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OUTLINE

Abstract Key Words I. Introduction

II. Contrasting of the Versions in the Perspective of Three-word Standard in Translation

2.1 Three-word Standard of Translation 2.2 Faithfulness in Translation 2.3 Expressiveness in Translation 2.4 Elegance in Translation

III. Contrasting of the Versions in the Perspective of Three Beauties in Poetry

Translation

3.1 Three Beauties in the Poetry Translation 3.2 Beauty in Sense 3.3 Beauty in Sound 3.4 Beauty in Form

IV. Contrasting of the Versions in the Perspective of Cultural Differences

4.1 Cultural Difference

4.2 Contrasting of the Versions

V. Conclusion Bibliography

中文标题、摘要、关键词

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On Several English Versions of A Tranquil Night

Author：××× Number：××× Tutor：×××

Abstract: A good translation can convey faithfully not only the content but also the style and the spirit of the source text. So there are two schools in translators: those who think translation is a science; and those who think translation is an art. In this paper, I introduce, explain and contrast several English versions of A Tranquil Night in the perspective of three-word standard, three beauties in poetry translation, cultural differences and equivalent translation, in order to prove that not only is translation a science, but also is an art.

Key Words: three-word standard; three beauties; cultural differences; equivalent translation

I. Introduction

What is translation? Translation is a kind of language activity of using one language to re-express completely and accurately the ideological content contained in another language; or it is a rendering from one language into another.

As a tool of recording human history and expressing human life and minds, each language has its own background and culture content. Because of long developing, Chinese becomes one language which is the oldest, the most complex, the most plentiful and the most imaginative. Our ancestry created and developed this language in thousands of years; and some great writers used the language to write many famous books, such as Tang poems. But because this language is so complex, plentiful, and imaginative, there are so many difficulties in translation. As a special form of Chinese, Tang poems’ translations are more difficult. Famous as the “jewelry” of cultural Chinese, Tang poems were translated into English again and again. In this thesis, I choose three versions to compare and prove that translation is not only a science, but also an art.

The following are the source text and three English translation versions:

II．Contrasting of the Versions in the Perspective of Three-word Standard in

Translation

2.1 Three-word Standard of Translation

In Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays (《天演论》，published in 1898, translated by Yan Fu), Yan fu said: “There are three difficulties in translation: Faithfulness,

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Expressiveness, and Elegance.” Nowadays, Faithfulness means that the content of target text must be faithful to the source text; Expressiveness means that the sentences must be fluent as the source styles and it must be the vernacular language and the people who speak target language can understand the translations completely; but Elegance’s meaning is different from its old meaning which means that the translation must be the ancient Chinese, and today it means that translation text can remain the style of the source text. In other word, the three-word standard can be summarized as Faithfulness and Fluentness, and only when a translation gets the standards, it can be a good translation. In order to get a good translation, first the translators must master the source language and target language, and second the translator must know the content and spirit of the source text very well. 2.2 Faithfulness in Translation

In the first version, if we retranslate the text, we can find the most content was expressed in the translation. But in the title of the source text (《静夜思》),the important character is “think/thought (思)”，and in the content, “think/thought”（思）is the key word. But in the first version, the word “find” is not very suitable. In the source text, there is a character “望”. This word means “watch”, because the moon was in the sky at night, and we needn’t “find”. In version 2, most content was expressed in the translation also. But in the title, there is the same problem as version 1. And in line 2, the translator used an interrogative sentence to express the character “疑”，but in fact, in the source text, here “疑” have another meaning “doubt”. Because the poet didn’t sleep very well, but missed his hometown. When he saw the moonlight on the ground, he felt lonely and cold, and then he wondered that maybe there was the frost on the ground. In the third version, the title is better than the others. In the text, the translator used “so bright, so cold, so frail ”, but in our source text, there is no character such as “如此明亮，如此冰冷，如此脆弱”. Of course, when we read the poem, we can feel that the poet was very lonely, seeing the moonlight, and missing his family. But the poem didn’t write the words, if the translator add to, the translation is not very good. In my opinion, from the perspective of faithfulness, the second one is better than the others. 2.3 Expressiveness in Translation

With the developing of Chinese language, some characters changed their old meanings nowadays, and some remain their meanings of thousands years ago. In the source text, the

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