CONTENTS

An Information Processing Approach to the Construction of a Cognitive-psychological Model for Understanding the Translational Process / Wang Liuqi & Liu Shaolong / 20

Experiments on Improving Sight-interpretation Memorization for Simultaneous Interpretation / Wang Jianhua / 25

Pedagogical Principles and Methodologies for Teaching Undergraduate Courses in Translation / Liu Heping / 34

Poetic Rewriting in Translation / Yang Liu / 42

Cultural Factors in Legal Translation / Zhang Falian / 48

Making up for Image Losses in C-E Translation of Metaphors / Liu Fagong / 52

Word Choice Differences in Two English Versions of Sun-tzu’s The Art of War and in Translations of Ancient Chinese Classics in General: An Empirical Study Chen Hong & Li Jiajun / 57

E/C Translation Practice: Grant and Lee (Excerpt) / Liu Qingrong / 68

C/E Translation Practice: Birds’ Paradise (Ba Jin) / Liu Shicong / 72

Winners of Han Suyin Award for Young Translators (2009) / 75

English Abstracts of Major Papers in This Issue / 92

General Catalogue 2009 / 94

English Abstracts of Major Papers in This Issue

Exploration, Construction and Development: 60 Years of Translation Studies in New China

by Xu Jun (Nanjing University, Nanjing, China) & Mu Lei (Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China) p. 5

Abstract: Keeping pace with the development of the country as a whole, translation studies in new China has scored remarkable achievements over the past 60 years in both its theoretical construction and its disciplinary development. This paper offers a historical and comprehensive review of the field’s growth and expansion since the founding of the P.R.C., mapping its current theoretical formation, identifying significant new issues to be addressed, and pointing out directions for its further development in our age of globalization and cultural diversity.

Key words: China; translation studies; disciplinary development; exploration

An Information Processing Approach to the Construction of a Cognitive-psychological Model for Understanding the Translational Process

by Wang Liuqi & Liu Shaolong (Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China) p. 20

Abstract: Simultaneously a linguistic and a cognitive activity, translating involves nothing more than the translator’s psychology and its interaction with what is being translated. Taking this basic assumption into account and adopting an information processing approach, this paper looks into the translational psychology and tentatively comes up with a cognitive model for understanding the mechanisms of information processing in translation.

Key words: translation; information transformation; cognitive-psychological model

Experiments on Improving Sight-interpretation Memorization for Simultaneous Interpretation

by Wang Jianhua (Renmin University, Beijing, China) p. 25

Abstract: To find ways for improving memorization in simultaneous interpretation, the author has conducted several psychological experiments on student-interpreters by testing different summarization models for different interpretation texts. The results show that for greater mnemonic efficiency in simultaneous interpretation, different summarization models should be adopted for different types of texts, with “topic sentence + key words” for texts of economy, “title + key words” for texts of culture and “title + topic sentence + key words” for texts of politics.

Key words: simultaneous interpretation; sight interpretation; memorization; summarization; model

Pedagogical Principles and Methodologies for Teaching Undergraduate Courses in Translation

by Liu Heping (Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing, China) p. 34

Abstract: By drawing from the cognitive psychological theories and the arts of skills training, this paper discusses the principles and the methodologies applicable to undergraduate translation teaching. The author holds that the translation courses (written or oral), both for majors in foreign languages and in translation, should highlight professionalization, and should take into full consideration both the crucial contributions a process-oriented training could make to the formation of translation skills and the significant impact a phase-oriented training could make on fostering the translator’s intuition. Such a course should, moreover, focus on exercises that help the students to acquire a way of thinking befitting translation, attaching secondary importance to acquainting them with texts of various types and subjects. And it should take the training of translation skills and the acquisition of language proficiency as its two main objectives. Only by following the above-mentioned principles can an integrated model be developed for undergraduate translation teaching where the students become the “core” players, equal attention is given to after-class exercises and classroom instructions, and network technologies are applied throughout the teaching process.

Key words: translation; pedagogy; cognitive; skills training; teaching method

Poetic Rewriting in Translation

by Yang Liu ( Nanjing University, Nanjing , China) p. 42

Abstract: A poetic analysis of different versions of Iliad, Wolf Totem, Evolution & Ethics and Other Essays, and The Gadfly shows that since different cultures assign different statuses or have different attitudes to poetic discourse, vary in their ways of canonizing literary forms, and are informed with different ideologies, the rewriting practice in translation is always subject to manipulation by culturally related factors. The translated poetic forms, in return, typically play an important role in the reformation and evolution of literature, culture and society.

Key words: rewriting; manipulation; poetics; literary translation

Cultural Factors in Legal Translation

by Zhang Falian (China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, China) p. 48

Abstract: Since language is an integral part of culture, legal translation involves not only two languages, but also two legal systems, a variety of legal cultures and different sets of legal concepts. Chinese and foreign legal cultures tend to differ significantly from each other. As such, regulatory constraints are necessarily imposed on the way legal texts are rendered into Chinese or foreign languages, and no legal translation is adequate without being culturally contextualized.

Key words: law; translation; cultural factor; analysis

Making up for Image Losses in C-E Translation of Metaphors

by Liu Fagong (Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, China) p. 52

Abstract: As metaphors tend to be full of images in their vehicles, successfully transferring what those images imply culturally holds the key to metaphor translation. In C-E metaphor translation，image losses suffered by the translated vehicles are so serious that the metaphors’ cultural implications often fail to make sense to the target audience. Taking a fresh look at this seemingly insoluble problem, the present paper argues that it could be effectively dealt with if only the translator made a dual move: offering a literal translation of the vehicle concerned first, and then complementing the step with a “reference” translation of its cultural implications. In this way, English readers are offered access both to the original image and to its cultural implications. A comparative study of examples in C-E metaphor translations corrobates the effectiveness of this approach as a means for making up the image losses of culturally charged vehicles.

Key words: metaphor; vehicle; image; translation; culture

Word Choice Differences in Two English Versions of Sun-tzu’s The Art of War and in Translations of Ancient Chinese Classics in General: An Empirical Study

by Chen Hong & Li Jiajun (Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China) p. 57

Abstract: Taking for its theoretical underpinning Levy’s conception of translation as a decision-making process, this paper conducts an empirical study on the lexical differences between two English versions of The Art of War. The findings point to six considerations that account for the translators’ differential selection of words: the cultural factors involved, synonyms, figures of speech, flexibility of treatment, perceived style of the original and the different interpretations of its meaning. By revealing the causes that contribute to or influence an individual translator’s word choice and stylistic adjustment, this study is expected to throw much epistemological and methodological light on how various linguistic and cultural factors are handled in the process of translating Chinese classics.

Key words: Sun-tzu; The Art of War; word choice; translator; process of translation