摘 要

《浮生六记》是沈复所著的自传体散文，其文笔朴实灵动，描写切入点独到有趣。不同于其他自传，《浮生六记》在描写感情上细腻动人，以故事来牵动情感， 语言质朴历练，饱含作者对生活的见地与对人生的理解。林语堂先生一直以来都对《浮生六记》赞赏有加，并于 1935 年完成这部作品的翻译。在其译本中，他灵活地运用了翻译技巧和策略，使得译文充分地传递了原文的本意和隐意。中国文化以含蓄内敛为传统，而以文言文为首。为了在中英文版本中找寻平衡，林语堂先生做出了很多努力，为了使得译文传递出作品的精髓，林语堂在译本中做出了一些变动与调整，于是在某种意义上就产生了不对等现象。本文就林译本的不对等现象进行研究，将会找出具有典型意义的不对等现象，从两种语言的文化背景等方面分析其原因，并就其影响进行讨论。

关键词：《浮生六记》；林语堂；不对等现象；原因及影响

Abstract

Six Chapters of a Floating Life is an autobiographical prose written by Shenfu. It has a simple and graceful style with unique and intriguing descriptive perspectives. Being different from other autobiography, Six Chapters of A Floating Life is sentimental and moving in relationship description. It plots the story to bring the feeling into full play. The language is simple and concise, filled with the understanding and insight of Shenfu to life. Mr. Lin Yutang admired this autobiography, and he accomplished the translation of this works in 1935. He flexibly applied various translation strategies and techniques in his translation, which fully conveyed the meaning and implication of the original work. Chinese culture puts connotation and restraining in priority, and classical style of writing can perfectly represent them. To find balance between the Chinese and English version, Mr. Lin made a lot of attempts. To convey the essence of the original work, he made some adjustments and changes in the translated non-equivalence by finding out the typical non-equivalence, analyzing it on aspects such as different cultural backgrounds, and study its influence.

Key Words: Six Chapters of A Floating Life; Lin Yutang; non-equivalence phenomenon; reasons and influences

Contents

1. Introduction 1
2. Introduction of Six Chapters of A Floating Life And Lin’s Translated Version 3
   1. Translation Background 3
   2. Translation Research Background 4
3. Classifications of The Non-equivalence 6
   1. Typical Non-equivalence 6
      1. Word Level 6
      2. Sentence Level 6
      3. Paragraph Level 7
   2. Types of Non-equivalence 8
      1. Amplified Content 8
      2. Reduced Content 9
      3. Converted Content 9
4. Contributing Factors for Non-equivalence 11
   1. Concern for Translation Purpose 11
   2. Consideration for Target Reader 12
   3. Different Cultural Backgrounds 12
5. Effects of Six Chapters of A Floating Life with Emphasis on The Non-equivalence 14
   1. Domestic Effect 14
   2. Western Literary Circle Effect 14
   3. Inspirations for Nowadays Translation of Chinese Classic Literature 15
6. Conclusion 17

Acknowledgements 19

A Study on the Non-equivalence of The Six Chapters of a Floating Life Translated by Lin Yutang

Introduction

Six Chapters of A Floating Life, written by Shenfu, is an autobiographical prose. It has six chapters, including wedded bliss, the little pleasures of life, sorrow, the joys of travel, experience and the way of life. It is an outstanding book about the ordinary life of man of letters in ancient China and a demonstration of their pursuit. Under the background of outputting Chinese culture, translation as a vital tool for the cultural communication is very important for this process. Nowadays, although China grows up as a great country, its soft power is still weak in some way. The world has witnessed China’s promotion on economic power but not on the cultural one. As an excellent translation of classical Chinese writing, Lin Yutang’ s version can be learned a lot on the translation methods. Chinese classical style of writing can be difficult to understand even for Chinese, so it is no doubt that the process of translating needs a lot of rumination and adjustments when conveying the full meaning. To cope with the reading habit of western reader, Lin Yutang made some changes and they are studied in this paper. This paper aims to study on the non-equivalence including the typical non-equivalence and the reasons of their formation. The very important part will lay on the influence of the non-equivalence for it can be the enlightenment on today’s translation work and the cultural communication. To make Chinese literature be popular in the international market, it is important to draw on experience from successful translation works. Because of the excellent work of Shenfu and Lin’ s ingenious and subtle translation, the translation version gained huge success after being spread to the western world. When facing to the typical Chinese terms and parallel sentences, Lin shifted them into the expression which was easy to understand by western readers with original flavor and essence. A lot of studies on Lin’s translation version focused on the reasons of non-equivalence and related translation theories. This paper will put the emphasis on the influence and the enlightenment of it on outputting Chinese culture. Lin’s methods on dealing with the part which difficult to translate are very flexible and illuminating. The fluent and graceful words are so attractive and

expressive that they make the foreign reader can not bear finishing the book. It will bring great benefits to current translation. This paper will study the unique changes of some typical Chinese terms and will also analyze the non-equivalence basing on the Skopos theory. All in all, these analyses will be transformed into the future application on the spread of Chinese literature.