梁社乾英译鲁迅小说《阿Q正传》之描述性研究（下）

IV. Leung’s Version Described

On the whole, Leung’s English text appears to stay soclose to the Chinese text that it strikes the reader as embarrassingly awkward. Leung’s English styleis notmerely “flat and stilted” (Yang, 2000: 868), “halting” (Kowallis, 1994: 283), but also unbending, verbose, and unidiomatic. The sentences tend to be too long and involved. The translator’s habitual use of transliterations for address forms and titles, and word-for-word translationof Chinese idioms and classical allusions make the translation obscure and unintelligible. For example, the honorific title Juren Laoye 举人老爷 is fully transliterated as “Chü-jen Lao-yeh”, which is unintelligible to the English reader. Onemore example suffices to show the awkward literalness of Leung’stranslation:

他很想即刻揪住他，拗断他的竹筷，放下他的辫子，并且批他几个嘴巴，聊且惩罚他忘了生辰八字，也敢来做革命党的罪。但他终于饶放了，单是怒目而视的吐一口唾沫道“呸！”

Leung’s Version: He very much desired to seize him at once, break up the bamboo chopstick, let down hisqueue, and give him a few slaps on the mouth in the bargain, merely to punishhim for forgetting his humble birth anddestiny and for having the audacityto be guilty of the offense of becoming a Revolutionist. But in theend, Ah Q let him go, merely glaring athim with angry eyes and emitting amouthful of spittle as he sneered, “Peh!” (LuHsun, 1926: 71)

It is not hard to see that the translation is both rigidly literal and redundant. Even the sentence structure and the word order correspond too strictly to the Chinese original. For example, Ta hen xiang jike jiuzhu ta 他很想即刻揪住他 is rendered awkwardly as“He very much desired to seize him at once,” where “very much” should be placedafter the verb “desired” in a pleasant English style. Meanwhile, literalness often leads toredundancy. Shengchenbazi 生辰八字 refers to the eight characters signifying theyear, month, day and hour of a person’s birth. Superstitious people believe that one’s eight characters predetermine one’s fortune. In the context, wangle shengchen bazi 忘了生辰八字is a colloquialism which can be rendered into the English expression “toforget one’s place.” Leung attempts a literal rendering, without realizing that “forgetting his humble birth” is already clear and adequate while “forgetting his destiny”is at once superfluous and unclear. And Leung treats the noun phase gan laizuo Gemingdang de zui 敢来做革命党的罪 too cautiously: He uses two semantically repetitive phrases “be guilty of” and“the offense of” to convey the sense of zui 罪[crime] which is not significant in the text. In the second sentence we find more redundancies: since “toglare” means “to stare angrily or fiercely,”“with angry eyes” can be omitted; likewise, tu yikou tuomo 吐一口唾沫[to spit] is translated clumsily into “emitting a mouthful ofspittle.”

Although Leung’s translation is, basically, cautious and literalistic, it is still marred by quite a number of mistranslations. For example, the Confucian Analects allusion erli zhi nian“而立”之年[at the age of thirty]is mistranslated as “at the late age of forty.” “他的老婆不跳第四回井，也不是好女人”is mistranslated as“if his wife had not jumped into the well the fourth time, she would not have been a good woman.” Here what Ah Q actually means to say is: the “Bogus” Foreign Devil’s wife did not attempt a fourth time to throw herself into the well to end her life, so she is not a virtuous woman. Yet Leung’s use of the subjunctive mood has just reversed the original sense: “She is a good woman because she did throw herself into the well for a fourth time.” Another exampleis sanbai da qian jiu er chuan 三百大钱九二串 mentioned by Lu Xun in his comments on Leung’s translation. According to Lu Xun, this refers to “three hundred cash, with ninety-two round coins for one hundred.” But it is mistranslated as “three hundred coppers andninety-two cash.” These mistranslations indicate that Leung was not perfectly steeped in traditional Chinese culture (the first example) and vernacular Chinese (the second example). And as the third example shows, Leung failed to work out, by consulting Lu Xun or others, all the ambiguities and difficulties he ran into while reading the original text.

On the whole, Leung’s version leans towards adequacy owing to the literalistic approach he adopted. However, as Toury observes, “even the most adequacy-oriented translation involves shifts from thesource text” (Toury, 1995: 56-57). In fact, sometimes Leung also takes liberties with the original by addition, omission and alteration. Apart from several minor cuts in Leung’s version, there is one significant omission made to the following passage which relates the lice-catching competition between Ah Q and Whiskers Wang:

阿Q也脱下破夹袄来，翻检了一回，不知道因为新洗呢还是因为粗心，许多工夫只捉到三四个。他看那王胡，却是一个又一个，两个又三个，只放在嘴里毕毕剥剥的响。阿Q最初是失望，后来却不平了：看不上眼的王胡尚且那么多，自己倒反这样少，这是怎样的大失体统的事呵！他很想寻一两个大的，然而竟没有，好容易才捉到一个中的，恨恨的塞在厚嘴唇里，狠命一咬，劈的一声，又不及王胡的响。他癞疮疤块块通红了，…

Leung’s version: After Ah Q slipped off histattered short lined coat, Wang-hu’s actions became irritating and Ah Q gradually lost his temper, each of his impetigo scars coloring red. (p. 20)

The above passage is drastically omitted and condensed: Leung removes the entire episode except the two Chinese sentences in bold and then tries to compensate for the loss by summarizing the passage as “Wang-hu’s actions became irritating and Ah Q gradually lost his temper.”

According to Zhou Zuoren (2002: 89-90), Lu Xun scorned some Chinese scholar-officials’ eccentric thinking that “dirt is better than cleanness, and ugliness isbetter than beauty”. Therefore, by relating a farcical louse-catching contest between two village louts Lu Xun tries to satirize the abnormal mentality of his contemporaries -- the ludicrous technique of self-belittlement. Meanwhile, through Ah Q’s preposterous reasoning that “the despicable Whiskers Wang could catch so many lice while he himself caught so few. What a loss of face!” LuXun criticizes the self-aggrandizement of those Chinese who refuse to face the wealth and strength of the West and Japan, both of which China used to despise. Accordingly, the louse-catching episode is a veiled critique of the Chinese national character. But with its removal from the translation, then ovella’s critical power has been seriously weakened.

In contrast to edit-outs, Leung occasionally “edits in” something to the English text. An interesting addition is inserted at the end of both Chapter V (“Problems ofLivelihood”) and Chapter VIII (“Barred from theRevolutionary Party”):

待三个萝卜吃完时,他已经打定了进城的主意了。

Leung’s version: And so by the time he haddevoured the three turnips, he had made up his mind to go to the city, where he remained for some time, passing through some unusual experiences. (p. 46)

阿Q越想越气，终于禁不住满心痛恨起来，毒毒的点一点头：“不准我造反，只准你造反！妈妈的假洋鬼子，——好，你造反！造反是杀头的罪名呵，我总要告一状，看你抓进县里去杀头，——满门抄斩，——嚓！嚓！”

Leung’s version: The more Ah Q thought on this matter the moreincensed he became; finally, unable to repress the painful resentment that filled his heart, he nodded his head ominously, saying: “Won’t allow me to join the Revolutionary Movement,eh? Is it only for you to be one? You rascal, you 'False Foreigner’— fine, be a Revolutionist! Being one makes you subject to the penalty of decapitation. I must make apetition and see that you are dragged into the yamen to have your head cut off, — your whole family’s heads cut off, — chit!chit! ”With such resentment filling his heart, Ah Q gradually snored off. (p. 77-78)

In the above, the italicized parts are inserted into the text by the translator, presumably to bring the chapter to a natural conclusion or to provide a necessary link to the following chapter. Aswill be discussed later, these additions reflect Leung’s poetics.

Alteration can take various forms, but hereonly those strategies adopted by Leung to treat sex-related swear words are discussed. A profusion of bawdy swear words and expressions are used in AQ Zhengzhuan. They befit the peasant characters, particularly the protagonist Ah Q, and therefore contribute to characterization. However, translating such language can be a subtle problem as there are often aesthetic, cultural, pragmatic and ideological considerations involved. According to Santaemilia, when treating sex-related language, “translators tend to censor themselves -- either voluntarily orinvoluntarily -- in order to produce rewritings which are 'acceptable’ from both social and personal perspectives” (Santaemilia, 2008:227). That is, translators tend to “soften or downplay sexual references” (Santaemilia, 2005: 121).And the least obvious types of self-censorship arepartial translation, minimization or omission of sex-related terms (Santaemilia, 2008: 225).

Interestingly, Leung tends to “censor himself” when treating sex-related swear words in the original. Takeas an example the sexually suggestiveoath tama de 他妈的or its variants mama de 妈妈的 and nide mama de 你的妈妈的, all of which meanliterally “Your mother’s!” Characterized as “the national swearword” by Lu Xun, it is the commonest oath in China. According to Snow, it literally means “I have ravished your mother,” and its variations are“more complex, yet simpler, more elegant, yet more vulgar, than the Anglo-Saxon equivalent” (Snow, 1959: 59). The Chinese oath, however, has much richer connotations than what Snow thinks; depending on the situation where it is used, it can be rendered as such English swear words as “damn you,”“fucking,”“son-of-a-bitch,”“motherfucker.” In the story the oath appearsin nine places as listed below:

(1) “阿Q，你的妈妈的！……你的妈妈的！”

Leung’s version: Ah Q, you bad fellow; you rascal! (p. 35)

(2) 他坐起身，一面说道，“妈妈的……”

Leung’s version: He sat up, muttering unpleasantly. (p. 38)

(3) 这委实是一件非常“妈妈的”的事情。

Leung’s version: and that was an unusually terrible state of affairs. (p.39)

(4) “记着罢，妈妈的……”阿Q回过头去说。

Leung’s version: “Remember this, you -- ” spurted Ah Q, turning back hishead. (p. 42)

(5) “妈妈的，记着罢……”小D也回过头来说。

Leung’s version: “You -- remember this and it will be all right,” sputtered Little D,also turning back his head. (p. 42)

(6) 因为这举人老爷实在太“妈妈的”了。

Leung’s version: … because this Chü-jen Lao-yeh was really too hateful.(p. 49)

(7) 阿Q想，“革这伙妈妈的的命，…”

Leung’s version: “Cut off the lives of the wholevillage …” (p. 60)

(8) “…妈妈的假洋鬼子，…”

Leung’s version: “You rascal, you 'False Foreigner’” (p. 78)

In Examples (4) (5) (7), the Chinese national swearword is simply omitted while in the other instances its vulgarity is either softened (“you bad fellow”; “yourascal”) or minimized (“muttering unpleasantly”;“an unusually terrible state of affairs”; “too hateful”). In fact, evenvaguely bawdy language is unacceptable to Leung. For example, after Ah Q’ssexual longings have been stirred after having touched the nun’s scalp and cheek, he makes an in decent proposal to Amah Wu. He throws himself at her feetand pleads, Wo he ni kunjiao “我和你困觉,我和你困觉!” [Sleep withme!]. Despite its vulgarity, kunjiao 困觉 [to sleep] is the right word for illiterate and uncultured Ah Q. Leung, however, finds it objectionable and modifies the original sentence to “Will you… will you…?”(p. 32) The crudity of kunjiao is weakened to the effect that the English reader may be puzzled about what Ah Q wants to do to the woman. Leung’s tendency to soften or purify sex-related terms significantly alters Lu Xun’s characterization and authorial intentions, and English readers experience a much “cleaner” fictional world of Lu Xun’s than do Chinese readers.

In conclusion, given his literalistic approach, Leung’s version leans towards the pole of adequacy while its acceptability is very low owing to its awkward and stiff English. Meanwhile, Leung took liberties with certain portions of the Chinese original which he deemed ideologically (e.g. the lice-catching competition episode) or aesthetically unacceptable (e.g. bawdy language), or poetically imperfect (e.g. the two end-of-chapter additions). Therefore, Leung’s attitude towards his work was actually not “very serious and earnest” as Lu Xun thought.The possible reasons for this interesting juxtaposition of overall literalness and occasional license in Leung’s version are discussed below.

V. Leung’sVersion Explained

As analyzed above, Leung’s version leans towards the pole of adequacy owing to the literalistic approach he adopted. Yet occasionally Leung also took liberties with the original by addition, omission and alteration. Through contextualizing Leung’s translation, we can see that the shape of his translation was largely determined by the socio-political factors internal to Chinese culture at the time of translation as well as by Leung’s personal ideology, poetics and aesthetics.

Several socio-cultural factors influenced Leung’s literal approach to translation. Firstly, the publisher’s publishing priority andthe intended readership were arguably the most important ones. Given the fact that Leung’s first translation The Lone Swan was published by the Commercial Press,it was very likely that the same publisher commissioned him to translate A Q Zhengzhuan. Since its founding in 1897, the Commercial Press has been China’s major publisher of textbooks, dictionaries and pedagogical texts. Naturally, English translations of Chinese literature it brought out mainly served as pedagogical texts for domestic readers. This is corroborated by Leung’s justification of his literalism: “The translator has followed the Chinese text as carefully as the differences of the two languages permit, realizing that many people would wish to compare the English with the original Chinese” (Leung, 1926: v). Accordingly, Leung’s translation was primarily targeted at Chinese learners of English, though undoubtedly the publisher also had a small expatriate audience in mind. To meet the needs of language learners, both the publisher and the translator might have decided that the English version should stay close to the Chinese text as much as possible.

Secondly, the dominant translation norm at that time and Lu Xun’s advocacy of literal translation as well as his literary fame might have compelled Leung totranslate with great caution. According to Pollard, before 1911 there was already a school of Chinese translators who practiced literal translation (Pollard, 1998: 11-13). With the inception of the New Literature Movement in 1917, extreme liberalism was reviled and literal translation beganto hold sway. Mao Dun (1984: 351) notes that literal translation became the dominant translation norm after the May Fourth Movement started in 1919. Lu Xun, who first followed the liberalist school but from 1909 onward switched to the literalist, played a significant part in aturn of the tide. Chang observes that Lu Xun’s advocacy of “faithfulness rather than smoothness” and yingyi 硬译[rigidly literal translation] exerted such a great influenceon Chinese leftist discourse on translation that “in a sense faithfulness to the original has always been the overriding criterion from Lu Xun to the present day” (Chang, 1998: 248-249). It should be noted that the translation norm of adequacy dominant in the 1920s applied to translations into Chinese. Yet although Leung translated out of Chinese, he was well aware that his translation would be published in China and would be expected to conform to the dominant translation norm (i.e. literal translation) in China, failing which his translation would be subjected to harsh criticism from Chinese reviewers. Accordingly, for safety’s sake Leung chose to adopt a literalistic approach. Meanwhile, the circumstance of Leung’s sending his translation to Lu Xun for perusal dictated that his rendering had to keep close to the original. Leung knew well that Lu Xun fervently advocated literalism in translation and would not tolerate a translator taking liberties with hisown work. If Leung had followed the liberalist path, his translation would have been censured as “distorting the original” and rejected by Lu Xun. Lim ( 1985: 6) also suggests that Leung’s literalistic approach to translation might have been influenced by Lu Xun’s advocacy of “rigidly literal translation” in their correspondence. Moreover, Leung can be classed as the “faithful translator” who “translates the way hedoes out of reverence for the cultural prestige the original has acquired” (Lefevere, 1992: 49-50). Accordingly, Lu Xun’s literary fame and the prestige his novella enjoyed in the Chinese literary field in the 1920s could have pressurized Leung to adopt a literalist approach, especially because his translation was to be published in China.

As analyzed in Section IV, in certain cases Leung made addition, omission and alteration to the original text despite his literalistic approach. Such are typical cases where “if linguistic considerations enter into conflict with considerations of an ideological and/or poetological nature, the latter tend to win out” (Lefevere, 1992: 39). It can be argued that such details of textual manipulation both embody and reveal the translator’s (and his patron’s) ideology,poetics and aesthetics.

The excision of the louse-catching episode is a typical case where ideological considerations prevail over linguistic ones. And in Leung’s case, the ideological consideration may have been shared by the translator and the publisher. Bai (2014: 544) observes that “it is important todistinguish the extent to which the ideology contained in the translation is the translator’s or the patron’s.” However, where the translator and the publisher had the same cultural agenda, they could agree on ideological issues. In Lefevere’s theoretical framework, the notion of ideology is used in a broad sense, not limited to the political sphere. Lefevere borrows Fredric Jameson’s broad definition: “Ideology would seem to be that grillwork of form, convention, and belief which orders our action” (Lefevere, 1992: 14-16). According to Lefevere, the patronis usually concerned with the ideology of literature, and the ideological component of patronage often acts as a “constraint on the choice and development of both form and subject matter” (Lefevere, 1992: 15-16). As analyzed above, the louse-catching episode embodies Lu Xun’s sarcastic critique of the negative aspects of the Chinese national character, i.e. a penchant for self-deluding rationalizations which can turn the culturally dishonorable into the culturally honorable and, by extension, literal defeat into“spiritual victory.” However, this central theme of Lu Xun’s work, as already mentioned above, may have escaped Leung’s notice. Moreover, fora Chinese-American who could afford a decent life, the image of lice living on the human body, which is faithfully represented by Lu Xun, and the act of catching and biting them could be offensive, if not repulsive. Since the subject matter conflicted with Leung’s ideology, he may have decided on his own part to cut out the louse-catching passage. Meanwhile, the Chinese publisher may have found the culturally dishonorable episode inappropriate for the Western reader. While the lice-catching competition between Ah Q and Wang Hu is artistically exaggerated, it is true that lice used to live on the bodies of poor people leading a wretched existence. According to Xu Qinwen, at the time of Lu Xun’s writing his novella, it was generally held that “domestic shame should not be made public,” but Lu Xun went against the tide and “boldly exposed the defects of the Chinese national character by depicting the louse-catching scene” (Xu Qinwen, 1956: 62). Accordingly, this shameful fact of modern Chinese life may have been unacceptable to the publisher. For fear that the book, if read by foreigners, would cause a loss of national face, the publisher may have asked the editor or the translator himself to expurgate the lice-catching passage. Finally, there was even a third possibility: since both parties found the episode culturally dishonorable, an agreement may have been reached between the translator and the publisher to remove it in the translation.

Poetics consists of “an inventory of literary devices, genres, motifs, prototypical characters and situations, and symbols” (Lefevere, 1992: 26). Since the patron tendsto relegate authority to the translator where poetics is concerned  (Lefevere, 1992: 15), the translator’s poetics is often embodied in the textual details of manipulation. For example, if the translator finds that the narrative mode of the original does not agree with their poetics, they may make additions, omissions or alterations. Structurally, A Q Zhengzhuan retains much of the traditional Chinese zhanghui xiaoshuo 章回小说 [serially chapterednovel] in that it is told by a story-teller in episodes with chapter headings (Lyell, 1976: 286-287). But it is not a typical zhanghui novel owing to, among other things, the absence of versified chapter endings. Trained in classical literary Chinese, Leung was presumably familiar with classical Chinese novels. When he saw a chapter end without a typical chapter ending, he would feel that something was missing there and would therefore put into the text what is not there but he thought should have been there. Hence, each addition inserted at the end of Chapters V and VIII reflects the translator’s poetical consideration: Leung tried to intervene in the narrative to direct the progress of the story (the first instance) or to express judgments (the second instance). That is, he intentionally made some subtle improvements to these supposed defects.

Lefevere (1992: 49-50) observes that “the faithful translator tends to be conservative in both ideological and poetical terms.” Leung is a case in point. He chose to soften or purify bawdy language in the Chinese original out of his poetical and aesthetic considerations. As a man of refined tastes, Leung may have found dirty language in conflict with the aesthetic to whichhe was faithful. Meanwhile, while Lu Xun used bawdy language as a stylistic device for characterization,Leung may have regard edit as poetically undesirable. Consequently, he chose to sterilize such offensive languageby removing or softening their sexual implications.

VI. Reception of Leung’s Version

At this distance it is impossible to establish exactly the circulation and reception of Leung’s translation. Details of book sales, reprints and circulation figures are all sketchy. Still, we know that the book had a reasonably large circulation, for it went through several reprints, including the 1927 and 1929 editions of the Commercial Press. In 1933 arevised edition was brought out by the same publisher and was reprinted in 1936and 1946. It was also reprinted in 1946 in a bilingual volume edited by Zhao Jingshen 赵景深 (Lu Hsun, 1946). In 1949, the Shanghai-based Jiliu Bookstore 激流书店published a Chinese-English edition, which was subsequently pirated in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, this made Leung’s version available in Hong Kong, then a British colony with afairly large English-reading population. In the 1950s, however, Leung’s version was superseded by the more faithful and fluent version of Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang. The latter was first published in 1953 by the Beijing-based Foreign Languages Press.

Based on six book reviews, we try to gauge the evaluation and reception of Leung’s translation in its time. Three of them are in Chinese, written by bilingual Chinese critics. The other three are in English, all penned by foreign nationals residing then in China.It is not clear whether they knew Chinese or not. Lacy reviews in the Chinese Recorder, the Shanghai-based American missionary journal:

Foreigners in China are pathetically unfamiliar with the literature of the common people. A survey made of the reading done by them shows that very few are reading the poetry andfiction that reflect the thoughts and characteristics of the Chinese. Mr. Leung is doing an incalculable service through his translations. He has been verysuccessful in preserving quaint idiom without burlesquing it, and even incarrying over much of the humor with which Chinese literature abounds. (Lacy,1927: 66)

According to Lacy, Lu Xun’s “quaint idiom” and much of his “humor” are successfully preserved and conveyed in Leung’s version. Noting that Leung has done “an incalculable service,” Lacy does not take issue with Leung’s literalistic approach to translation,and gives no comments on whether Leung’s English reads well or not.

Sower by observes that Leung “has managed to render the (original) style into English without losing any of its freshness and originality.” He also expresses hope that “more of this sort of thing” will be made available to foreign readers in China (Sowerby, 1926). Sowerby does not take exception to Leung’s literalistic rendering, either. Rather, he suggests that such an approach can help retain the original style.

Danton notes that Leung “has attempted afaithful version” which brings about some “rough spots.” Interestingly, Danton tries to justify the translation problem. He argues that it is not the style of the story, but its subject matter, that makes Leung’s translation important. According to him, the Chinese vernacular is not yet mature enough to serve as a “medium of elegant literary expression,” and its present structureis “loose and evenformless.”Consequently, “any translation [of the vernacular literature] is bound to seem somewhat thin” and the“rough spots” in Leung’s version may be, to some extent, attributed to the inelegant vernacular in which the original story is written (Danton, 1927).

Taken together, the three reviewers welcomed Leung’s translation and acknowledged his contribution to helping foreign residents in China understand modern Chineselife and thoughts through Lu Xun’s novella. Yet while hailing Leung’s faithful translation, they ignored or tried to downplay the fact that Leung’s English is embarrassingly stiff and awkward, which should have affected its reception by those foreign readers.

An unidentified Chinese reviewer notes briefly in Ta Kung Pao大公报, a most influential Chinese-language newspaper in the Republican period: “Leung’s version is a complete translationthat stays close to the original. But it is so wordy and verbose that theoriginal style of compactness and flexibility is completely lost” (Yi, 1931/1993). Xi Di(pennameof Zheng Zhenduo 郑振铎) comments more subtly, “The quality of Leung’s translation is actually not bad. Unfortunately, A Q Zhengzhuan is so hard to translate that many unique colloquialisms and some of the best passages in the original are not rendered into beautiful English”(Xi Di,1926/1993). Zheng noted that Leung had failed to renderthe original dialogue into smooth and elegant English, but he did not specify which passages are not translated well enough. Was he hintingat the louse-catching passage removed or the bawdy language sterilized by Leung? No one knows. Yet even if Zheng noticed the liberties which Leung had taken with the original, he may have refrained from pointing them out because Zheng was then an editor at the Commercial Press (Ge Baoquan, 1981: 25). For the sake ofthe publisher’s commercial interest, he might have avoided making straightforward comments, which would have affected book sales.

A detailed review comes from Gan Ren (penname of Bao Wenwei鲍文蔚), who adopted an even handed approach to translation criticism. Bao points out that except for some liberties taken with the Chinese original, Leung did translate, overall, in a “very serious and earnest” manner as was noted by Lu Xun, “but it is precisely because the translation appears slightly too serious and earnest that it is unfortunately rather stiff and unnatural.” According to Bao, Leung’s literalistic approach to translation was a strategic mistake since it wouldnot work well with either foreign residents in China or domestic readers:

If Leung’s translation is intended for foreigners, which should be the case, then they perhaps cannot understand it as his English is so stiff and stilted. Evenif they can, they will surely get bored, and that is tantamount to not reading it. Then let’s say that it is intended for Chinese students to learn English.But pidgin English is the commonest problem among today’s Chinese learners of English. Reading this book, I am afraid, will only aggravate the problem of pidgin English. Finally, according to the translator himself, his English text is to be read against the Chinese, but just think what a job he has done! (Gan Ren,1927)

For both Bao and the unidentified reviewer, a translation should stay close to its original and it is the translator’s duty to handle their work in a serious and earnest manner. The criteria of translation they had in mind when evaluating Leung’s translation can support our observation that literal translation was the dominant translation norm in 1920s’ China. However, as a translation exists to be read, literalness should not, at any rate, be pursued at the cost of smoothness and fluency. That was why Leung’s version was criticized explicitly or implicitly by the Chinese reviewers, including even Zheng Zhenduo.

In conclusion, Leung’s basically faithful translation was generally applauded by the foreign reviewers who acknowledged his contribution to helping foreign nationals in China understand modern Chinese life and thoughts through Lu Xun’s novella. The Chinese reviewers, however, criticized Leung’s literalistic approach to translation,which according to them would mar its readability. One of them even claimed that Leung’s embrace of literalism would cost him both a small foreign readership and a large domestic audience. Despite mixed critical reactions, Leung’s version is of historical significance, not merely because it is the first English version of A Q Zhengzhuan, but also because with a fairly large circulation it helped earn Lu Xun an early international literary fame. According to Chi-Chen Wang, before 1930 Lu Xun was already known to Western readers through both the French and English versions of A Q Zhengzhuan (Wang, 1939: 121). In the wake of such international recognition,Lu Xun was allegedly nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature in 1927 (Kowallis, 1996: 3).Notwithstanding the unverified “rumor” (Gao Jianping, 2000: 124), Leung occupies a prominent place in the history of source culture-initiated foreign-language translation of Chinese literature during the Republican period.

VII. Conclusion

The emergence in Republican China of a sub-field of source culture-initiated foreign-language translations of Chinese literature is a significant socio-cultural event, which challenges the generally held assumption that “translations are facts of target cultures.” Several socio-cultural factors -- an urge felt by Western-trained modern Chinese intellectuals to advance the agenda of internationalism, a niche market for such translations, a booming foreign-language periodical publishing industry in Chinese treaty-port cities,and the availability of a cohort of competent translators (both Chinese and foreign nationals)-- contributed to its emergence. By nature a sub-field of restricted production in the Bourdieusian sense, it operated on the basis of the accumulation of symbolic capital in the Chinese context. George Kin Leung is indisputably an important agent in the dynamics of this sub-field, though his contribution has hitherto been underestimated.

Leung became the first English translator of A Q Zhengzhuan partly due to the unavailability of willing and competent Anglophone translators at that time. Meanwhile, Leung chose to undertake the work because it could help him accumulate symbolic capital in the historical field by means of his expertise in the English language. Overall, Leung adopted a literalistic approach to translation. Consequently, histranslation leans towards the pole of adequacy while its acceptability is very low owing to its awkward and stiff English. However, Leung also took liberties with certain portions of the Chinese original. A tentative explanation of Leung’s translatorial decisions was sought through a contextualization of these findings inspired by Lefevere’s theory of rewriting. The textual analysis was juxtaposed with a reconstruction of the specific socio-cultural context and circumstances in which Leung’s translation was produced and circulated. With regard to Leung’s literalistic approach to translation, the possibility was entertained that the Commercial Press’s publishing priority of turning Chinese-English literary translations into instructional material and the intended primary readership (i.e. Chinese learners of English) largely dictated Leung’s overall approach. Meanwhile, the norm of literal translation that began to hold sway then and Lu Xun’s advocacy of literal translation as well as his literary fame may also have compelled Leung to translate with great caution. This constraint became more tangible for Leung as he sent his translation to Lu Xun for perusal before publication. As for the liberties Leung took with the original text, explanations were sought with reference to the translator’s (and his patron’s) ideology, poetics and aesthetics. The lice-catching competition episode is heavily bowdlerized presumably because both the publisher and the translator deemed itideologically unacceptable or culturally dishonorable; bawdy language is softened or purified because Leung may have found it aesthetically unacceptable; and the two end-of-chapter additions may have arisen from Leung’s poetical consideration.

In Republican China, source culture-initiated foreign-language translations of Chinese literature were often produced, as this case study has demonstrated,to accumulate symbolic capital and/or to seek cultural honor (as in the case of some native Chinese translators) in the Chinese socio-political fields. It ishoped that this case study will prompt further investigations of this interesting translation phenomenon which should not be unique only to China.

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说明：原载A&HCI收录捷克汉学名刊《东方学文献》（Archiv Orientální）2017年第2期（9月30日出版）。因原文篇幅较长，稍有删削。这是第二部分。