On December 12th, at 2:30, a lecture called Right Time and Occasion in Translation---the Focus of Translation Studies was given by Prof. Luan Dong, the director of Foreign Literature and Culture Research Center, in Room 4-424. As the First one of the serial cultural lectures organized by SITS, it was warmly welcomed by many students and teachers of GDUFS. All the participants including Prof. Liang Xuehong, Secretary of Party Committee of SITS, Prof. Yu Dong, Dean of SITS, and Prof. Mo Aiping, Vice Dean of SITS, were deeply impressed by Prof. Luan’s novel points of view, profound knowledge and sense of humor and wisdom. This two-hour lecture turned out to be a cultural feast as well as a trip to the mysterious translation world.
At the very beginning, Prof. Luan brought out the view that translation study was the science about communication between different cultures, languages and minds. And then by quoting The Book of Changes and Confucius’ sayings, he pointed out the Right Time and Occasion, i.e. the harmony made by a person, excellence in characters and learning, through adopting right strategies in the appropriate time, place and on appropriate issue. As for translation studies, the Right Time and Occasion was not only the highest level of translator, but also was the way to reach this level as well as the criterion for evaluating the methods adopted in translating.
Then Prof. Luan gave an introduction about the three levels of translating. The bottom level was Soft Landing, i.e. translators made some makeshifts during coping untranslatable words, and this level was illustrated with the translation experiences of Prof. Luan, Prof. Shu Jingzhe and Mr. Lin Shu, and the Geyi (a kind of way to use the concepts and terms of Chinese philosophy to interpret the profound meaning of the Buddhist Scripture). The middle level called Adaptation meant translator made free translation with proper expressions during coping cultural phrases which needed a lot of efforts to explain. Prof. Luan gave the translations of “美学”, “现象学”and “解释学” as examples on this level. And the top level was the Perfect Translation. To illustrate this level, Prof. Luan gave the translations of “启蒙”, “扬弃” and “理念”, and the analysis of the translation practices of Mr. Gu Suichang and Mr. Liang Zongdai as examples.
And then, Prof. Luan emphasized the key points of translation. The first one was the translator should be loyal and able to coordinate free translation and literal translation. Prof. Luan illustrated this point by telling us how he translated the word “anatreptique”. The second point was the translator should know how to translate cultural words or phrases. Prof. Luan explained this point by quoting the allegory that a skillful butcher could dismember an ox without opening his eyes. The third point was The Coincidence of the Whole. Prof. Luan said there were three elements in this point: “luck”, “destiny” and “lot”. He illustrated the importance of The Coincidence of the Whole in translation by taking the example of Mr. Fu Lei’s translating Balzac’s works.
At the end of the lecture, Prof. Luan encouraged the students to learn more about both China and the western’s cultures and languages to improve translating, and reminded them that they must form right attitude towards studying if they want to succeed in translating.
At last, Prof. Liang, Secretary of Party Committee of SITS, made a brief summary of this lecture, and then Prof. Yu Dong, Dean of SITS and Prof. Liang gave a copy of Translation Bridge, a journal of SITS, to Prof. Luan as present.
