Compromise and Readaptation in Translation A Case Study of Chinese Civilization:A Sourcebook

Yang Liu

Northwest University,Shaanxi,China

Email:9364129@nwu.edu.cn

[Abstract] Patricia Buckley Ebrey enjoys reputation and fame in Chinese Tang and Song history.Patricia is a full professor of History and Chinese Studies at the University of Washington.She published around 18 books,covering all kind of socio-cultural aspects in Chinese ancient times.In Chinese Civilization:A Sourcebook,it mentioned economics,politics,arts,gender issues,foreign policies etc.by giving a multidimensional picture of Chinese culture.For the ancient Chinese documents and resources in the book,the compromise and readaptation strategy in translation is fully revealed.

[Keywords] Patricia;Chinese Civilization:A Sourcebook;Compromise and Adaptation

Introduction

Chinese Civilization:A Sourcebook was published in 1981 by Patricia Buckley Ebrey.The timeline is from the Classic Period to the People's Republic by discussing the Chinese ancient history,thoughts,politics,etc.Again,with supplemented another 39 chapters worked out for the original 61 chapter,the 100 chapters finally came into being.As Patricia wrote at the preface to the second edition the reason why the reader enjoys her book,it states"repeatedly the students and teachers like most about the book was its liveliness:the variety in the kinds of sources,the abundance of ones about ordinary life,the sprinkling of humor and glimpse of person life".(Ebrey,1993,p.17)

The book was successful and accounted for an excellent American textbook due to Patricia's sharp eyes on Chinese lifestyle and society with all aspects of scenarios.The contents includes the following 8 parts:the classical period,the Qin and Qing dynasties,the Era of Division and the Tang Dynasty,the Song and Yuan Dynasties,the Ming Dynasty,the Qing Dynasty,and the Early Twentieth Century,and the People's Republic.In each part,Patricia Ebrey chooses the peculiar and the most outstanding cases or characteristics as the concentrations to illustrate the history at that time.

Patricia Ebrey dedicated her academic research field on early period China,particularly Song Dynasty.Apart from studies aimed at other scholars of Chinese history,Patricia had regularly tried to write for broader audiences,especially university students.Her first effort was to compile a sourcebook of translations of Chinese texts.The resources edited in the book as Patricia thought would make lively reading in Chinese history classes.And she accomplished this goal.Patricia aimed to plow through Chinese history by enlightening the highlight for each period of ancient China.Patricia framed each period with several subtitles to name and selected to ancient documents to support her ideas.In her translated version,Patricia,as the translator,made appropriate compromise and compensation in the process of Chinese cultural transplantation to keep the distinctive Chinese native features and cultural connotations.

Translation in Chinese Civilization:A Sourcebook can essentially be regarded as a process in which Patricia endeavors to coordinate the conflicting elements between the source and target languages and cultures so as to provide a proper outlet for the messages contained in the Chinese text.In this sense,it can be said that her translated version can be taken as some kind of compromise effected by various conflicts and factors.The consideration of the readers in the translator's mind was the alternative way as the influence of the target language culture since Patricia wanted to meet certain needs and the expectations of the readers,to adapt to the target language or to consider the understandings of the readers.Naturally,Patricia compromised Chinese culture and picked up the smooth English to convey the cultural meaning.That is to say,domestication strategy was used by Patricia in the translation so as to compromise and reinterpretations.Consequently,Patricia in her book translated the ancient Chinese documents resort to compromise and readaptation.

Compromise and Compensation applied in the"Metal Bound Box Part"

As an American,Patricia translated Ancient Chinese documents as easy and understandable English for the benefit of English-speaker readers.Even so,for the Chinese culture-loaded words,she still retained the original Chinese flavor as much as possible through compensation strategy in her translation sometimes.Compensation in translation is a standard lexical transfer operation whereby those meanings of the ancient Chinese text,which are lost in the process of translation,are rendered in the English text in some other place or by some other means,such as paraphrase,annotation,and conceptual amplification.

Take"The Metal Bound Box"in classical period as an example,the following quotation is from the Book of Documents.It is a collection of purported speeches,pronouncements,and arguments of the early kings and their advisers.The translation below is very readable and the visibility of the translator is obscured.

Two years after he had conquered the Shang Dynasty,King Wu became ill and grew despondent.The two ducal councillors advised making a reverent divination on behalf of the king.However,the Duke of Zhou said,"We must not upset our royal ancestors." The duke then took the burden upon himself.He constructed three altars on a single lot of cleared ground.Then he constructed another altar to the south,facing north.Standing there,he arranged the jade disc and grasped the jade baton.Then he addressed his ancestors,King Tai,King Ji,and King Wen.The scribe recorded his prayer.It read,"Your principal descendant,whose name I dare not utter,has contracted a terrible and cruel illness.Heaven has made you three kings responsible for your distinguished son.Take me as a substitute for the king.I was kind and obedient to my father.I have many talents and skills,and can serve the ghosts and spirits.Your principal descendant is not as talented or skilled as I,nor can he serve the ghosts and spirits as well.Furthermore,he was given a mandate by the imperial ancestor to lend assistance to the four quarters that he might firmly establish your sons and grandsons here on the earth below.There are no people from the four quarters who do not stand in awe of him.Alas!Do not let the precious mandate which Heaven has conferred on him fail.With him,our royal ancestors will always have a refuge.I now seek a decree from the great tortoise.If you grant my request,I shall take the jade disc and baton and return to await your decree."(Ebrey,1993,p.191)

He divined with three tortoises,and they all indicated good fortune.He then opened the lock and looked at the writing;it too indicated good fortune.The duke said,"The configuration shows that the king will not suffer harm,and that I,the small child,have obtained a renewed mandate from the three kings.It is the long range that must be considered,and so I await my fate.They will take care of our king."The duke returned and put the scribe's record in a metal bound box.By the next day the king had improved.(Ebrey,1993,p.193)

The above quotation is just the former part of the Metal Bound Box.It showed the fact that the cult of the ancestors and the practice of divination as a means of learning the wishes of the ancestors remained important in the early Zhou period.The councilor in the story concerned the Duke Of Zhou,brother of the founder of the Zhou dynasty,King WU.When King Wu died,his son,King Cheng,was still a child.while King WU is still alive,shows the duke's assumptions about the needs,desires,and powers of ancestors.

Patricia runs the translated version smooth and ease.Resort to the original Chinese version,Patricia directly starts the story without the initial Chinese title."弗"in Chinese phrase"弗豫"functions the negation in sense while it is translated as grew despondent."公"is compromised as ducal councilor.Ducal,the highest hereditary,designate councilor which represents the royal imperial person managing the affair of the country."公乃自以為功"is translated as"The duke then took the burden upon himself"at the cost of direct translation."璧"and"珪"are translated as jade disc and baton consorting their implication since there are no exact equivalence for these Chinese-culture loaded words.The word"scribe"means the written documents or lines on the divination and its translation lost the original Chinese flavor."He was given a mandate by the imperial ancestor to lend assistance to the four quarters"vividly reveal the mandate power in the western imperial power which show the son of heaven control the worldly affairs.It compromised to the western ideology with the compensation of transliteration."啟籥見書" is translated as "opened the lock and looked at the writing"which compromised to the meaning by losing the deep original Chinese ancient elements."The configuration shows that the king will not suffer harm"is the translation for"王其罔害"."Configuration" can be understood as the written content or divination result on three tortoise shells.It vividly reflects the patterns or the shapes of the divination lines on the shell.The choosing of the English words in the translation aims to the target language smoothness.

The Chinese culture-loaded words,are the most enduring substance of the Chinese culture reflections in words.It doesn't have an exact equivalent in English due to non-semantic equivalence.So what the translator pursues is to seek"nearest equivalents to express the distinctive elements in Chinese culture yet it is both an obligation and necessity for the translator to convey as many specialties as possible to the target readers.Sometimes,foreignization takes precedence over domestication to import the original culture and de-dominate the language hegemony.Anyway,Patricia applied the domestication strategy such as transference,transliteration and compensation.The original Chinese title"金藤"（jin teng)is paraphrased as"the metal bound box"for compensation and"三壇同墠""santantongshan"is explained as three altars on a single lot of cleared ground."管叔"is transliterated as Guan Shu,along with his younger brothers added with Chinese kinship background.

Readaptation in the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Medicine

In the translation of the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Medicine,Patricia Ebrey drew aside the curtains of linguistic and cultural differences in the English translated version so that the target reader could see clearly the relevance of the original message.

Her style was very similar to Veith Ilza for their purpose is to let westerners know the very foundational classic medical work of Chinese medicine.While Chinese translation Li Zhaoguo also provided another bilingual works with the foreinization strategy.Zhaoguo,erudite in Chinese medicine theory,tried to retain as much as the essence and flavor of the Yellow Emperor's classic of medicine by functioning English well.Throughout the whole conversations between Yellow Emperor and Qibo,there is no annotations and explanations in the context of Patricia's translated version,as which makes the content more readable and fluent.

For the particular Chinese culture loaded words,Patricia Ebrey chose to use domestication translation method to rewrite Chinese medicine theory.Four seasons and five elements,delivered 四時五行(Sishiwuxing) in Chinese and five viscera expressed 五臟（Wuzang) in meaning.When joy and anger are without moderation,then cold and heat exceed all measure,and life is no longer secure.The four-words parallelism in Chinese like"喜怒不節，寒暑過度，生乃不固",were beautifully rewritten in English.The format of original four character Chinese words was ignored and translated as a compound English sentences.腠(Cou) means the lines of the skin while in medicine it is an important pore to exchange energy.腹滿(Fuman)is translated as constipation fully expressing its meaning."數栗而寒"(Shulierhan)is translated as"they tremble and feel chilly"without exactly conveying the progressive tone;"七損八益"is expressed as"seven injuries and the eight advantages".Prowess was metaphorized as"Qi"and nine orifices expressed as"Jiuqiao".So when the prowess deteriorated,nine orifices no longer benefit each other".

The slang"以我知彼，以表知里"goes like"By observing myself I learn about others,and their diseases become apparent to me.By observing the external symptoms,I gather knowledge about the internal diseases."The Chinese slang lexically is concise and brief and the correspondent translated English one is more paraphrased.

The one conversation between Huangdi and Qibo is very representative in terms of paraphrases.The Yellow Emperor asked,Can anything be done to harmonize and adjust these two principles of nature?Qi Bo answered:If one has the ability to know the seven injuries and the eight advantages,one can bring the two principles into harmony.If one does not know how to use this knowledge,his life will be doomed to early decay.By the age of forty the Yin force in the body has been reduced to one-half of its natural vigor,and an individual's youthful prowess has deteriorated.By the age of fifty the body has grown heavy.The ears no longer hear well.The eyes no longer see clearly.By the age of sixty the life producing power of Yin has declined to a very low level.Impotence sets in.The nine orifices no longer benefit each other.Those who seek wisdom beyond the natural limits will retain good hearing and clear vision.Their bodies will remain light and strong.Although they grow old in years,they will stay able bodied and vigorous and be capable of governing to great advantage.For this reason the ancient sages did not rush into the affairs of the world.In their pleasures and joys they were dignified and tranquil.They did what they thought best and did not bend their will or ambition to the achievement of empty ends.Thus their allotted span of life was without limit,like that of Heaven and earth.This is the way the ancient sages controlled and conducted themselves.(Ebrey,1993,p.196)

"下虛上實,涕淚俱出矣.知之則強,不知則老"is omitted in the English translation due to the unknown reason.The translator marked this part by ellipsis."Xia"is down below and"up"is above high,which are the two metaphysical in ancient Chinese medicine pulse with with "xu" and "shi".Generally these two sentences refer to the decayed process when people are getting older accompanied by the loose lower part and full upper part of one's body.People know the rule and adjust to it will get stronger otherwise not.In a nutshell,the discourse between Huangdi and his ministers contains a wealth of knowledge,such as physiology,etiology,therapy and diagnosis helping people to prevent of disease with the investigation of the diverse universe and natural law.Patricia's elucidations and interpretations incorporated into the translation in The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Medicine make the version highly readable as well as curious for the readers to know about the underlying rule of law of Chinese medicine.

Conclusion

From the overall translation strategy,Patricia Ebrey tries to leave the English reader in peace as much as possible and bring the author back home.Compromise retains the fluency and naturalness of expression in translation as it is immediately recognizable and intelligible,Patricia used familiarized language than foreign,non-disconcerting and obstructed writings by producing a target text that seemed natural and appropriate to the target language and culture while sticking to the essence of the source text.

Adaptation in Patricia's translation altered,deleted or even added to the unnecessary text by reinventing to help the reader to better understand the text and its content.Chinese Civilization:A Sourcebook is not enough to work out how best to render the words of the source text;rather,it is much more important to extract what the words mean in a particular situation according to Chinese cultural context.Adaptation is in fact the least literal or the most free type of translation.Patricia abandoned the strict Chinese linguistic form and rather concerns with the cultural when a re-creation is needed to convey the same effect attached to another culture where a same word is missing in the target language.Interpretation,omission,conversion and etc as forms of intersemiotic translation helped the translator adapt to the flavor of the original Chinese.

Generally,Patricia tried to negotiate between source and target language and oriented to the reader with an optimal relevance.A sourcebook:Chinese Civilization,throughout 1088 pages,not a single annotation and footnote inserted in the whole book.For the special Chinese culture-loaded terms,most translations explained in views of explanation in the context while Patricia ignore the culture loaded terms in middle of the writing,instead she created appendix to expound at the back of the book.Wuhang was translated as"five agent"with further explanation"A component of Chinese cosmological correlative thinking developed during the late classical period.The Five Agents are wood,fire,earth,metal,and water.They are in constant interaction,overtaking and suppressing each other in a fixed progression.Illness,the change of seasons,the change of weather,and even the change of dynasties were explained in terms of these agents.(Ebrey 1993,p.1093)

With reference to the paralleled version,it is translated in the following way:Wǔ (五) means five.Xíng (行) of Wuxing means moving;a planet is called a'moving star'(行星)in Chinese used to describe interactions and relationships between things and phenomena.The five elements — wood,fire,earth,metal,and water —are believed to be the fundamental elements of everything in the universe between which interactions occur.It's part of a series on Daoism.Chinese Pinyin is used here to respectively explained"wu"and"xíng"which basically meaningless to the Americans since pronunciation do not make any sense.Another term "Daoism" is applied to the translation made understanding more complicated because of the ignorance of the term for the foreigners.

Thus,Patricia Aubrey in"Chinese Civilization A Sourcebook" re-adapted to the Chinese culture and writing in the translation.Compromise was a very necessary strategy for the translation easiness and smoothness while compensation was a supplementary tool to convey the original culture flavor to the target reader as much as possible.