A Study of Ji Xianlin as a Translator

Abstract：As we all know， Ji Xianlin is a master-level person and masters many languages. The paper aims to introduce him as a great translator. And the author hopes this paper will value to the study of Chinese translation history.

Key words：Ji Xianlin； translator； Chinese translation history

Ji Xianlin is an international famous Chinese Indologist， linguist， writers， paleographer， and historian who had been honored by the government of both India and China. What surprised me most is that he got great achievements in all of these areas.

During his lifetime， he had translated many works， for example， he translated the Indian magnum opus Ramayana（《罗摩衍那》）， which had written in a poetic form. He also translated the Foreword to a Misers Autobiography （《守财奴自传序》）by Don Marquis， the Rose （《蔷薇》） by Logan Pearsall Smith， the short stories of Anna Seghers （《安娜·西格斯短篇小说集》）， Abhijnanasakuntala （《沙恭达罗》） and Vikramorvasiya （《优哩婆湿》） by Kalidasa， Pancatantra （《五卷书》） and The Jataka Stories of Shakyamuni Buddha （《佛本生故事》）. He also translated the Records of Western Travels （《大唐西域记》） by Xuan Zang in the contemporary Chinese language after that. We could see most of his translation was concerned about sutras.

As a great translator， Ji Xianlin was titled as a member of the jury of Chinese Literature Translation Prize， the director of the Translators Association of China for many years. And because of his contributions to Chinese translation， Ji Xianlin was awarded the 4th Rainbow Translating Prize by the Chinese Writers Association in 1994. In 2006， the Translators Association of China rewarded him the Cultural Translation Lifelong Achievement Award. He was the first person who got this prize. Therefore， we can see that he is really a steady translator， but his translation viewpoints have not formed a system. So we can only conclude the points from his published papers. It deserves us to take his translation points seriously. From these papers， we can conclude that firstly， he revered Yanfus three-character criteria—faithfulness， readability and refinement. Master Ji thought “faithfulness” was the first standard to testify the translation quality and was the underlying premise of “readability” and “refinement”. He pointed out that “faithfulness” was faithful to the original text， “readability” was faithful to readers， and “refinement” was faithful to literary language. When he translated Ramayana， the contradiction between faithfulness and refinement still existed from the beginning to the end. Secondly， he opposed to translate according to a version rather than the original text. For translation， especially for literary translation， no matter how great efforts did a translator make to get close to the original and convey the main points of the poem vividly， it is unavoidable to add or miss information in the translation process. Even translate according to the original text being so， let alone translate from a version. For example， if a Russian original text was translated into Chinese from a Japanese version， especially the irresponsible translator do the translation； you can imagine what the Chinese version will be.

Ji Xianlin has rigorous attitude on translation. Here is an example. The original of Ramayana is in style of a verse poem. He insisted not to translate it in prose. But to use what kind of verse poem was taking great pains for him. If he uses ancient Chinese， it would be very difficult to translate or to read because the Indians often chanted this long poem after dinner. If he uses vernacular poems， it will lack of basic consistent style， because they usually acts in his own way. After he read the original text carefully， he made up his mind to translate the poetry in the ballad style. Every translator even who has a little translation experience has known how difficult it is to translate poetry in the poetic way. It is know that Ramayana is a masterpiece， so we can see Ji Xianlin is very courageous and full of patience. Besides， there were various kinds of plots in this long poem such as the description of natural landscape， the narration of farewell， and so on. Master Li continuously chewed on the changes. We can see that Ji Xianlin is very rigorous and precise for translation. He is engaging in scholarship purely. And he deserves the respect of everyone.

Ji Xianlin spent all his life in academic research and cultural exchange. So he has got many titles such as “National Treasure”， “Master of Sinology” and “The Greatest Leading Authority”， but he denied them in public for many times. Only two titles that were recognized by master Ji： one is professor and another is translator.

参考文献：

[1]李景端.听季羡林谈翻译[J].中国翻译，2005（2）.

[2]朱明炬.季羡林的翻译观[J].长江大学学报，2011（4）.

作者简介：

张晴（1990.9— ），女，汉族，山东淄博人，学历：在读研究生（2014级英语语言文学硕士），研究方向：翻译理论与实践。

（作者单位：西南科技大学外国语学院）