Discussion+about+Peter+Newmark’s+ST+and+CT--based+on+translation+of+The+Return+of+the+Native

1The proposal of semantic translation and communicative translation

Translating is a communicative activity between different languages, communities and cultures.The essence is to express the information encoded in one language into another language.Some scholars believe that translation should represent source text,and fully express the exact content of the original text,without any change or determent,addition or deletion.This reveals the focus of loyalty in traditional translation theories.From the widely acknowledged criterion of“faithfulness,ex-pressiveness and elegance”of Yan Fu(1898),to“keep the style of the original text”(鲁迅,2006，translated by the author)of Lu Xun,to“the loyalty of translated text to the original”(“忠实于原文”，林语堂，1932, translated by the author)of Lin Yutang,and“the three principles”of Tytler,translators hold the belief that translation should be ideal and totally transparent.They believe that translation can truthfully express the author’s intentions,including the ideas,the manner and the style. However,this can just be a direction for efforts,because it is beyond reach like a Utopian world.Thus we can conclude that the traditional criteria have neglected the active and creative role of“represence”and “equivalence”,and have fallen short of the requirements in the real process of translation practice and misled the practice to a certain degree.

As translation strategies develop,Peter Newmark(1981,1988)put forward the notion of semantic translation and communicative translation, a well-acknowledged translations theorist and practitioner in the UK.He believes in the equality between languages and translatability across different languages.Based on Buhler’s theories of language functions, he divides all texts into three types:expressive,informative and vocative.

The two translation strategies originate form the old distinction between‘free’and‘literal’translations,respectively.Therefore, communicative translation aims to produce the same effect on the target readers as is produces by the original on the source language readers. While，semantic translation attempts,within the bare syntactic and semantic constraints of the target language,to produce the precise contextual meaning of the author.

According to Buhler and Peter Newmark,serious literature aims to arouse the feelings of readers and urge them to think about lives.A Literature text can produce a particular aesthetic or poetic effect on its readers.This could be referred to as the specific value of its own which affects the interaction between the writer and the intended readers.The balance between function and effect is very delicate in cross-culture communication,since it is based on risky suppositions.In spite of this, literary translations are traditionally expected to begin from the concept of‘equivalence’.In literary translation,the translator is expected to translate not only the message of the source text but also the specific way the message is expressed in the source language.This would ideally establish equivalence between the source and the target texts with regard to text function and text effect.An ideal translation would then have the same function and effect as the source text.The translation should re-produce the literary structure of the original,informing the target readers about the genre,artistic value and linguistic beauty of the original. Therefore,Newmark suggests an adoption of the semantic translation strategy.

2About the translation requirements on The Return of the Native

The translation of this novel is part of the project which attempts to establish a parallel corpus for the beginners to follow sentence by sen-tence.Because of that,the translator is expected to keep as closely as possible to the original meaning of the author.Based on this,plus Newmark’s division of text types,it seems that the translator should adhere to semantic translation strategy all through the process.However, there is no clear cutline between semantic translation and communicative translation.It is difficult to discriminate one from the other.Besides, there is also a need for the translator to pay special attention not only to the message of the text but also the way the message is conveyed,the rhetoric effect of the source text.In the following part,I will talk at length about the choices in the translation process of this novel.

3Case studies

①-Perhaps she’s your wife?

-She is my wife!(Thomas Hardy,1982)

A simple and nearly automatic translation of the sentence would rather be“她是我的妻子！”,which is also a good exploration of the semantic translation,as it seems to be the most closest translation. However,this utterance is the reddleman’s reply to Captain Vye’s requiring whether the woman in the cart is the reddleman’s wife.Ac-tually,the lady lying in is one who the reddleman loves but who declines to marry the reddleman.“她是我的妻子！”may sound like a claim and convey the meaning that the she is his wife.If we take the rhetoric effect into consideration,we might choose to adopt the communicative translation strategy and render it into“她怎么会是我的妻子！”This version will be more loyal to the author’s intention and more effective in conveying the reddleman’s regret for not being able to marry who he loves and the heartache that he has to witness his mistress’bitterness.

②-that what'-so-e'er'the queen'shall say',no harm'there-of'may be'."(Thomas Hardy,1982)

This is part of a song that Grandfer Cantle sings.A translation goes like this:不管王后说什么，都不要有伤害。There is no syntactic or

Discussion about Peter Newmark’s ST and CT

——based on translation of The Return of the Native

寇英

Abstract：The criterion of translation is one of the core problems in translation theories,and is also the basis for translation practice and critics to go forward.This paper discusses the use of semantic translation and Communicative translation in practice,especially in the translation of classical literature for parallel corpora.

Key words：Semantic translation;Communicative translation;Peter newmark

中图分类号：H315.9文献标识码：C DOI：10.3969/j.issn.1672-8181.2013.07.083

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经过认真准备及实验，学生在老师的指导下终于拿到了实验数据，大多数学生对实验数据的处理觉得很烦，知道了实验结果，对数据的处理就草草了事。我们的大学物理实验课程所选的实例均为原理和实验过程都比较公认的，其作用就在于锻炼学生动手实验以及分析数据的能力。锻炼的过程至关重要，任何物理规律都埋藏在这些简单的数据中，只有对数据有充分的认识，并利用误差理论，才可能还原物理真相。老师在上课时，要对学生强调对实验数据重要性的认识，对出现的可能疑为“粗差”的实验数据，一定要认真分析数据产生的条件，不能简单“剔除”，如果确定这些数据的确是人为因素造成的“错误”数据，那么可以“剔除”，否则，虽然这些数据与预想中的结果不太一致，但可能隐含另外的物理规律，需要我们去发现。5结论

大学物理实验是理工科大学生进入大学的一门基础学科，是培养学生动手能力、分析数据能力以及实验设计能力的必备基础。学好这门课程，将会对学生日后发现问题、解决问题提供极大的帮助。教师在进行教学时，首先要使学生对大学物理实验的重要性有一个清楚的认识，然后要注意培养学生对物理实验的兴趣，从中培养学生的创新能力，独立自主地发现问题、分析问题的能力。参考文献：

[1]石明吉,张定群.大学物理实验教学中存在的问题及应对策略[J].南阳师范学院学报,2011,,(9):97-101.

[2]张佳慧.浅析在大学物理实验教学中应注意的问题[J].科技文汇,2008,(10):173.

[3]孟建英,郭红兵.大学物理实验教学中存在的问题及解决建议[J].科技创新导报,2012,(30):185.

[4]贾芸.浅析如何提高大学物理实验教学效果[J].科技创新导报,2012,(29):179.

[5]李柱峰.大学物理实验[M].北京:机械工业出版社,2012:38-40.作者简介：代福（1977-），男，汉族，四川安岳人，工学博士，工程师，从事大学物理教学及研究工作，五邑大学应用物理与材料学院，广东江门529020

semantic change in the translation.But I would not take it as an ac-ceptable translation because the force of this sentence is not fully conveyed.When the noun‘harm’is replaced by its Chinese noun equivalent,the force is reduced.However,if when render the noun into a verb phrase like “不管王后说什么，都不要伤害她。”，the eagerness to protect the queen will be more obvious.

③but I think it ghostly enough ——what I was told.(Thomas Hardy,1982)

我只是觉得自己听来的那些话儿够吓人的。/但我认为那够吓人的-那些我听来的话。

This is a conversation between Kristian and Fairway.Kristian was born in a moonless night.According to the old saying of “no moon,no man,”he was expected to be coward and womanish,and actually he was.This utterance is seated in that part when he and Fairway talks about ghost.This sentence in discussion is Fairway’s reply about whether he believes in ghost.We may have noticed that there is a dash in com-plement of the object ‘it’in the first half of the sentence.Followed by is two versions of translation:one is a natural communicative translation product and the other a as-close-as-possible translation of the original.As I have mentioned that the clause after the dash is just a complement,therefore,it does not need to be foregrounded as the semantic translation strategy does.I believe that most of the readers would agree with me on this point because the speaker does not intend to focus on what he thinks to be ghostly enough.That is what shared knowledge that the two are obviously clear.

④And her face was pale.(Thomas Hardy,1982)This is a statement about Mrs.Yeobright’s facial expressions when she banns the marriage between her niece Miss Thomasin and Wildeve.She was so angry with it that her face turned white.Someone has sug-gested to translate it through semantic approach into “她的脸是苍白的。”However,we should be clear that her face was not originally white,but become white because of anger.Therefore,the process should be made salient through translation.The simple presentation of the color on her face would lead the readers up the garden path to take for granted that Mrs.Yeobright’s pale face may have nothing to do with this marriage.In

order to foreground the reason and process for the change of color,we can

translate this sentence through a communicative approach and render it into “她的脸真是一个苍白啊！”4Conclusion

Through the discussion on translation of the segments in Hardy’s literary work of The Return of the Native above,we are clearer about the disadvantages of semantic translation:its failure to articulate the force of the text in some cases.Peter Newmark is right in claiming that the se-mantic translation strategy is more effective in the rendering of serious literature in some other aspects,for example:it is more truthful to the author’s intentions,better maintains the local flavor,and helps to keep the distinctive feature of the original author etc.I believe,despite of these advantages listed above,he is not suggesting that the translators cling to this strategy in the translation of whatever serious literature regardless of the effect and meaning.There are cases where the author’s intention could lose sense and meaning when it is translated semantically as much as possible.Therefore,I would suggest that the translator focus more attention on the contextual meaning of the text and at the same time,do the utmost to convey the communicative function through a combination of semantic and communicative translation.

参考文献：

[1]Newmark,P.A Textbook of Translation [M].New York:Prentic Hall,1988.

[2]Newmark,p.Approaches to Translation [M].Oxford:Pergamon Press,1981.

[3]Thomas Hardy.The Return of the Native [M].Random House,1982.

[4]林语堂.语言学论丛[M].北京:开明出版社,1932.

[5]鲁迅.且介亭杂文二集[M].北京:人民文学出版社,2006.[6]王栻.严复集[M].北京:中华书局,1898.

作者简介：寇英（1986-），女，汉族，陕西渭南人，硕士，长安大学外国语学院助教，主要研究方向为模糊语言学、评价语言及翻译理论与实践，陕西西安710064

Discussion about Peter Newmark’s ST and CT--based on

translation of The Return of the Native

作者：寇英

作者单位：长安大学外国语学院,陕西西安 710064

刊名：

时代教育

英文刊名：Time Education

年，卷(期)：2013(7)

参考文献(6条)

1.Newmark P A Textbook of Translation 1988

2.Newmark p Approaches to Translation 1981

3.Thomas Hardy The Return of the Native 1982

4.林语堂语言学论丛 1932

5.鲁迅且介亭杂文二集 2006

6.王栻严复集 1898

引用本文格式：寇英Discussion about Peter Newmark’s ST and CT--based on translation of The Return of the Native[期刊论文]-时代教育 2013(7)