摘 要

西方侦探小说一直以来是受到广泛欢迎的文学体裁，其缜密的推理过程和精彩曲折的故事情节吸引了世界各国读者的目光。反观国内众多文学体裁中的公案小说，却鲜有问津，但其本身悠久的发展历史和独特的叙事手法使得它的文学地位无法被取代。而这种东西方不对等局面的打破，很大程度上是由于荷兰汉学家高罗佩整理和编纂的《大唐狄公案》的问世。它的出现改变了西方对于中国文学领域的认知，使得中国公案小说名扬海外。而使得公案小说真正走进国人视野的，应当是随后陈来元等人翻译出的中译本《大唐狄公案》的出版。书中“狄公”这一东方“福尔摩斯”形象不仅深入西方读者的内心，同时成为了如今广泛活跃在国内影视界荧幕上的中国古代神探。他们的付出为中国公案小说文学地位的巩固起到了不可磨灭的作用。

毋庸置疑，翻译在世界文学作品传播的过程中起到了重要作用，而译者采用的翻译技巧和策略往往是决定译文质量高低的关键性因素。学者对于文学翻译领域的研究较为普遍，但针对公案小说翻译的研究则非常少。尤其是公案小说具有鲜明的时代和文化特征，并以文言文为主，因此无论是中译英还是英译中都为译者的翻译带来了困难。其中涉及到的文化缺省和补偿使得文本翻译更具挑战性，译者须从中找到两种文化中相似的元素以期在译文中创造出一种与原文相似的语境效果，同时又无需译文读者付出过多的努力来理解其中的含义。而这对于译者来说并非易事，因此研究公案小说翻译领域的文化缺省及补偿策略具有重要意义。

本文以公案小说《大唐狄公案》中较为经典的故事《迷宫案》为研究内容，以关联理论为基础，总结了书中出现的文化缺省实例，并分析了译者相应的翻译方法，由此总结出译者针对文化缺省所采取的翻译补偿策略，为未来译者在侦探小说翻译领域，特别是文化特征鲜明的公案小说翻译领域提供理论指导。

关键词：关联理论；文化缺省；翻译补偿；迷宫案

Abstract

As one of the most famous literary genres, detective fiction attracts millions of readers for its meticulous inference, tortuous plots, and entertaining stories. However, Chinese detective fiction had not been paid much attention to for a long time until the publication of Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee, edited by Robert Hans van Gulik. This literary work describes the stories of a famous Chinese detective—Judge Dee, and his well-known cases. After its publication, the influence of Judge Dee and his stories expanded rapidly in the Western countries, which changes their attitude towards the Orient. Moreover, the publication of its E-C translation by Chen Laiyuan witnessed the moment when it gained in popularity in China. Thanks to their contributions, Judge Dee becomes a representative character in Chinese detective fiction and frequently appears in the films and TV series.

The previous researches on Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee mainly focus on plot setting and narrative characteristics, lack of the comprehensive study on its language, which is not conducive to provide the useful guidance to translators as well as ordinary readers. Moreover, the E-C translation is worthy of intensive study, due to its concise and ingenious expression with Ming and Qing Dynasties style. However, the culture default between English and Chinese culture makes it challenging to translate the original version into Chinese directly. In order to solve the problem better, a bridge needs to be built between people from different cultures and find the relevance of information based on the cognitive context. Through the shared contextual assumptions, both sides of the communication can reach communicative success.

Therefore, the paper takes the relevance-theoretic approach to study cultural default in the translation of The Chinese Maze Murders, one of the series of Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee. It would provide some possible experiences for the future translation of detective fiction.

Key Words: Relevance Theory; Cultural Default; Translation Compensation; The Chinese Maze Murders

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Literature Review 3

2.1 Relevance Theory 3

2.1.1 Studies on Relevance Theory 3

2.1.2 Key Concepts of Relevance Theory 3

2.2 Cultural Default 5

2.2.1 Studies on Cultural Default 5

2.2.2 Definition of Cultural Default and Cross-Cultural Communicative Failure 6

2.3 Translation Compensation 6

2.3.1 Studies on Translation Compensation 6

2.3.2 Possibility of Applying Relevance Theory to Cultural Default Compensation 7

3 Analysis on the Translation Compensation Strategies of Cultural Default in the version of Chen’s The Chinese Maze Murders 8

3.1 Cultural Default in The Chinese Maze Murders 8

3.1.1 Appellation and Official Position 8

3.1.2 Idiom 9

3.1.3 Descriptive Expression 11

3.2 Chen’s Translation Compensation Strategies for Cultural Default 15

3.2.1 Annotation 15

3.2.2 Contextual Amplification 16

3.2.3 Paraphrase 17

3.2.4 Adaptation 18

4 Conclusion 19

References 20

Acknowledgements 21

Cultural Default and its Translation Compensation Strategies in the Chinese Translation of The Chinese Maze Murders —— A Study from the Perspective of Relevance Theory

1 Introduction

Detective fiction has remained popular for centuries and is said to have originated with writers like Edgar Allen Poe and Steen Steensen Blicher. Among various detective stories, the most well-known character is Sherlock Holmes, whose intelligence and keen senses help him outwit the criminal. By observing the origin of detective fiction, most famous detective stories are from the Western countries, which makes the readers misunderstand that there is no detective genre in Oriental countries. Actually, in ancient China, detective fiction already spread widely among people, especially from the Song Dynasty. However, because of the translation barrier between classical Chinese and foreign languages, it failed to gain its overseas popularity. The appearance of Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee changed the situation.

This book was written in the eighteenth century by a person well versed in the Chinese legal code. Then Robert van Gulik, a famous orientalist, diplomat, and writer, translated it into English and continued the adventures of Judge Dee by writing himself. The main character of this book, Judge Dee, was based on the real statesman and detective Di Renjie, who lived in the 7th century, during the Tang Dynasty (AD 600–900), though the novel mixed with elements of Ming Dynasty China (AD 1300–1600). While it deals with criminal cases solved by the upright Judge Dee, this book also shows the Chinese system of law enforcement and legal proceedings. Also, The Chinese Maze Murders is one of the series of Judge Dee, which was based on three actual cases from Chinese criminal investigations.

After van Gulik’s C-E translation and recreation of Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee, it quickly improved its and Chinese detective fiction’s reputation in Western countries. Also, a Chinese scholar, Chen Laiyuan, translated the English version into classical Chinese, which successfully reproduced Chinese detective fiction with Ming and Qing Dynasty style. His precise understanding of van Gulik’s works and high literary capacity made his translation version become a classical literary work in China.

In Chen’s version, the difficulties he faced and his translation strategies, especially when facing the cultural default, deserve further study due to the difficulties of rewriting in classical Chinese. The relevance theory, put forward by Sperber and Wilson, and applied into translation area by Gutt, points out that whether the translation is successful or not depends on the optimal relevance between the translation and readers. Based on the theory, it would be easier to analyze the culture default in the book, and translation compensation strategies Chen adopts could be summarized in order to provide possible experiences for the future translation of detective fiction or other literary works and to make contributions to Chinese classical literary work diffusion in the world.

Therefore, this paper mainly focuses on cultural default and its translation compensation strategies from the perspective of relevance theory in the Chinese translation of The Chinese Maze Murders. Moreover, it is divided into several parts. The first part briefly introduces the background, objective, and translation material. Then it explains the research status-quo of culture default based on relevance theory and its application to translation. In the body part, it summarizes several kinds of culture default in the book and analyzes the relevant translation strategies Chen adopts by close example analysis. Finally, reflections and limitations are made to supplement and offer some inspiration for future studies of this book.