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2.2 Loyalty
In Fu Zhongxuan’s monograph Practical Translation Aesthetics, he puts forward the requirement that the version be loyal to the original text in the aspect of both form and content (Fu Zhongxuan, 1998: 198-199). In order to reproduce the sense of beauty in versions, grasping and obeying to original text is preliminary. Firstly, in the aspect of form beauty, attentions are paid to at least three levels, namely, phonetic level, lexical level and syntactic level. Rhythm is the most obvious character in phonetic level. Given the fact that there are huge differences between phylums, rhythm in accordance with original text is not a must. But if it can be achieved, luster and reading enjoyment are added. The suffix of words, capitalization and the use of certain kinds of the punctuation such as the dash carry beauties in the lexical level. Rhetoric in syntactic level contains many kinds, and familiar ones are antithesis, parallel structure, inverted sentences and repetition. In the aspect of content beauty, Fu has mentioned three parts: original meaning, applied meaning and inner meaning in languages ( Fu Zhongxuan, 1998: 32-43). It is well-known that sentences are made up of vocabularies. And almost every language has abundant vocabularies. Vocabularies make up sentences which show meanings which convey a great number of information. Using rhetoric is reflected through vocabularies too. It is safe to say that words’ meaning is the elementary component of text content. This thesis puts more efforts on elaboration and illustration for applied meanings. Because this part contains many remarkable phenomena of connotation, it is one of ways to make languages vivid and powerful, and through using connotation come many rhetorical phenomena (Fu Zhongxuan, 1998: 28-38). These rhetorical phenomena consist of simile, metaphor, synecdoche, personification, irony, hyperbole, euphemism and so on. And these could be found in English novel The Kite Runner, so attention is paid to the corresponding part in its Chinese version about these rhetorical phenomena.
Translators rack their brains to make sure that versions are loyal to its original text not only in the content but also in the form as much as possible. Only in the situation that the content conflicts with the form which can’t be kept at the same time could the form be abandoned (Fu Zhongxuan, 1998: 204).
2.3 Where the Beauty Lies
In order to appreciate the beauty in Chinese version, one has to know where the beauty lies in Chinese and in English respectively. In Mao Ronggui’s book Translation Aesthetics, he has made a conclusion that the beauty in English can be reflected by sound, vocabulary, use of big words, sentence and logic artistic conception; while in Chinese the beauty lies in form, sound, vocabulary, sentence and hazy artistic conception (Mao Ronggui, 2005: 111-216). Given the fact that The Kite Runner is a narrative novel written by an Afghan American which uses little English poetry and idioms, rhythm in phonetic level is hard to do deep research. So this thesis would save ink in this part. In lexical level, apart from typical rhetoric phenomena, a unique feature of Chinese, the four-character words, would be discussed in detail. Four-character words are refined, mellow, orderly, concise and exquisite. Each a story, a phenomenon or a piece of philosophy can be concluded into four characters, which is a great masterpiece in languages (Mao Ronggui, 2005: 213). Using Four-character words in Chinese versions caters for expectation visual field and language habit of Chinese readers, which promises the versions more acceptable. In the syntactic level, there are sentences of ancient classical Chinese. Like Four-character words, ancient classical Chinese is elegant and more readable. The beauty of the vernacular lies in its classical and concise feature which derives from ancient classical Chinese (Mao Ronggui, 2005: 202). Therefore, adding ancient classical Chinese to Chinese versions properly makes it more aesthetics-rewarding and readable. In the level of artistic conception, Chinese differs much from English. English is a language which pays attention to logic. Meticulous logic and precise expression reflect artistic conception beauty in English. This can be put into three aspects: apart from hypotaxis, strict tense and voice are required (Mao Ronggui, 2005: 181). While Chinese, on the other hand, puts less emphasis on logic. Instead, traditional Chinese thinking mode insists on having a general understanding of objective things and stressing universal relations between things. And the existence of such thinking mode is under influences of long-term traditional Chinese philosophy and culture (Mao Ronggui, 2005: 217). So, obvious logical relation can not be found in Chinese, which indicates that Chinese enjoys a dim artistic conception. However, the dim feeling does not always mean lack of preciseness. Under some certain circumstances a vague description creates better and clearer images. A typical example is the translation of description of Lin Daiyu’s visage in A Dream of the Red Chamber: an entirely corresponding translation can not be found in English because vague artistic conception gives readers more fancy spaces (Mao Ronggui, 2005: 217-218).