The Effects of Religious Culture on Translation30.doc

宗教文化对翻译的作用The Effects of Religious Culture on TranslationContentsAbstract 1Key words.1IIntroduction.1IIConceptions22.1 What is Culture.22.2 What is Religious Culture.32.3 What is Translation.3IIIRelationships.43.1 Relationship between Religions and Culture.43.2 Relationship between Religious Culture and Language.53.3 Relationship between Religious Culture and Translation .5IVHow does Religious Culture does Effects on Translation.7 4.1 Religions Influence Peoples Daylily Life, Custom, and Language.74.2 Different Worldviews between Chinese and Westerner.84.3 Misunderstanding and Wrong Translation Version.9 4.3.1 Cause of Mistranslating94.3.2 Misunderstanding.104.3.3 Cultural Blanks.11VOn skills of Translation115.1 Foreignizing, Alienation and Domesticating, Adaptation.115.2 The Translation of Chinese Enigmatic Folk Similes.135.3 Cultural Blanks and Buddha Language Translation135.3.1 Let Cultural Blanks Remain135.3.2 Pass over Cultural Blanks145.3.3 Explain the Cultural Blanks145.3.4 Use Peer-to-Peer Words to Fill the Cultural Blanks155.3.5 Add the Background of the Cultural Blanks15VIInteraction between Chinese and English.15VIIConclusions16References.16The Effects of Religious Culture on Translation摘要： 语言是人类社会特有的现象，它是承载各种信息的符号系统也是人们传达思想感情的交际工具。因此语言在其发展的历程中深深的烙印着社会生活的各个方面，反映和折射着某一社会独特的文化传统，这给跨文化翻译带来了一定的困难。本文以此为视角，着重探讨英语这一西方语言与基督教文化的内在联系和汉语与佛教的内在联系及这种联系在中西翻译中所起的作用及其解决这些问题的最佳方法。全文分五方面进行论述：1）宗教与语言及翻译的关系。2）从基督教文化延续来的习俗,格言,词汇等及其在英语中的反映。从佛教文化延续来的习俗,格言,词汇等及其在汉语中的反映。3)不同宗教影响下的中西观念比较。4）翻译中的误解,误译问题及翻译技巧。5)汉语与英语的相互影响。关键词：宗教文化 文化差异 跨文化翻译Abstract: Language is a unique feature of human society. It is not only as a semiotic system to store information, but also as a means for conveying ideas and feelings. Therefore, in its development, language has been deeply ingrained with traces of a particular society, reflecting unique culture heritage. This paper attempts, in this perspective, to explore the inherent connections between the English language and Christian culture and the Chinese language and Buddhism and the problems caused by these inherent connections in Chinese-English translation and English-Chinese translation, and the best way to solve these problems. The paper mainly fall into five parts: 1) Relationships between religions and language and religions and translation. 2) The influence religions do on peoples daily life, customs, and language. 3) Compare the worldviews of Chinese religions with the worldviews of Western religions. 4) Misunderstanding, wrong translation version and skills on ChineseEnglish translation. 5) The interaction between Chinese and English.Key words: religious culture culture differences cross-culture translation IIntroductionAs the development of economy, the development of science and technology, especially the wide use of Internet and other media, there are more and more communication with foreign countries especially with the European countries. Not only literary works has been translated into Chinese, but also lots of famous Chinese works have been translated into other languages. Translations couldnt exist without the languages culture background. Without culture background, language cannot exist and translation is fruitless effort. As we know “culture” is a wide conception almost containing everything, so it is difficult for me to describe each part and aspect of culture in this thesis. In my opinion, religious culture is one of the oldest and very important part of culture. And at the same time religious culture is also the part of culture people often forget but religious culture does produce a great effect on language and language translation. For two reasons, the first one is culture is a very wide range, and another is religious culture is the part of culture easily forgotten but very important, in my paper I just refer to the religious culture. So in this paper I will discuss The Effects of Religious Culture on Translation. IIConceptions2.1 What is CultureThere are many different definitions suggested for culture. Definitions of culture range from “it is everything” to narrower ones “it is opera, art, and ballet”. Hoebel and Frost, who see culture in nearly all human activities, defined culture as an "integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristic of the members of a society and which are not the result of biological in heritance."Everything that a person experienced is part of his or her culture including religion, food, dress, housing, toys, or books and so on.Bates and Plog defined culture as this:"Culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors and artifacts that the members of a society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are translated from generation to generation through learning.”This definition includes not only patterns of behavior but also patterns of thought (shared meanings that the members of a society attach to various phenomena, natural and intellectual, including religion and ideologies), artifacts (tools, pottery, houses, machines, works of art), and the culturally transmitted skills and techniques used to make the artifacts.In the book Communication between Cultural (Larry A · samovar, Richard E ·Porter and Lisa A · stefani) the authors of the book give out their definition of culture in chapter2. Part one: communication and culture as following:"The deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, actions, attitudes meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concept of the universe, and artifacts, acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group string."Culture is something common to a group of people but different to another group of people and being translated from generation to generation.2.2 What is Religious CultureAlthough until now there is not any definition of religious culture has been accepted by most of people, most of people consider religion is a kind of culture, and it is one of the oldest and most importance culture. From the above definitions about culture we define religious culture as: religious culture is the beliefs, values, customs, behaviors and artifacts that the members of a society who believe in the same religion accept and that are translated from generation to generation through learning. We can also say religious culture is a kind of culture that be of religious root. For example, Westerners take Christmas Day Jesus birthday as their most important festival. And their birth, marriage, and death have close relationship with church and these are all forms of religious culture. Although most Chinese always say they do not believe in any religion, we can find effect of religions in their daily life. On their marriage, they first do obeisance to “天”and“地”. And “天”and“地” are Conceptions in religion. We can also say these are religious culture.Lots of words, set phrases, idioms, allusions, slangs, colloquialisms, proverbs, sayings and enigmatic folk similes in modern English derive from the Bible and many Chinese words, set phrases, idioms, allusions, slangs, colloquialisms, proverbs, sayings and enigmatic folk similes are of Buddhism or Taoism origin.Religious cultures are in our daily life though we cannot realize it.2.3 What is TranslationTranslation has a long history both at home and abroad. In the West, literary translation can be traced back to 300BC, while in China, recorded translation activities are even earlier, dating from the Zhou Dynasty (1100 BC). But not until recently centuries, especially by the end of the 19th century that the study of translation was get underway. And in the past decades translation theories and activities have developed fast at home and abroad.Xu Jianping has given out the definition of translation in his book A Practical Course of English-Chinese and Chinese-English Translation.(Second Edition): "Translation is a rendering from one language into another language, i.e. the faithful representation in one language of what is written or said in another language.”Many people take translation as a tool of communication between peoples speaking different languages, some people believe it is a science and others consider it as an art."If the word translation refers to a subject, namely, the study of translation theory and skills, it is no doubt a science, just as any subject is, with its own rules and principles for translation to abide by; however, if it refers to some specific pieces of translation, then it is more like an art, with each piece manifesting its own charms and style by the creative work of translator; where as, if it refer to a process, in which something is translated, then we may regard it as a craft or skill. For unlike any branch of natural science, the process of translation has its peculiarity, and none of its rules and principles is universally applicable. Besides, it entails a lot practice-particular craftsmanship and skills are displayed by the touches of different translators."(Xu Jianping; 2003) Mr Hantown( prefers to divide the history of translation into three stages. The first stage is called experience doctrine phase. It referred to Yan Fu's"three-character guide”, which was first proposed in 1898,which would be mentioned, namely, the principles of"信.达.雅"(faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance).Qian Zhongshu's “sublimed adaptation” also stands for this phase. In the second stage, translations were taken as a study of a branch of learning. The most famous expert in this stage is Eugene A ·Nida. His theory dominated Chinese translation for a long time, about 20 years. The third stage of translation is the phase of culture study. In Mr Hantown's opinion the translation in China will go to a stage of "culture translation". Today Chinese translation contains more culture diatheses. IIIRelationships3.1 Relationship between Religions and CultureFrom the definitions of culture we can see a religion is one part of culture. Religions can change culture by changing peoples custom, view, and the way of thinking. The part of culture being changed by religions is religious culture. Religious culture is a special form of culture, mainly about national religion belief. Different religions make up different culture phenomena. Different religions stand for different cultures and societies, reflecting different cultures of different countries. We can see different cultures of Western and China are from different religious beliefs and values. While translating we should pay attention to the different expressions in the two languages caused by different religions, we must keep the religious style of language or there will be much joking.3.2 Relationship between Religious Culture and Language.Language is the container of culture; all humans culture should translate from generation to generation by language. At the same time, culture is the connotation of language. Language reflecting culture, both in English and Chinese there are many words, set phrases, idioms, allusions, slangs, colloquialisms, proverbs, sayings, and enigmatic folk similes rich in culture information, these languages always have some culture background including religious culture background.Westerners believe in Christianity, they believe in the creation of the world. They believe human history begins with the creation of God. In the beginning, God created the Heavens and Earth. And he created light, sky, plants, the sun, the moon, the stars, fish, birds, animals, man in six days and on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had done. So, in Western a week has seven days, and they called the seventh day Sabbath.In Western language, there are many set phrases originating from the Bible and Christianity. For example, to bow down in the house of Rimmon (向异教徒屈膝投降), a covenant of salt (不可背弃的盟约), gird up ones loins (准备行动), as poor as a church mouse (家徒四壁), bear ones cross(背负十字架), Judas kiss(死亡之吻), the last supper (最后的晚餐), the forbidden fruit (禁果), No coming to heaven with dry eyes(眼无泪水,难进天国), the way to heaven is by the weeping cross (忏悔受难,得升天堂).In Chinese, there also some set phrases from Buddhism and Taoism. For example, “不看僧面,看佛面”, “苦海无边,回头是岸”, “佛法无边”, “阎王要你三更死,哪得留你到五更”, “八仙过海,各显神通”, “丈二和尚摸不着头”, “放下屠刀,立地成佛”, “灵丹妙药”, “点石成金”, “狗咬吕洞宾,不识好人心”, “得道升天” and so on.Both in English and Chinese there are a lot of religious languages, and these languages have been used in daily life usually. To understand a language one should first understand the culture backgrounds these languages exist, here I just mainly focus on the religious culture. 3.3 Relationship between Religious Culture and Translation As we have known, religious culture and language have close relationship, and translation is to express information in one language to another language, so when we translate something we must have knowledge of religious culture both in source language and target language. Translation version without the knowledge about religious culture may cause a lot of misunderstanding and incorrect or wrong translation.First without religious culture knowledge, a translator cannot understand the languages culture meaning. Take the translation of the word “姻缘石” as an example, “姻缘石” are very famous in Hong Kong, the word is always translated into English as “ Lovers Rock”. If we translate “ Lovers Rock” back into Chinese it is “情人石”! In fact, “姻缘” is a word rich in Chinese color. In Buddhism “姻缘” is the destined marriage, Lovers Rock can not express the inner meaning of “姻缘”. So, in order to turn away the misunderstanding, the translation “Yinyuan (Lovers) Rock” is better.And some wrong translation is caused by religious culture disposition. For the effects done by Eastern religions, especially by Buddhism many Chinese translate "an after life" to"来世" or"来生".But"来世" or "来生"is the concept of "轮回" in Buddhism. Buddhism consider when a person died he could come back to world again by "投胎" while Western Christianity consider when a person's body is dead, his soul is still alive, it may go to Heaven, may wander about or go to Hell. So an afterlife is referring to the life of soul after the body was d