Domestication & Foreignization and structural shifts in the translation of Vandals in Open Secrets

1. Introduction

On November 2013， the Chinese translation of Alice Munros short story series Open Secrets has been published by Yilin Press（gongkaidemimi，2013）. Open secrets is one of Alice Munro， the winner of 2013 Nobel Prize in literatures masterpiece. （goodreads， n.d）. The literary value of the book was recognized by the whole world. As the first Chinese version of this short story series which was published following Munros winning，《公開的秘密》 has drew a lot of attention in Chinese literary world. In this paper， the translation of one of the short story in Open Secrets will be analyzed. The title of the story is Vandals， and it was translated into 《破壞分子》 by its translator XING Nan. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the strategies that XING Nan used most to deal with the linguistic barrier between English and Chinese. In the mean time， this research also aims to find out what strategies did the translator used to manage the difference between English and Chinese culture. Firstly， there will be a literature review in this paper which contains introductions and analysis of other articles related. Secondly， the Domestication and foreignization strategies used in 《破壞分子》will be studied. Thirdly， there will be an analysis on how Venutis translation shifts were used in the translation. A brief conclusion will be drawn at the end of this essay.

2. Literature review

2.1 About Alice Munro and Vandals

Alice Munro is a famous Canadian English-language writer who won the 2013 Nobel Prize in literature. She is appreciated for finely tuned storytelling， and her work is characterized by clarity and psychological realism（NobelPrize.org， 2013）. In her book Open Secrets which was published in 1994， she combined this kind of realism with narration（Foy， 1998）. The story series contains 8 short stories. In those stories， Alice Munro demonstrates the life and love experience of people living in a small town of Canada. The destructive power of old love suddenly recollected is emphasized in those stories（goodreads， n.d）.Vandals is the last story in the book. It describes the love story of a small town women Bea and her mate Ladner as well as stories happened between her and Lisa（The neighbor girl who is the actual ‘vandals）. N. Foy wrote a comment essay about Vandals. According to Foy， it is a end to Open Secrets which contains the magic， romance， memory， and writing purpose of the whole series（Foy， 1998）. However， Foys view lacks supporting details. In Munros book， the 8 stories have similar style background. And the some main characters in Vandals are related to characters in other stories. Nevertheless， it is an independent story. There is no proof that Munro made a conclusion of the series through Vandals.

2.2 About Domestication and Foreignization.

Domestication and Foreignization are translation strategies that translators often used to deal with the cultural differences between source and target culture. L.Venuti has explained these two strategies in his ‘invisibility theory（Munday，2013； Venuti，2008）. According to Venuti， the purpose of domestication is to minimize the foreign elements of the TT. While Foreignization aims to “developing translation which can get rid of cultural influence of target culture”. Domestication and Foreignization are often translated into ‘歸化and ‘異化in Chinese. However， there is an article about the difference between domestication & foreignization and ‘歸化& ‘異化in Chinese which was written by DONG Yangping. In this article， ‘歸化 and‘異化are similar to domestication & foreignization but the source and usage of them are different（DONG， 2009）： ‘歸化 and‘異化are closely related to ‘literal translation and free translation and they are not created because of political reasons. However， most of DONGs opinions lack proof in her article. Ge Xiao Xia wrote an essay about domestication and foreignization which demonstrates the definition and characters of these two strategies（Ge，2013）. According to her， domestication is target culture oriented while foreignization is source culture oriented. She also gives a few examples about these two theories. However， all of her examples lack explaining and analyzing process. Besides， which examples belongs to domestication or foreignization are not clearly pointed out in her article. That may cause a lot of confusion.

2.3. About structural shifts

The concept of translation shifts comes from Catfords book which was published in 1965. According to Catford， there are two kinds of translation shifts. One is level shift while the other is category shifts. Category shifts includes Structural shifts， Class shifts， Unit shifts and Intra-system shifts. Structural shift is a commonly used translation strategy which involves change in grammar structure of source text（（Munday，2013； Venuti，2008）. Ghoreishi and Aminzadeh wrote a paper about the effects of Catfords translation shifts on readability in the translation childrens literature. Their study concluded that using class shifts in translation can make the target text more readable. However， this paper does not explain which kind of translation shift is the most effective one in childrens literature translation.

After reading all the previous studies， I found that domestication， foreignization and structural shift are effective strategies for translators to fill the cultural and linguistic gaps between source and target language. Besides， Vandals can be a good material to be studied. These studies are all close related to my research， I can use them as supporting details in my own research. However， they still have limitations. For example， some of them lack proofs to prove the views presented in the text. And some important explanations are confusing in those articles. My research topic will focus on the domestication & foreignization and structural shifts in the Chinese version of Vandals in Open Secrets.

3. Data analysis

3.1 Data collection

All the data to be discussed in this paper are collected from the original version of Munros Vandals and its only Chinese version《公開的秘密》translated by XING Nan. I have read and compared the source and target text carefully and found the most representative examples which reflect the translation trategies used in XING Nans translation.

3.2 Data analysis

The data analysis covers the Domestication& foreignization and translation shifts used in 《公開的秘密》

3.2.1 Domestication

Source Text： When Bea spoke of having had a checkered career， she was taking a sarcastic or disparaging tone that did not reflect what she really felt about her life of love affairs.

Target Text： 當貝亞說起自己那 “沉浮不定” 的生活時， 用的是一種諷刺或者輕蔑語調，根本聽不出她對自己的情愛生涯到底是什么看法。

Analysis： ‘Checkered career in the source text actually means ‘unstable life. It is translated into a Chinese idiom “沉浮不定”to meet the needs of Chinese reader.

ST： But love affairs were the main content of her life.

TT： 然而，生活的主旋律仍然是那些風流韻事。

Analysis： ‘main content is translated into “主旋律”while ‘love affairs is translated into “風流韻事”by XING Nan. “主旋律”and “風流韻事”are both typical Chinese expressions. That makes the whole sentence looks more natural in Chinese.

ST： Some brute gets the woman tingling and then its goodbye to Mr. Fine-and-Decent.

TT： 男人不壞，女人不愛，好好先生只能被甩。

Analysis： The sentence is translated in a free style. And ‘Mr. Fine-and-Decent is translated into ‘好好先生. The ST sounds like an English proverb of typical English style. However， the translator has translated it into a Chinese common saying which can be easily understood by Chinese readers. The foreign elements of ST has been removed

ST： I do not give a fuck about your teenagers.

TT： 我他媽的可不關心那些小崽子。

Analysis： The dirty talk ‘give a fuck in English is translated into its Chinese version “他媽的”. Meanwhile， ‘teenagers is translated into “小崽子”. “小崽子”is a derogatory slang to describe children or young people. This translation has perfectly emphasized the emotion of the person who said those words.

ST：Bea and Peter had some trouble finding Ladners house.

TT： 貝亞和彼得費了很大勁才找到拉德納的房子。

Analysis： The original text ‘had some trouble is translated into “費了好大勁”. This is a typical domestication strategy in order to make the TT more natural for target readers.

ST：Peter Parr said that he would come straight to the point.

TT： 彼得帕爾說， 他要開門見山。

Analysis： XING Nan has translated ‘come straight to the point into the Chinese idiom “開門見山”. She has used domestication strategy to meet the needs of Chinese reader.

From those data we can see that domestication is frequently used in the translation of Vandals. It is one of the main strategies for translators to make the translation more acceptable in Chinese.

3.2.2 Foreignization

ST： Poor old Dismal， I guess it really deserves the name now.

TT： 可憐的老迪斯墨爾， 我想它現在一定名副其實了。

Analysis： The word ‘dismal in English has the meaning of depression. However， XING Nan has translated this word directly into a name of a place according to its pronunciation without indicates the implication of this word. It is a common way to maintain the cultural features of the ST.

ST： Stratford TT：斯特拉福德

Analysis： The Geographical terms such as Stratford are all transliterate directly according to its pronunciation. The foreignization strategy which is used here aims to keep the foreign elements of these places.

Foreignization is used in XING Nans translation. However， the data is limited. Compared to domestication， foreignization is not frequently used in《公開的秘密》， so it cannot be considered as the main translating strategy in the target text.

3.2.3 Structural shift

ST： Much of this was untrue or only partly true， as Bea discovered.

TT：貝亞后來發現， 那些話大部分不是真的，或者不全是真的。

Analysis： The word order of the TT is different from ST. In XING Nans translation， the meaning ‘as Bea discovered has been put in the beginning of the sentence to make the translation more readable.

ST： She wrote that she would hate to think she had gone after Ladner because he was rude and testy and slightly savage， with the splotch on the side of his face that shone like metal in the sunlight coming through the trees.

TT： 她寫道，自己很不愿意承認，之所以受到拉德納的吸引是因為他粗魯，暴躁，甚至有點野蠻，他臉上的傷疤在枝葉間透出的陽光下就像閃閃發亮的勛章。

Analysis： The original text is a long， complicated English sentence. XING Nan changed the structure of this sentence and divided them into several parts when translating. For example， ‘She wrote that she would hate to think was divided into “她寫道”and “自己很不愿意承認”. This structural shifts strategy makes the translation more natural without changing the meaning and elegance of the source text.

ST： He led her first on a boardwalk across a marsh to a pond， where some Canada geese had settled and a pair of swans were circling each other

TT： 他先帶她沿著一條木板路穿過沼澤去一個池塘， 那里有一些加拿大大雁，還有兩只繞頸繾綣的天鵝。

Analysis： The clause ‘where some Canada geese had settled and a pair of swans were circling each other is translated into two other parts of the main clause. The word order in that clause is also changed. These structural shifts make the TT more acceptable in Chinese.

ST： He and Bea would always end up dropping in on somebody， or talking for an hour with a former student now working at a gas station.

TT：每次他帶貝亞出去，最后都成了順便拜訪某人，要不就是遇到以前的學生在加油站工作，一聊就一個小時。

Analysis： The sentence of the source text has two parts. However， XING Nan has changed the structure of the source text and divided it into form parts when translating. That shift makes the translation become more clear and easier to understand for Chinese reader.

ST： It irked her， for instance， when Peter Parr took her for a drive in the country， that he never did it for the sake of her company alone.

TT： 比如，彼得開車帶她去鄉下，從來都不是為了享受單獨和她度過的時光， 這事總讓她很惱怒。

Analysis： The structure of and word order of the original sentence was completely changed when translating. The parenthesis ‘for instance in the source text has been put in the beginning of the sentence. And the translation of the clause ‘It irked her has been put in the last part of the sentence. The structure of TT is more commonly used in Chinese after the shift.

Structural shift is one of the mean strategies that XING Nan used in her translation. It helps the translator to avoid collocation issues and make translation more readable in Chinese.

4. Conclusion

In conclusion， domestication is far more commonly used in translating Vandals than foreignization. That may because of cultural reasons. Using Domestication strategy in translation is to adapt to target culture and make the translation easier for the target readers to understand. Besides， structural shift which comes from Catfords translation shift is also one of the effective way to deal with linguistic gaps between English and Chinese. XING Nan used structural shift to avoid collocation issue， it makes the source text reads more natural. This study may be the first one its study area because there is no other study that aims to identify the main translation strategy of the Chinese version of Vandals. However， limitation still exists. For example， the size of examples which was analyzed in this paper is too small due to word limitation.

References：

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[7]Foy， N.‘darkness collecting： reading Vandals as a coda to Open Secrets， Essays on Canadian Writing，1998，Vol.66：147.

[8]GE，X.‘Study on domestication and foriegnization in translation[J].Overseas English，2013.Vol 24：193-194.

[9]Ghoreishi H& Aminzadeh S.‘ Effects of Translation Shifts on The Readability in Translation of Childrens Literature， Canadian Center of Science and Education，2016，Vol.12，No.6：239.

[10]Goodreads， n.d， Open Secrets by Alice Munro，Goodreads，viewed November30，2015[OL].http：//www.goodreads.com/book/show/14286. Open_Secrets.

[11]Nobel Prize，n.d，Alice Munro-Facts， Nobel Prize.org，viewed May 30，2015.

【作者簡介】武仁莉（1991.11），女，漢族，四川廣漢人，中國民用航空飛行學院，本科，研究實習員；研究方向：英語教學。