He pays attention to the descriptive study of translated texts to determine the interactive relationship between translation and norms, and holds that "from the perspective of translated literature, translation is to manipulate the original text to some extent for a certain purpose" (Hermans, 1985: 1 1).

Theo Hermans has different translation names according to the pronunciation of different languages. Please refer to the World Dictionary of Geographical Names Translation, which is written in English by Theo Hermans, French by Theo ellman and Dutch by Theo Herrmann. Theo Hermans was born in Assent, a Dutch-speaking area in Belgium. His pronunciation is Dutch. Therefore, the translation should be Theo Herrmann.

4. Susan Basnet is currently the director of the Center for Translation and Comparative Culture Studies at the University of Warwick, and is one of the main representatives of the cultural school of translation studies. From 65438 to 0990, she and Andre Lefevere put forward the development direction of "cultural turn" in translation studies, which brought translation studies into a wider world.

Susan Basnet was born in England and went abroad when she was very young. Although her nouns originated from medieval French, she still pronounced them in English. From the English-Chinese transliteration table, /s/ translates "Si",/θ/translates "si"; In addition, "Basnight" and "Basnight" are far from the pronunciation of this name, so there is no merit. There is no such name in the English name translation manual or the world name translation dictionary, but there are similar names such as Bassnett's Bassnett and Basnight's Basnight. So we can't use "Basnight" to translate Basnight. According to rules of english pronunciation, ss and S are pronounced the same, so Bassnett and the English name Bassnett should be pronounced the same. According to the translation principle of simultaneous interpretation of the same name, the translation name of this example should be Susan Basnett.

5. Katarina Ray? He is one of the representatives of German translation science school. He advocates studying translation from the perspective of text typology. He believes that the main functions of texts are reproduction, expression and summoning, and advocates dividing translation principles and criticism standards according to the functions of texts.

Katarina ray? German, the name belongs to the common German name, and should be translated according to the German pronunciation. The letter combination th is always pronounced/t/in German; In addition, "Lin" is not a name for women, but "Lin" is a name for women. Looking up the German name translation handbook and the world name translation dictionary, they are all translated as "Katarina Rice", so the translation name should be: Katarina Rice.

6. Christiane Nord is one of the advocators of German functionalist translation theory. According to the function of translation, he divided translation into document translation and tool translation, and put forward the principle of faithfulness, which made up for the defects of Skopostheorie.

Christiane Nord is a German and should be translated according to German. There is no Christiane in German Name Translation Manual and World Name Translation Dictionary, but there are some similarities, such as Christiana cristiana, Christians Christiaans and Katharine Katharine. However, in German, the letter E at the end of a word usually emits a weak vowel/? /,refer to the German-Chinese transliteration table, translated as Christianne Nord.

7. Hans J Vermeer, one of the founders of Skopos Theory, believes that many problems in translation cannot be solved by linguistics alone. With the goal of pursuing equivalence with the original text, he got rid of the shackles of translation theory and put forward that translation is a purposeful behavior to meet the requirements of customers according to the entrustment of customers and the purpose of translation. In translation, the original text is not the standard to measure everything, being faithful to the original text is secondary, and achieving the purpose of translation is the most important.

Hans J Vermeer is German, so he should pronounce it in German. The letter V is pronounced with the consonant /f/ in German, and the letter combination eer is pronounced as /e:r/. Looking up the Dictionary of World Names Translation, we can see that Vermeer only translates Vermeer in English, but Vermeer in German. Therefore, the translation should be Hans J Vermeer.

8.Justa Holz-M？ ntt？ Ri is a Finnish German translator and translator (Nord, 200 1: 12). He has published several translation theory works in German, further developing Vermeer's Skopos Theory. It is believed that translation in the strict sense is just a kind of translation behavior (translator is cheshandeln/translation action/translation action), and the translator is an expert who crosses language and cultural barriers and is responsible for designing the appropriate information transmitter according to the requirements of the client.

Justa Holz-M？ ntt？ Ri is a native of Finland who speaks German (Nord, 200 1: 129). He was born in Germany, and later married a Finn with Holz as his surname, M? ntt？ Ri is the husband's surname, so his first name should be translated into German and Finnish respectively. Consult the world geographical names translation dictionary, m? ntt？ Ri is a Finnish surname, which is translated as "Manttari" in German, "Holtz" in German, "Justa" in German and "holz" in English. So the translation of this case should be: Justa Holtz-Manttari.

9. Mary snell hornby is a professor in the Department of Translation at the University of Vienna. She believes that translation studies are neither subordinate to linguistics nor comparative literature, but an independent discipline and an interdisciplinary category. Translation studies should adopt a holistic and comprehensive approach.

Mary snell hornby was born in England. Looking up the Manual of English Name Translation and the Dictionary of World Name Translation, we can see that snell-hornby's name has been translated into "snell-hornby" whether it is pronounced in English or German. Therefore, the translation should be Mary snell-hornby.

10. Edwin G?nc is currently the director of the Center for Translation Studies at amherst University in Massachusetts, and his masterpiece Contemporary Translation Theory is a classic of translation studies.

Edwin G?nc is a descendant of German-American immigrants, and his surname is still pronounced in German. German name translation manual and world name translation dictionary can't be found, but the German name Gentz is translated as "gnc", and the common name suffix -ler is translated as "le" in Germanic languages such as English, German, Dutch and Swedish. According to German pronunciation rules, Gentzler should be translated as "nc Le". Looking up the Manual of English Name Translation, we can see that Edwin translated Edwin, while love is only used in several conventional translations, such as Edward, Edison, Edinburgh and so on. So the translation of this example should be Edwin gnc Le.

1 1. walter benjamin is a German literary theorist. In his article "The Translator's Task" published in 1923, he pointed out that translation is the stage for them to continue the life of the original text, and the original text relies on translation to obtain an afterlife in another language and culture system, which gave birth to the embryonic form of deconstruction translation theory. This view breaks the traditional concept of the supremacy of the original text and provides a new perspective for people to re-examine the essence of translation.

Walter Benjamin is a German, which many translators fail to take fully into account. Consult the German name translation handbook and the world name translation dictionary, and the name is translated as "Walter Beniamin". Walter and Benjamin are both English interpreters. "Ya" is often used as a prefix in French translation. Looking through the German-Chinese transliteration table, we can see that "Ya" is rarely used in German translation, but "Ya" is the most commonly used. So the translation of this case should be: Walter Beniamin.

12. Venuti is one of the representatives of deconstruction translation theory. He found that there has always been a tendency to keep the language fluent in the British and American translation tradition. He called this translation strategy, which is aimed at adapting to the reading tastes of readers in the target culture, domestication. He pointed out that the purpose of domestication translation is to steal and occupy the original text, eliminate its exoticism and give the original text a cultural color of the target language. The culture in a strong position often adopts this method when translating the literary works of the weak culture, showing a kind of cultural hegemonism and ethnocentrism. He pointed out that in order to eliminate this inequality in cultural communication, translators should adopt foreignization translation strategies and maintain the foreign characteristics of the original to resist this cultural imperialism.

Venuti is an Italian-American, and his surname still follows the Italian pronunciation. Venuti, translated by Venuti, can be found in the world geographical names translation dictionary. So the translation should be lawrence venuti.

13.Itamar Even-Zohar is one of the representatives of Tel Aviv School in Israel. He proposed a pluralistic system to guide macro translation research. He believes that the literary and cultural status of a nation determines the position and role of translated literature in the literary pluralistic system. Translated literature may occupy the center, at this time it often breaks the convention of the country and makes innovations; May also be on the edge, this time will strengthen their own norms, tend to be conservative.

Itamar Even-Zohar is a common Latin transliteration of Hebrew names. Looking up the World Geographical Names Translation Dictionary, we can see that Zohar is an Israeli name, which has been translated into zuhair, while Itamar is translated into Itamar in English and Portuguese, and even must be pronounced in Latin, so the author suggests that it be translated into Itamar Evan-zuhair temporarily.

14. Gideon Toury is another representative of Tel Aviv School. He studied the translation of Hebrew literature on the basis of the multi-system theory, put forward a goal-oriented translation view, and emphasized the descriptive translation study of a large number of translations with empirical methods, so as to find out the norms that restrict various decisions in the translation process in the target culture. He believes that translation is subject to norms, and the norms of translation largely depend on the status of translation activities and translated products in the target culture.

Gideon Toury is the Latin transliteration of Hebrew name. /gid'on/ is pronounced as /GID' on/, while Toury is similar to the French name Toury, except that the stress falls on the first syllable. Gideon is similar to the English name Gideon in pronunciation. Looking up the World Geographical Names Translation Dictionary, we can see that its English translation is Gideon and Toury's French translation is Tuli. Therefore, the author suggests that it be tentatively named Gideon Toury.

15. Basil Hatim is a theorist in the field of text linguistics. He pays attention to the application of discourse analysis in translation, and thinks that translation is not only a simple interlingual conversion activity, but also a communicative process in a certain social situation. Only when the translator has bilingual ability and dual-cultural vision can he be a good mediator in cross-cultural communication.

Basil Hatim is English, so his name should be pronounced in English. "Hatim" has a nasal sound out of thin air, which is different from the original sound; "Hai Item" is not only far from the original sound, but also uses the uncommon word "te" which is not used at all in the English-Chinese Transliteration Table. Looking up the English Name Translation Manual and the World Name Translation Dictionary, we can see that Hatim is a variant of Hatem, so Hatim and Hatem have the same pronunciation. Since Hatem once translated "Alkhatim", according to the principle of simultaneous interpretation with the same name, the translation name should be basil hart.

In the case of 15 analyzed, several translations are difficult to determine, and the author's suggestions are for reference only. Here, we sincerely welcome experts, scholars and readers in the translation field to put forward better solutions.

Here, the author puts forward the following suggestions for the reference of experts and scholars in the translation field: (1) Translation researchers should develop a good habit of consulting reference books and cultivate their own standardization consciousness. Some place names that are difficult to solve at once are either attached to the original text or written without translation; (2) Scholars and translators engaged in translation teaching strictly require students to abide by translation standards and cultivate their rigorous style of study and translation ability; (3) Our publishing department clearly stipulates that the publication of manuscripts conforms to the national translation norms, and puts an end to irresponsible mistranslation and random translation; For new foreign names and place names that cannot be found in existing reference books, we can consider organizing experts to study and publish them in stages.

* All foreign names in this article refer to the World Dictionary of Geographical Names Translation compiled by the Translation Office of Xinhua News Agency, and all foreign names refer to the Handbook of Foreign Names Translation compiled by the Geographical Names Committee of China. At the same time, in the process of writing this article, the author consulted Edwin G?nc Le, Jose Lambert, Theo hermanns, Susan Basnet, Mary snell-hornby, Venuti and Itamarevin-Zohar on the translation of names. Gideon Toury and other related scholars gave me enthusiastic and detailed suggestions on the translation of translated names. Due to space constraints, I can't list their replies one by one. I would like to express my sincere thanks to them.

When the original text was published, our department deleted abstracts, keywords and all references, and now we add some documents to keep it complete. )

refer to

[1] Editor of the translation room of Xinhua News Agency. German name translation handbook [Z]. Beijing: Commercial Press, 1999.

[2] Xinhua News Agency Translation Room. Handbook of French name translation [Z]. Beijing: Commercial Press, 1996.

[3] Xinhua News Agency Translation Room. A dictionary of world names translation. Beijing: China Foreign Translation Publishing Company, 1993.

[4] Xinhua News Agency Translation Room. Handbook of English name translation [Z]. Beijing: Commercial Press, 1985.

[5] Zhang Qizhi and Zhou Zuda. On translation [C]. Xi 'an: Northwest University Press, 1990.

[6] Geographical Names Committee of China. Handbook of Translation of Foreign Geographical Names [Z] Beijing: Commercial Press, 1983.

[7] Hermans, Theo. Literary manipulation edited by ...: A study of literary translation [M]. London: krom Helm, 1985.

[8] Christiane Nord. Translation as a purposeful activity: an explanation of functional translation theory [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 200 1.