摘 要

《甄嬛传》自开播起便火爆荧屏，风靡亚洲，获奖无数。该剧于2015年引进美国，登录美国最大视频点播公司美国奈飞公司（Netflix）网站播出，并收获评价均分3.8的成绩（5分制）。

《甄嬛传》引进美国的消息一经发布便引起广泛关注，其中剧中的经典台词如何翻译，中国元素如何处理成为人们的焦点之一。《甄嬛传》是极具中国色彩的典型宫廷剧，其中有大量的中国元素，包括：人名，地名，称谓，诗歌等。如何翻译及处理好这些典型中国元素是《美版甄嬛传》取得成功的关键。

本文主要分成五个部分，第一部分简介美版《甄嬛传》的主要情节，剧中的中国元素以及翻译理论和要求；第二部分介绍《甄嬛传》中国元素之人名地名的翻译；第三部分介绍中国元素之称谓语的翻译；第四部分介绍中国元素之诗歌翻译；最后一部分进行总结，探究英语观众能否理解、领悟中国元素的翻译，达到相同的情感体验。

关键词：美版《甄嬛传》； 中国元素； 翻译； 情感体验

Abstract

The Legend of Zhenhuan became a massive hit in China and Asia and received numerous awards. The Legend of Zhenhuan was introduced to the US in 2015 and broadcast in Netflix which is the biggest video-on-demand company in America. The average score about the Legend of Zhenhuan is 3.8 (Five Mark Scoring).

People pay much attention to the English edition of the Legend of Zhenhuan, especially its translation of Chinese elements. The Legend of Zhenhuan is one of the classic court plays with great Chinese colors. It contains a great number of Chinese elements, such as personal names, place names, titles as well as poems. How to deal with and translate these classic Chinese elements is the key to the success of the English edition of the Legend of Zhenhuan.

This paper will be divided into five parts. In the first part, the paper will introduce the main plots and Chinese elements in the Legend of Zhenhuan as well as general theories and requirements of translation. In the second part, the paper will focus on translation of names of people and places in the Legend of Zhenhuan. In the third part, the paper will mention translation of titles in the Legend of Zhenhuan. In the fourth part, the paper will introduce translation of poems in the Legend of Zhenhuan. In the last part, the paper will give a conclusion and study whether English audiences can understand and accept these translation of Chinese elements and have the same emotional experience with Chinese audiences.

Key words: the Legend of Zhenhuan; Chinese elements; translation; emotional experience

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 The main plot of the Legend of Zhenhuan 1

1.2 Chinese Elements in the legend of Zhenhuan 3

1.3 General theories and requirements of translation 4

2 Translation of names of people and places in the legend of Zhenhuan 5

2.1 Strategies for the translation of names of people and places 5

2.2 Romanization according to Thomas Francis Wade and Wade-Giles 6

2.3 On the translation of names of people andplaces in A Dream in Red Mansions 6

3 Translation of titles in the Legend of Zhenhuan 8

3.1 Hans Vermeer and Skopos Theory 8

3.2 Titles in the Legend of Zhenhuan 9

3.3 Comparison with the titles in British Royalty 9

4 Translation of poetry in the Legend of Zhenhuan 11

4.1 Xu Yuanchong and translation theory of classical poems 11

4.2 Poems in the Legend of Zhenhuan 12

4.3 Strategies for the translation of poetry 12

5 Conclusion 14

References 16

Acknowledgements 18

On the Translation of Chinese Elements in the Legend of Zhenhuan

(English Edition)

1 Introduction

1.1 The main plot of the Legend of Zhenhuan

The Legend of Zhenhuan mainly narrates the legendary life of Zhenhuan; a pure girl who was not familiar with the ways of the world gradually became a palace woman who was good at using power after experiencing a sea of affairs of life. There are three main characters in the Legend of Zhenhuan, namely, Zhenhuan, Aisin Gioro Yinzhen (the emperor Yongzheng), and Aisin Gioro Yunli.

In the first year of Yongzheng Dynasty, in order to fill the Imperial Harem and choose more beautiful young girls to give birth, the empress dowager held an audition. A number of girls attended this audition, including Zhenhuan, Shen Meizhuang and An lingrong. Zhenhuan was seventeen years old at that time and her dream was to capture the heart of her fated lover and cling together till their hair turns gray(Yu,2007). Zhenhuan knew the emperor couldn’t be her fated lover because an emperor would have a lot of women, therefore she wished she could be passed over. However, the emperor Yongzheng selected her at the first sight for her wisdom, integrity as well as appearance. Shen Meizhuang and An Lingrong were also selected and they three became good friends.

Zhenhuan was a pure girl when she first entered into the Forbidden City and she enjoyed a romantic time with the emperor Yongzheng. The emperor Yongzheng was nice to Zhenhuan and granted her a rich reward. They played chess, wrote poems and drew paintings together. At that time, Zhenhuan thought Yongzheng loved her and was her fated lover. Consort Hua was one of the emperor’s favored imperial concubines. She was a beautiful but aggressive and arrogant woman. She pressed hard against Zhenhuan step by step and made a false charge against Shen Meizhuang. At the same time, An Lingrong, one of Zhenhuan’s best friends, turned her coat and did harmful things to Zhenhuan. As a result of this, Zhenhuan gradually developed into a shrewd female in imperial harem from a naive girl. The emperor found Nian Gengyao’s wild ambition and commanded Zhenhuan’s father to wipe out Nian Gengyao and members of his cliques. As Nian Gengyao was Consort Hua’s elder brother, Zhenhuan finally defeated Consort Hua. Good things did not last long, however, Zhenhuan soon fell a prey to a plot. The empress changed Zhenghuan’s clothes in the day when Zhenhuan was entitled as Consort Wan. The empress replaced Zhenhuan’s clothes with empress Chunyuan’s and Zhenhuan wore these clothes without knowledge. The empress Chunwan was the emperor Yongzheng’s first wife and beloved. The emperor did not allow anyone to offend the empress Chunwan, so the emperor was mad at Zhenhuan when he saw Zhenhuan wearing the empress Chunyuan’s clothes. Zhenhuan finally realized that the emperor favored her just because she looked like empress Chunyuan. Zhenhuan was dispirited and downhearted, at the same time; her father was framed and went to prison. Hence, after giving birth to her daughter, Zhenhuan chose to leave the Forbidden City to practice Buddhism.

Zhenhuan had a hard life outside the palace; fortunately, she was taken good care of by Aisin Gioro Yunli who loved her all the time. Zhenhuan refused Yunli at first, but Yunli pursued her for a long time. After experiencing ups and downs, Zhenhuan finally knew that Yunli truly loved her and eventually accepted him. They loved each other and looked for opportunities to get away to a faraway place to live together like ordinary couples. Later, Yunli had to conduct a mission and they decided to achieve their dreams when Yunli came back. Unfortunately, Yunli was attacked by enemies and all people thought he was dead. Zhenhuan was pregnant at that time, in order to protect her babies, Zhenhuan found ways to meet the emperor Yongzheng and returned to the Forbidden City. Zhenhuan regained the emperor’s favor and gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. The person who framed Zhenhuan’s father was arrested and her father went out of the prison. The emperor reused Zhenhuan’s family and Zhen’s family gained glories again. As a matter of fact, the empress was the most merciless female in the imperial harem, and she framed Zhenhuan several times. Zhenhuan knew the empress’s true features after she returned to the imperial harem and she escaped from the empress’s malicious accusations. Ultimately, Zhenhuan pulled the empress down. As the saying goes, the morning sun never lasts a day. The emperor Yongzheng suspected that Zhenhuan cheated on him with Yunli. He gave Zhenhuan a cup of poisonous wine and two choices, one was Zhenhuan drank the poisonous wine, the other was Zhenhuan persuaded Yunli to drink it. Zhenhuan decided to drink the poisonous wine to protect Yunli, but Yunli realized her thoughts and changed their glasses and drank the poisonous one and died for Zhenhuan. The god of destiny makes fools of the people. Eventually, Zhenhuan gained everything, including glory, splendor, wealth, power, but she had to watch her beloved dying her arms and went through the most miserable thing in the world. After the death of the emperor Yongzheng, Hongli who was Zhenhuan’s adopted son ascended to the throne and Zhenhuan was honored as empress dowager. Zhenhuan enjoyed supreme glory and honor, but she also lost everything, her beloved, families, friends and even enemies. In fact, she was the loneliest person throughout the world. In the final scene of the English version of the Legend of Zhenhuan, as the empress dowager, Zhenhuan stood on the bridge and looked back upon the past.

1.2 Chinese Elements in the legend of Zhenhuan

It is well known that China is a time-honored country with extensive and profound culture. Traditional Chinese culture includes poetry, opera, writing, paintings etc., and traditional festivals contains the Spring Festival, the Mid-autumn Festival, the double ninth festival and so on. As Chinese culture is not only broad and profound but also gorgeous and splendid, it is not easy for translators to translate Chinese into any other languages completely accurate and correct (Wu amp; He, 2014).

There are sea of Chinese elements in the Legend of Zhenhuan, such as names, places, titles, poems and so one. These elements all contain unique Chinese implications and features. Generally, Chinese people’s names have their own special meaning or expectations (Zhang, 2013). For example, Zhenhuan, the heroine in this television play, means beautiful and smart. Shen Meizhuang, Zhenhuan’s best friend, her name means elegant and sedate. Chinese places names also have their unique connotations. For instance, Shanxi means it located on the west of Taihang Mountain. Shangshan Temple means it is a temple which advocates goodness. As for the titles, different countries have their own ways to rank positions. In ancient China, there are not only hierarchies for ministers, but also strict ranking system for females in imperial harem. Take Qing Dynasty for example, the titles for females in imperial harem include young mistress, first attendant, second attendant, lady, concubines, consort, the empress as well as the empress dowager and so on. Poetry is a significant and indispensable element in Chinese costume pieces. Usually, leading actors and actresses in television plays use poems to express their feelings and brilliant expression of emotions, at the same time, via this way, their wisdom and talents can also be reflected to audiences (Yang, 2015). There are a number of classic lines in the Legend of Zhenhuan, such as “To capture the heart of my fated lover and cling together till our hair turns gray”, “Each year and every year, the blossoms return anew. Each year and every year, the bloom of youth does not”, “They would rather die on the branch retaining their scent than to be scattered on the cold wind”(Li, Ran amp; Xia 2010). There are also some other characteristic Chinese elements, for example, “Xuanxiu” which only belongs to China means to held an audition to fill the Imperial Harem, the Scarlet Red in Chinese is “Yizhanghong” which is a kind of punishment.

1.3 General theories and requirements of translation

Translation is to turn the meaning of one language into another, which aims to exchange emotions, spread culture and knowledge and promote social civilization (孙志礼,1999). Translation is a bridge which connects two different cultures, and it gives a boost to cultural diversity and accelerates the course of human civilization and social development. According to different points of view, translation can be divided into different types. In terms of languages which translation involves, translation can be divided into intralingua translation and interlinguas translation. In terms of methods of translation, translation can be divided into interpretation, translation and machine translation. In terms of translation materials, translation can be divided into practical writing translation, literary translation, translation of English for science and technology. In terms of translation approaches, translation can be divided into full translation, partial translation, translation plus editing (叶子南，2001).

Through the ages, a large number of scholars have put forward the standards of translation. For example, Alexander F. Tytler, a noted British translator, once comes up with three principles of translation. First, a complete translation work of the thoughts of the original text should be given. Second, that the manner and style of the original should be embodied in translation work. Third, that the translation work should possess the ease of original text (Farahzad, Parviz amp; Razmjou 2011). Yan Fu, a distinguished scholar in China, once proposed that “translation work should be faithful, expressive and elegant”. General speaking, faithfulness and smoothness are two basic and important translation standards (陈福康,1992).

2 Translation of names of people and places in the legend of Zhenhuan

2.1 Strategies for the translation of names of people and places

Personal name is a kind of basic symbol to recognize individuals, and it is one of the fundamental interpersonal appellations in human society. Different cultures give birth to a variety of naming systems. Under the influence of diverse cultures, histories, societies, name is not just a simple linguistic symbol, but also a kind of cultural and social symbol(周颖, 2003). Translation of names of people is not a simple replacement between symbols. Lin Yutang, who is a celebrated Chinese litterateur, linguistician and translator, once said though name is a small part, it is not easy to translate those names in original composition (Liu, 2013).