摘 要

武侠小说起源于汉代，经过几千年的发展，尤其是二十世纪五十年代以来金庸等人“新武侠”的创作尝试，武侠小说具备了较强的审美价值，逐渐被主流文学界所接受。在武侠小说中，功夫招式描写是武侠精神的表现形式，是书中最具有可读性的部分，展示了灿烂的中华武术文化。但针对武侠小说，以及功夫招式描写的翻译理论研究目前还比较薄弱。金庸作为武侠小说的大家，在全球范围内影响巨大。《雪山飞狐》是他的代表作之一。

莫锦屏的《雪山飞狐》英译本较好地保留了小说中功夫招式描写的文化因素，在完整描写动作场景的同时，把功夫中包含的中国传统文化用合适的方法传达出来。研究发现，莫锦屏在功夫招式描写的处理上采取了多种翻译策略与技巧，通过调整逻辑连贯性，转移描述重心，以及对文化适应性的调整，达到了较满意的效果。对其翻译策略的研究对于武侠小说的翻译具有实践意义。

关键词：武侠小说；功夫招式；雪山飞狐；翻译策略

Abstract

Chinese martial arts fiction originated in the Han Dynasty. Chinese martial arts fiction has been given aesthetic value after several thousand years’ development, especially the creation practice of Jin Yong and other writers’ “New Wuxia” fiction. As a result, Chinese martial arts fiction gradually gets accepted by the mainstream of literature. In Chinese martial arts fiction, the description of Kungfu movements is the most readable part as the manifestation of Wuxia spirit, showing the splendid Kungfu culture. However, the relevant theoretical research of Chinese martial arts fiction and Kungfu movements translation needs to be further developed. Jin Yong, as a great master of Chinese martial arts fictions, has far-reaching influence over the world. Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain is one of his representative works.

Olivia Mok’s English version Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain adopts suitable translation tactics when presenting the whole scene of Kungfu, successfully retaining the cultural value of Jin Yong’s description. According to this research, Olivia Mok adopts various translation tactics for dealing with the description of Kungfu movements through adaptation of the coherence, shift of focus and adjustment of culture, achieving satisfying effect. The analysis on these translation tactics points to importance for the translation practice of Chinese martial arts fiction.

Key Words: Chinese martial arts fiction; Kungfu movements; Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain; translation tactics

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Research Background 1

1.2 Research Purpose 2

1.3 Structure of the Paper 2

2 Chinese Martial Arts Fictions and Relevant Translation Studies 3

2.1The Core of Chinese Martial Arts Fictions 3

2.2 Translation of Chinese Martial Arts Fictions 4

2.3 Translation of Kungfu Movements 5

2.4 Relevant Translation Study 6

3 Linguistic Features of Kungfu Movements in Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain 8

3.1 Movements of Body 8

3.2 Activities of Mind 9

3.3 Use of Weapons and Styles 10

3.4 Linguistic Features of Kungfu Movements 11

4 Translation Tactics for the Kungfu Movements 12

4.1 Adaptation of the Coherence 12

4.1.1 Expliciting Hidden Information 13

4.1.2 Changing Transitional Words 13

4.1.3 Simplifying the Fighting Course 14

4.2 Shift of Focus 14

4.2.1 Changing the Dynamic to the Static 15

4.2.2 Switching Subjects and Objects 15

4.2.3 Splitting the Structure of the Description 16

4.3 Adjustment of Culture 16

4.3.1 Direct Transfer of the Core Terms 17

4.3.2 Adding Multiple Explanations 17

4.3.3 Deleting Irrelevant Cultural Elements 18

5 Conclusion 19

References 21

Acknowledgements 23

On the Translation Tactics for Kungfu Movements in Chinese Martial Arts Fictions:

Olivia Mok's Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain as a Case Study

1 Introduction

1.1 Research Background

Chinese traditional Martial arts fictions started in the Han Dynasty, created to encourage the righteousness and courageousness, through describing heroes who eliminated the bullies and helped the down-trodden to fight against the upper class. As the development of this genre, in 20th century, Liang Yusheng and Jin Yong explored new Chinese martial arts fictions with modern elements and started a new period of “New Wuxia” (a new system of creation in Chinese martial arts fictions). During this period, Jin Yong became famous in Chinese readers all over the world and made the greatest achievement in Chinese martial arts fictions among the contemporary writers. Meanwhile, due to the introduction in 1960s, the western world became interested in art works with the theme of Wuxia. In 1990s a series of scholars began to translate Chinese martial arts fictions into English officially(魏天霞, 2011) and an increasing number of Wuxia fans translated other Chinese martial arts fictions on the Internet.

Under the trend of globalization and international economic development, cultural exchange between China and the West becomes more frequent. Kungfu, as one of symbols of Chinese traditional culture, has been popular all over the world. Chinese martial arts fictions, taking Kungfu movements as the core of the world, attract a large number of western fans and can be a suitable tool to disseminate Chinese culture to the West and enhance the competitiveness of Chinese culture in the world. The obstacles of communication across social and cultural limits are obvious, but understanding and translation is possible(Zhang, 2015). Therefore, study of translation tactics for Chinese martial arts fiction is worth being attached importance.

1.2 Research Purpose

Chinese martial arts or Chinese Kungfu have been widely spread in the western world, thanks to the popularity of Chinese Kungfu films and frequent cultural communication. Meanwhile, Chinese martial arts fictions, especially for Jin Yong’s works, attract a large number of western readers, while only four official English versions of Jin Yong’s fictions can be seen at present. As the core of Chinese martial arts fiction, the description of Kungfu movements requires further research in terms of translation. This paper attempts to exhibit the circumstance of Chinese martial arts fiction and translation works, focuses on the language of Kungfu movements and summarizes its language features. Based on Olivia Mok’s version Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, this paper aims to analyze the concrete translation tactics for Kungfu movements in Chinese martial arts fictions, which are the embodiment of Chinese Wuxia spirit and contains abundant traditional Chinese cultural elements, so as to provide pragmatic instructions for the future translation work of Chinese martial arts fictions.

1.3 Structure of the Paper

This paper, composed of five parts, tries to give a complete analysis on the translation tactics for Kungfu movements in Chinese martial arts fictions. Chapter 1 briefly introduces the research background, research purpose and the structure of the whole paper. Chapter 2 exhibits the development of Chinese martial arts fiction and movie, especially studies Jin Yong’s works which have the strongest influence on readers of Chinese martial arts fictions over the world, and points out the literature review of relevant translation study. Chapter 3 carefully analyses four aspects of Kungfu movements appearing in Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, including the action, mind, style and weapons, in order to reveal the linguistic features of Kungfu movements and difficulties in translation practice. In Chapter 4, this paper discusses the concrete translation tactics for Kungfu movements referring to certain text in Olivia’s book and categorizes them into three groups for different purpose. In the last part, the conclusion evaluates Olivia’s version from the perspective of translation tactics, summarizes the adaptable translation tactics of different categories of Kungfu movements that appeared in Chinese martial arts fictions and raises up problems needing further discussion.

2 Chinese Martial Arts Fictions and Relevant Translation Studies

2.1The Core of Chinese Martial Arts Fictions

Wuxia, this term can be seen as the name of a group of people forming the main characters of Chinese martial arts fictions, or a kind of spirit advocated in martial arts fictions. As a name of a certain group of people, in Chinese history, Wuxia was also called Xia or Xiake, originated in the Warring States Period according to the literature of that time. It refers to people who live in the lower social class with high-level Kungfu skills. They care little about the rules of the government, but use their Kungfu to eliminate the bullies and help the down-trodden to fight against the upper class. As the name of a kind of spirit, the connotation of Wuxia may vary as the change of history, but as for the essence, it refers to the belief of Wuxia about how to live in the world, holding features as following: sympathy for the down-trodden, respect of promises, determination of vengeance, defense of self-respect, admiration of Kungfu skills, and indifference of government rules. Jing Ke, the famous assassin of Yan State in the Warring States Period, was the representative of Wuxia at the early period. Although Wuxia originated before Qin Dynasty, the earliest martial arts fiction was found in Han Dynasty when a large number of people were engaged in the activities of Wuxia. Since then, Wuxia and martial arts fiction have never been stopped and gradually developed into a kind of popular light literatures in China(王海林, 1988).

From the middle 20^th century, martial arts fiction stepped into a new stage. Martial arts fictions before this period had held little literary and aesthetic value but just for killing time. Some of them even had been created by people with malicious purposes for misleading people in the social upheaval. From 1950s, in Hong Kong and Taiwan, a group of writers began to create a series of martial arts fictions which were different from those before and were added into new elements fitting the social circumstance. This group of writers were called “New Wuxia” and Jin Yong was one of the three most successful “New Wuxia” writers together with Liang Yusheng and Gu Long. Jin Yong, Liang Yusheng, and Gu Long were all highly educated and held mastered Chinese and Western literary knowledge(王海林, 1988). They absorbed western writing skills into martial arts fictions and set the stories into real history background discussing the humanity besides traditional Wuxia spirit, exhibiting great value of thought and aesthetics(韩云波, 2004). Especially for Jin Yong, as a professional journalist and play writer with high-level writing skills, was greatly familiar with Chinese history and customs. His works have strong and changeable plots creating a series of unique heroes with not only the Wuxia spirit but also the humanity of everyone such as romantic love, patriotism, avarice and so on.

The development of Chinese martial arts movies and TV plays is tied with Chinese martial arts fictions, for their Wuxia subject and main plots are similar, only in different forms of performance. All martial arts fictions of Jin Yong have been adapted into movies and TV plays, some of which even have been adapted for many times by different directors. The first Chinese movie Dingjun Mountain (定军山) was showed in 1905, which could be seen as the first Chinese martial arts movie. Thanks to the contribution of martial artists such as Bruce Lee and culture scholars, Chinese Kungfu has gradually been known and popular in the West. A series of Chinese martial arts movies were introduced to the West and great Kungfu stars got welcomed by western people, such as Jackie Chan, Jet Lee. Since 2002 when Zhang Yimou’s Chinese martial arts movie Hero was finished and showed, a large number of directors have started to make Chinese martial arts movies in huge investment which competed with other movies in the international movie market(余习惠, 2015). Chinese martial arts movies have been internationally influential, such as House of Flying Daggers (十面埋伏), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (卧虎藏龙), The Grandmaster (一代宗师) and Ip Man (叶问). The development of Chinese martial arts movies in the international market promoted the popularization of Chinese martial arts fictions in the West.

2.2 Translation of Chinese Martial Arts Fictions

Culture of Asian countries has more in common with Chinese culture than the West due to the closeness of history and geographical position, so Jin Yong’s fictions are easier for Asian people to accept. During his writing career, Jin Yong created and published 15 martial arts fictions in total, including the short story Sword of the Yue Maiden(傅国涌, 2003). His 15 works have been translated into more than 10 Asian languages including Japanese, Korea. In contrast, only three official English versions of Jin Yong’s fictions have been finished: Hong Kong scholar Olivia Mok’s Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, the first edition published by China University Press in Hong Kong of 1993 and the second edition published in 1996; the famous sinologist John Minford’s The Deer and the Cauldron, three volumes published by Oxford University Press in 1997, 1999, 2002; Graham Earnshaw’s The Book and the Sword, published by Oxford University Press and proofread by John Minford and Rachel May in 2003 (魏天霞, 2011). Some translators above are native English speakers and are not as familiar with Chinese traditional culture as Chinese translators, sometimes even have misunderstandings and prejudice(王宁, 2013). Some Chinese fans of Jin Yong translated several Jin Yong’s works and shared them on the Internet. However, due to their limited translating abilities and careless attitude, the quality of their versions cannot get guaranteed and is not enough to shoulder the responsibility as the cultural bridge of China and the West.

Olivia Mok’s Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain is the first official English version of Jin Yong’s fiction. The story of Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain is set in the background of Chinese Qing Dynasty when some people still fought against Qing government, different Kungfu schools fought with each other and the society was experiencing intense changes. During the story, Chinese traditional history, customs, lifestyles show in a colorful way which can be seen as a huge enjoyment for the western readers interested in Chinese culture. Meanwhile, it causes huge problems for ordinary western readers to understand the story, sometimes even lose their interest in Chinese martial arts fictions. However, martial arts fiction is kind of market-oriented literary work and needs high-level readability. For better understanding among the western readers, Olivia Mok mainly adopts the domestication translation strategy with addition and adaption in dealing with the original fiction, so as to exhibit the essence of Wuxia spirit and the storyline(吴侃, 2016). But a version adopting domestication strategy inevitably loses some original cultural elements, sometimes even changes the general style of the fiction. In addition, as a pioneer Wuxia translator, Olivia had little references and experiences for help and her work can be seen as an experiment of translation with problems(Ren, 2016). So the academic circle hold different ideas on the evaluation of Olivia Mok’s version.

2.3 Translation of Kungfu Movements

Kungfu movements, as the most attractive part of Chinese martial arts fictions, acquire special attention of translators during the process of translating fictions and introducing Chinese Kungfu culture. Kungfu movements form the main body of the fighting scenes which represent the unique features of Chinese martial arts works. The number of English versions of Chinese martial arts fictions is limited, while Chinese martial arts movies have been widely spread in the western world, the subtitles of which contain a large amount of Kungfu movements.

The subtitles of different movies adopt various tactics for translating Kungfu movements. But in general, literal translation and omission are the major tactics for this translation issue, realizing different literary effects. For example, in the subtitles of Karwai Wong’s movie, The Grandmaster, the Kungfu movement “拆祠堂” is translated into “smash the ancestral tablets” with the translation tactic of literal translation, which means “hit the genitals” in the Chinese dialect Cantonese. The text of subtitles retains the metaphor of this expression, although causing problems for the western people to understand. But in the subtitles of Ang Lee’s movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the translator translates “走火入魔” to “undisciplined” with the translation tactic of omission. This version ignores the Chinese meaning of “火” and “魔” which contains the meaning of evil, but keep the basic meaning of lacking control and organization, so as to achieve the coherence of logic for the western people.

2.4 Relevant Translation Study

Studies of the translating issues of Chinese martial arts fictions and movies can be divided into four different categories.