Self-Retranslation as Intralingual Translation: Two Special Cases in the English Translations of San Guo Yan Yi

Wenqing Peng

Soochow University, China

Self-Retranslation as Intralingual Translation: Two Special Cases in the English Translations of San Guo Yan Yi

Wenqing Peng

Soochow University, China

According to Jakobson’s definition, intralingual translation involves rewording an already translated text in the same target language; however, discussions on a special kind of intralingual translation, Self-Retranslation, i.e. the translator retranslating his or her own previous versions, are few. This paper examines Self-Retranslation from within the wider perspective of intralingual translation. Two issues, which are the real relation between the source text and the target text, and self-referentiality as well as its contributing factors, are proposed and elaborated, based on two intralingual English translations of the classic Chinese novelSan Guo Yan Yi.

Self-Retranslation, intralingual translation, English translations ofSan Guo Yan Yi

1. Intralingual Translation

According to Roman Jakobson’s classical definition, translation is made into three categories, intralingual translation, interlingual translation and intersemiotic translation.“Intralingual translation or rewording is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language; interlingual translation or translation proper is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language” (Jakobson 1959/2000, p. 114). In translation studies, interlingual translation seems to be naturally regarded as an ordinary or prototypical kind of translation while intralingual translation is often excluded; as Gutt (1999/2000, pp. 394-396) points out, not all translation scholars would feel comfortable with a broader definition which allows summaries and elaborated versions.In terms of the affinity and disparity between intralingual and interlingual translations, many scholars including Even-Zohar, Steiner and Schaffner interpret the concept of translation through examining these two kinds. The definition by Jakobson is quite clear, but intralingual translation is still, from both a semantic and a functional perspective, a rather ambiguous term, which leaves certain space to extend the understanding of this kind of translation, to describe the strategies involved and to discuss some borderline issues within the scope of the term, such as Self-retranslation.

In a general sense, retranslation can be regarded as part of interlingual translation as in most cases retranslation takes place between two or more languages; yet, when retranslation is generated within the same language, as the prior translation, but in different genres or forms, it involves intralingual translation. Furthermore, in the issue of retranslation, it is common that the retranslators intend to make a difference from others’previous versions, if they are aware of the pre-existing works. In self-retranslation, there is a more special situation where the retranslators rework their own previous translation and examine these works with a clear consciousness of self-reflectiveness and a stronger awareness of their previous translations. Possibly, they situate themselves in a better position to justify their retranslation due to the ownership or authorship of their previous works. They are assumed to know more about the process of the previous translation, as well as its limitations or inadequacies making it rewarding to examine this potentially meticulous form of intralingual translation since there are still some questions which can be posed on intralingual translation. Therefore, this paper sets out to extend the scope and understanding of this kind of translation through a study of two special cases of selfretranslation as follows.

2. Two Cases

Before discussing the two specific cases, the original novel and its translations should be introduced.San Guo Yan Yi, composed by Luo Guanzhong in the 13th to 14th century, is a historical novel based onRecords of the Three Kingdoms(San Guo Zhi) written by the historian and writer Chen Shou (233 – 297). The novel outlines the turbulent events of the period from 168 to 280 CE, when China’s Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) was riven, through decades of bloody strife, into three separate states nearly constantly at war with each other. The novel contains one hundred and twenty chapters with more than 750,000 characters, describing the waxing and waning of the states and depicting around five hundred characters, some of which are known to almost every Chinese household, including the resourceful Zhuge Liang, the crafty Cao Cao, the proud Guan Yu, the forthright Zhang Fei, and the generous Liu Bei.

San Guo Yan Yiwas conveyed overseas at a comparatively early date, with the earliest translation into a foreign language in 1689. In English, translations of excerpts ofSan Guo Yan Yiappeared in various periodicals as early as 1820. Apart from the two full prose translations by C. H. Brewitt-Taylor in 1925 and by Moss Roberts in 1991, I have found28 excerpted translations and adaptations in various forms, including partial and abridged renderings, prose and drama versions, as well as extracts inserted in journal articles or in monographs.

Among the English translations of the classic Chinese novelSan Guo Yan Yi, there are a few examples of the special retranslation mentioned above, however; they include G. G. Alexander who firstly gave a free translation of a chain plot by a character Wang Yun in the novel, and nine years later produced a play adapted from his previous translation, and Moss Roberts who generated an abridged translation before his full-length version. This paper deals with these two special cases and explores further two issues from the intralingual translation perspective.

2.1 G. G. Alexander: From novella to drama

In 1861, G. G. Alexander published a free translation of a chapter ofSan Guo Yan Yiin a London-based journalOnce a Week(May, 1861, No. 100, published by Bradbury and Evans). It is titled “A Chapter of Chinese History: the Minister’s Stratagem” and the version is in prose, focusing on the chain plot of Wang Yun and the beauty Diao Chan. The story originates from Chapter Seven, Eight and Nine of the novelSan Guo Yan Yi, and tells the chain plot constructed by Wang Yun who made use of the beauty Diao Chan to provoke a deadly feud between Dong Zhuo and Lv Bu (the adopted son of Dong Zhuo), inducing Lv to join his conspiracy of killing the tyrant Dong. The translator also gave a one-page long introduction of the novelSan Guo Yan Yibefore presenting his main translated text.

Then in 1869, Alexander published a play titledTeaou-Shin: A Drama From the Chinese, printed by Ranken and Company in London. In the preface, the translator mentions his referring to the previous free translation in 1981:

The main plot, the principal characters, and some of the scenes of the following drama have been taken from a popular Chinese work called ‘The History of the Three States,’ and those who may be curious to know to what extent the original has been departed from, are referred toOnce a Weekfor May, 1861 (No. 100), which contains a free translation by the author of that portion of the Chinese work from which the incidents have been drawn which constitute the leading features of the piece. (Alexander, 1869, [n])

According to these words, we can say that the 1869 version refers back to both the source text and the previous free translation in terms of the plot, some scenes and leading features. If we could regard the drama version as a retranslation, what makes it a special case is that the retranslator and the prior translator are the same individual and his retranslation consulted his previous free translation, not primarily the original source text, which is often the case in most retranslations. The self-reflectiveness in this retranslation is more self-evident in the paratexts, as the translator himself has explicitly explained the texts he referred to and his own previous translation is framed by many adaptations andeven rewriting.

2.2 Moss Roberts: From abridged to full-length version

Moss Roberts first published an abridged version in 1976 titledThree Kingdoms: An Epic Drama. In this version, by number the translated chapters are 1, 20 to 29, 34 to 44, 46 to 52, 60, 63, 65, 73 to 78, 80 to 81, 83 to 85, 95, 103 to 104. The edition of the originalThree Kingdomsused was published by the People’s Publishing House (Jen min ch’u pan she) in Beijing in 1972. The introduction part of Roberts’s 1976 version discusses the historical context of the original novel including the Han dynasty, the main characters in this novel and their personalites. It also briefly discusses the aim and features of the translation.List of Illustrations,List of MapsandIntroductionare put before the main text. After the text, this version also hasA Note on the Times of Lo Kuan-chung,The Chapters of This TranslationandTheir Equivalents in the Chinese Original, IndexandAbout the Translator. However, he did not render everything in the original novel; rather, he selected main plots and dialogues to translate and made them fit within the topic of each chapter in his translation. In terms of the text, the translator concentrated on chapters 20 to 85 of the original one hundred and twenty. The translator deleted many details and at times put long passages into condensed ones to bridge the narrative.

In 1991, Roberts produced a full-text translation,Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel. Yet in 1999, Roberts published another abridged version, different from the 1976 one. In 1999, another abridged version was published by University of California Press. In this regard, retranslation is made twice and partly in Roberts’s case. The 1991 version retained the maps and added up to 11. After the main text, there is an introduction of the original novel “AboutThree Kingdoms” by the translator, an afterwordNotes, Principal Characters in Three Kingdoms, Chronology of Main Events in Three Kingdoms, Titles, Terms and Offices in Three Kingdoms, abbreviations, as well asNotes to Three Kingdoms. In Roberts’s other abridged version, published in 1999 by University of California Press, the translator added aPreface to the Abridged Edition, yet removed all the after-notes, the afterword, as well as the maps and illustrations in the 1991 version.

3. Self-Retranslation: An Attempt at Description

Based on Jakobson’s categorization of translation, the two cases herein both imply a special kind of intralingual translation, i.e. self-retranslation, in which the translator reworks his/her own previous translation(s). As argued above, cases of self-retranslation share resemblances with intralingual translation, but is it possible to get closer to glean a more detailed account of their characteristics? And in which ways are they shaped into a special kind of intralingual translation? Holmes (1972/2000) encourages translators to describe, explain and predict, but to my knowledge the literature does not offer a systematic empirically-based account of self-retranslation from the lens of intralingual translation, so this is what is attempted next.

In what follows, two questions that are closely related to self-retranslation—a) how we look at the real relation between the source text and the target text, when other texts or genre traditions function in the middle? b) what has happened in the process of selfretranslation in the translator’s mind when the translator reflects and reworks on his/her own previous text?—will be addressed by detailed examination of the two cases. In the next sections, these two issues will be used for explanatory purposes—not to be built up for a fixed model.

3.1 Real relation between ST and TT

It is important for us to decide upon the real relation between the source and the target language in the field of intralingual translation. We can examine it from the perspective of intertextuality. Firstly, it involves indirect translation. Indirect translation is related to the duality of retranslation since the retranslator refers to both the original text and the previous translations, or, let’s say, a kind of indirect translation or relay translation. Indirect translation is characterized by the case in which the translator refers to “other texts” related to the original text (i.e. previous translations or translations in other languages) rather than the original one itself. Functioning as a medium, these “other texts” bridge the original text and the target text. Moreover, the medium texts are not always visible when the translator does not mention them and deliberately presents his/her work as a literal or direct translation of the original text.

The real relation between the two texts also involves the issue of self-quotation. We can also look at the issue of self-quotation from the perspective of intertextuality which examines the interwoven relation between texts in Julia Kristeva’s words. One of its manifestations is quotation by a scholar Mary Orr who later reviewed and extended the theory of intertextuality. Quotation is compared to sand in the pearl sometimes, as it is “foreign and integrally familiar matter” and “marks identifications and distinctiveness in national and temporal frames” (Graham, p. 130). Yet, it is not always “foreign” if the quotation and the original are presented by the same person. In self-quotation, the translator either agrees on or resists the parts of his/her previous translation. Then, the translator retains the form and the meaning of the satisfactory parts while reflecting upon or even criticizing the dissatisfactory parts, transforming the characters or plot in the text or rephrasing the language when self-quoting his/her previous translations.

It is not what is quoted from whom that is important to quotation, but the extent and way of quotation. It is also the function that is important to quotation. How and why can quotation energize the future of a very old script to say again the same, yet other, words? It depends much on the form and the purpose of retranslation, such as Alexander’s rewriting of his own previous translation in another genre, and Moss Roberts’s self-retranslating so as to cater to different target readers. Here is an example in Roberts’s retranslation:

孔明曰：“若蒙不棄，愿效犬馬之勞，早晚拱聽驅(qū)策?！?(Chapter 44)

Roberts: “If you favor me by accepting my service, I would emulate the toil of the ox andstand ready and attentive to your offensive strategy.” (1976, p. 169)

Roberts: “If you would accept my humble efforts, I would toil unsparingly, like a dog or a horse, entirely at your service.” (1991, p. 1057)

Brewitt-Taylor: “Should I be happy enough not to be rejected I would render such humble service as I could.” (1925, p. 507)

The sentence in the original text is uttered by the character Kong Ming and proclaims his readiness to help Zhou Yu in the upcoming battle of Red Cliffs. The original also includes the culturally specific phrase “犬馬之勞” (to toil like a dog or horse) which is used to emphasize the speaker’s firm intention to help the other and conveys a humble, respectful attitude. Roberts’s 1976 translated version renders the cultural image simply as “emulate the toil of the ox” while in his later version the translator revises it to “toil unsparingly, like a dog or a horse”. Compared with Brewitt-Taylor’s translation, both Roberts’s versions retain the original cultural image; it can be said that Roberts maintains his translation style of literal fidelity to the original text and an overall academic approach in his self-quotation. His selfquotation is also evident in the similar sentence structure in both versions, as can be seen in the section, “if you…accept/accepting my service/efforts, I would toil…”, which is strikingly different in Brewitt-Taylor’s version.

Another example of the intertextuality within a text as a self-quotation is the translation of the prelude by Moss Roberts. The prelude at the beginning of Chapter One inSan Guo Yan Yiwas written by a well-known scholar Yang Shen in the Ming dynasty. The poem was added to the novel by Mao Zonggang and his father. It expresses the sense of loneliness and vanity of the mortal world in the tides of time. This exactly echoes with the first sentence of Chapter One: “Empires wax and wane; states asunder and coalesce” (Brewitt-Taylor, 1925, p. 1). I will turn to the context of the composing of this poem. Yang Shen was a talented scholar with great political ambition. Yet he was sent to exile in the remote Yunnan province due to his integrity and less slick personality, which had displeased the emperor. When he arrived at Hubei province in 1524, seeing two fishermen talking and laughing by the river, he composed the poem to express his deep depression and sense of vanity.

(1) 滾滾長江東逝水，(2) 浪花淘盡英雄。

(3) 是非成敗轉(zhuǎn)頭空。

(4) 青山依舊在，(5) 幾度夕陽紅。

(6) 白發(fā)漁樵江渚上，(7) 慣看秋月春風(fēng)。

(8) 一壺濁酒喜相逢。

(9) 古今多少事，(10) 都付笑談中。

Roberts’s version (1976)

(1) The Long River passes east away,

(2) Surge over surge,

(3) White blooming waves sweep all heroes on,

(4) As right and wrong, triumph and defeat all turn unreal.

(5) But ever the green hills stay

(6) To blush in the west-waning day.

(7) The woodcutters and the fishermen,

(8) White headed, they’ve seen enough

(9) Spring air and autumn moon

(10) To make good company over the wine jars,

(11) Where many a famed event

(12) Provides their merriment. (Roberts, 1976, p. 3)

Roberts’s version (1991)

(1) On and on the Great River rolls, racing east,

(2) Of proud and gallant heroes its white-tops leave no trace,

(3) As right and wrong, pride and fall turn all at once unreal.

(4) Yet ever the green hills stay

(5) To blaze in the west-waning day.

(6) Fishers and woodsmen comb the river isles.

(7) White-crowned, they’ve seen enough of spring and autumn tide

(8) To make good company over the wine jar,

(9) Where many a famed event

(10) Provides their merriment. (Roberts, 1991, p. i)1

I do not list the 1999 version herein since the poem is rendered the same as that in the 1991 version. Let me discuss the two versions, 1976 and 1991, on a textual level and identify the nuanced differences between them. Firstly, Roberts’s 1991 version has 10 lines, compared with 12 lines in the previous one. The translator twice combines two lines in his previous translation into one. The original sentence “滾滾長江東逝水” was translated as “The Long River passes east away, / Surge over surge” in the 1976 version in two separate lines yet being revised as “On and On the Great River rolls, racing east”in one line in the 1991 version. The other change occurs in the sentence “慣看秋月春風(fēng)”, which was translated as “Whiteheaded, they’ve seen enough / Spring air and autumn moon” in the 1976 version and “White-crowned, they’ve seen enough of spring and autumn tide” in the 1991 version. In this regard, the later version retains the original form of the Chinese poem with less adaptation and freedom in translation. A similarity is that all the three versions have considered the rhythm of the poem, which applies the “stay”,“day” and “event”, “merriment” at the end of the lines to keep the rhythm in accordance.

Proposing another crucial point, beyond the translation of the text itself, Roberts’s versions illustrate differences in presenting the underlying intertextuality. In his 1976 version, he did not give any note to the poem. Yet in his 1991 abridged version, he added a note at the end of the book. The translator not only introduces the origin of the poem but also explainsthe conventional metaphor of the river. Yet, in his second abridged version, the 1991 full-text version, Roberts deletes the note. The note from the abridged version is as follows:

Mao Zonggang took this verse fromErshiwu shi tanci, a collection of popular songs on historical themes complied during the Ming dynasty by Yang Shen (d. 1559). The verse opens section three of the collection, the section covering the transitions from the Zhou dynasty to the Han. The Great River is the Chang Jiang, sometimes called the Jiang or the Yangzi. A river is a conventional metaphor for history. See, for example, Lord Guan’s speech opening the third act of Guan Hanqing’sGuan da wang fudan dao hui: ‘Battle follows battle on the Jiang; / The second wave impels the first wave on.’ Also see Analects 9.16: ‘The Master stood above the river. ‘Racing past like that—day and night, unceasingly,’ he said,’ ‘The Charms of Nien-nu’, in Cyril Birch, ed.,Anthology of Chinese Literature(New York: Grove Press, 1965), 1: 356 (Roberts, 1991, p. 1003)

The note is indeed a detailed appendix to the prelude and fully unveils the intertextuality within it. Even the underlying reference to Analects and Confucius is also clarified. It is undoubtedly the most visible way to present the origins and references beyond the text. Yet, one could still question the reception effect, i.e. whether the western reader is willing to refer to the long note at the end while interrupting the reading process, though this is the first note of the whole book. Nevertheless, Roberts’s effort to give a comprehensive image of Chinese history and literature is of great significance and praise, if being looked at from the perspective of cultural anthropology.

The translator had undergone a sort of dialogism in his own mind; a dialogue with his own previous translations occurs in Roberts’s reflections, giving rise to the echoing in his mind when he retranslates. Moreover, the translator manipulated more than one text, the original novel, the previous translations, other relevant Chinese texts such as Mao’s Commentaries, other English translations such as Brewitt-Taylor’s, in order to encode the original text and to explain to the reader in a more significant way.

Moreover, intralingual translation makes the appearance of classic texts in another context more acceptable and effective in conveying the merits of the source texts. Genre and literary traditions are inscribed into the relation between ST and TT. In the two cases, the self-retranslators transform their own previous translation in terms of content and also genre in order to situate the later version in a different context with a different tradition and for different target readers. Considering G. G. Alexander’s retranslation, at a textual level, he makes adaptations in the later drama version to make a difference or to target different readers. More dramatic flavour is added in the retranslation. Firstly, the translator produces more characters such as Wang Yun’s wife Mun-wha and her maid A-line who in fact doesn’t exist in either the original text or in the free translation. This might be because the translator wanted to create more conflicts and interactions between characters so as to make the play more dramatic and complex.

Alexander also rewrites the ending of the story. In his previous free translation, thestory ends with the death of Dong Zhuo, stabbed in the throat by Lv Bu; while in the drama, the ending is the beauty Diao Chan’s death in her lover Lv Bu’s arms. There are a few lines of explanation in the “Story of the Plot” of the drama version: “Teaou-Shin falls victim to Wang-wan’s treachery, for she stabs herself at the very moment that the arrival of their lover would have rescued her from the tyrant’s power. She dies in his arms, and he drives Wang-wan from him in horror on discovering how cruelly he has been deceived” (Alexander, 1869, [n]). Possibly, the two versions have different focuses. The free translation tends to look at the chain plot made by Wang Yun and the relationships between the general, the traitor and the minister. Yet the play with the title “Teaou-Shin: A Drama from the Chinese” seems to focus on the love story between the beauty Diao Chan (Teaou-Shin) and the general Lv Bu; also, the play gave a lens to view a woman’s thought akin to the soliloquies by Diao Chan at times.

For a further analysis, let’s take the dialogue between Diao Chan and Lv Bu at the end of Act V. Alexander generates the dialogue in a very passionate and heart-breaking way. In this drama version, the dialogue happened when Diao Chan felt guilty about being Lv’s wife since she thought it was a plan to deceive him at first. Her last words before her death were‘My love—my love! Come––come with me! I go! / Oh! They are bearing me away!––away! / So dark––dark––’ (Alexander, 1869, p. 56). However, the drama ends with Wang Yun’s words ‘I thought to save the State, t’avenge Chang-wan––’, which echoes back to the very beginning of Act I when Wang said to his wife that he was angry about Dong Zhuo’s killing of Chang-wan. The hyphens and exclamation marks, working to strengthen the tone of the speaker, add more dramatic impact to the dialogues.

Turning now to look at self-retranslation from the perspective of intralingual translation, the generic shift between translated versions and even between different literary traditions or genre traditions can be regarded as a type of indirect translation, which is beyond the traditional definition and serving as a link between various physical texts. Alexander’s 1869 version is in a different genre from that 1861 version, though they both focus on the same plot of the same source text. Generally, the 1869 drama version follows the tradition of western drama with introductions of plot and characters prior to the main text as well as a structure of five acts and several scenes which is similar to western plays. It involves a tread of intertextual narrative between the translated version and the genre tradition in the target culture, which makes the indirect translation more complex as a form of intralingual translation.

Associating Alexander’s drama version with traditions in both Chinese and Western drama, we can see that the text depicts a Chinese story in the form of a western, rather than a traditional Chinese, drama. In the history of traditional Chinese drama, the story of Diao Chan in the Three States Period was adapted during the Yuan Dynasty as ‘A Secret Chain Plan Made in Jinyun Court’ (錦云堂暗定連環(huán)計(jì)), part of theYuan Zaju(Drama in Yuan Dynasty) in Yuan period. A striking feature in traditional Yuan drama is the different melodies applied to different characters in different contexts, with titles such as ‘後庭花’ (Hou ting hua), ‘寄生草’ (Ji sheng cao), and so forth. This stems from the traditionthat Yuan drama is often sung or performed in musical form on the stage. The female characters are called ‘旦’ (dan, young lady), the male ‘生’ (sheng, young man). All these features can be seen in the plays about Diao Chan in Chinese Yuan drama, yet are not applied at all in this English drama version.

However, we can also find a few features in this drama version shared by both traditions. Take soliloquy as an example. Soliloquy is commonly seen in English drama, in which a character makes a speech to him or herself so that the audience can understand the character’s inner motivations and conflict. It is particularly prevalent in the plays of the Romantic school of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries such asManfred(1817) by the poet Byron. On the other hand, we can also see this kind of self-address in the Chinese literary tradition, including the one in Yuan-period drama (元雜劇). InThe Peony Pavilion(牡丹亭 Mu dan ting) by Tang Xianzu (湯顯祖, a well-known playwright of the Yuan Dynasty), there are several self-directed speeches such as the monologue by the principal female character Du Liniang in Act X: ‘哎也，天那，今日杜麗娘有些僥倖也。偶到後花園中，百花開遍，睹景傷情……’ [Alas! Heavens! I am lucky enough today. A whimsical stroll to the back garden made me pathetic in spite of the beautiful scenery…] Soliloquy is also used in Alexander’s text. For example, in Act II, there is a separate long paragraph uttered by A-lin in which she speaks to herself to convey her inner regret and struggle. We can see a few sentences from the soliloquy: ‘Well, I thought I could make most things out, but I am all of a maze! What does it all mean? First the Lady Wan in most terrible tantrums most dreadful to behold, thinking Teaou-Shin no better than she should be, and my lord much worse, when phiz!’ (Alexander, 1869, p. 12)

3.2 Self-referentiality and its contributing factors

Now, let us move onto the second question: what has taken place in the process of selfretranslation in the translator’s mind? In an essay of retranslation by Laurence Venuti (2013), the author focuses entirely on the cases in which the retranslators possess “theawarenessof a pre-existing translation”, and “justify themselves by establishing their differences from one or more previous versions” (Venuti, 2013, p. 96). However, among the cases, some retranslators reproduce their works based upon a reflection of their own previous translations; then, these can be termed self-retranslations involving a sharp or strong version of self-awareness.

I would like to interpret this sharp awareness from a perspective of self-reference or self-referentiality. Originally, self-reference or self-referentiality occurs in languages when a sentence, idea or formula refers to itself. In philosophy, it involves the ability of a subject to speak of or refer to itself. Self-referential statements are sometimes paradoxical. For example, “the sentence is in Chinese”: it is false syntactically although correct in grammar. It reminds us that the units of translation “are not always isolated words or sentences, but sometimes whole bodies of discourse” (Hart, 1992, p. 526). In this paper, self-referentiality is somewhat different since the translator and the retranslator are the same individual in those special cases where self-referentiality is articulated in the processof retranslation. In other words, theself-retranslatingprocess involves self-referentiality in the translators’ reflection upon their own works.

In this case, self-referentiality can be explained as the translator speaking to him/ herself and examining his/her previous translations. The subject is split into two; one is the previous translator and the other is the retranslator. It could be said that in such a case the retranslator is entitled with freedom or self-confidence to reflect on their own work and rewrite it in a rather different way in linguistic or stylistic aspects, or even genre. Thus, their individual values are often more obvious and visible than those who rework other translator’s versions.

Furthermore, in the self-referential process, the translator is housed in some factors including his/her knowledge of the previous translations and the original text, time and space, as well as the intended readers. The three parameters in what follows are for example and explanatory purpose only, since other factors may also apply in individual cases of self-retranslation.

3.2.1 The translator’s knowledge

French scholar Paul Ricoeur (2013) holds that writing and reading are separate with no interaction in between; in writing the reader is absent while in reading the author is absent. It applies in most cases of retranslation in which the previous translator and the retranslator are separate with no interaction. However, in the special case of selfretranslation, since the translator and the retranslator are the same person, the translator conducts interactions with him/herself and keeps an authority in understanding and interpreting the previous versions.

As the two cases illustrate, retranslations refer not only to the source text but most importantly to their author’s previous translations of the same original source, making it a quite special situation which seems to be unusually full of later rewritings of earlier versions by the same translator. It could be said that in such a case the retranslator is entitled with more freedom or self-confidence to reflect on their own work and rewrite it in a rather different way in linguistics or stylistic aspects or even the genre. Their confidence comes from a deeper understanding of the previous translations and the original text; their freedom is backed up by their authority in adapting or rewriting the previous works. The self-retranslator’s individual values are more visibly inscribed in the text than those who rework other translator’s versions.

Self-retranslation, in Alexander’s case, occurs between different genres, which implies the translator’s different interpretation of the original text and his preference in reshaping the form of the retranslated text. The transformation from novel to drama is partly due to the different focuses of the two versions. The 1861 version depicts the chain plan made by Wang Yun as well as the relations between Wang, Dong and Lv; while the 1869 version centres more around the female character Diao Chan and her romance with Lv Bu. More ink on female characters in Alexander’s retranslated work can not only be seen in the title (Teaou-Shin, A Drama From the Chinese, in Five Acts) but also inscribed in manymonologues (soliloquy) by Diao Chan and by other females.

As Venuti (2013) argues, in retranslation, values are doubly implied by the translator in interpreting the original text and by the retranslator in understanding the previous versions. While in self-retranslation, the two coexist within one single person who is divided into two selves, as translator and retranslator, interwoven with each other as an intertextual relation. In this sense, though the translator and the retranslator are the same physical body, two egos are involved. The later ego is the product of a gradual development of individual capability, knowledge and values, along with time in a changing social and historical context. Thus, the translator reflects and re-examines his/ her previous works from a different self, resulting in a different interpretation.

According to Alvstad and Rosa (2009, p. 11), “the phenomenon of self-retranslation may find its origin in a translator wishing to revisit her or his own previously published or unpublished translation as a result of having gained further knowledge of the source text, author and oeuvre, for instance, after having translated further works by the same author.”In fact, Roberts’s understanding of the novel—or we may say his literary competence—had already altered when he composed the second abridged retranslation. As Riffaterre defined, the reader is a well-equipped reader formed in the school of accumulated experience of reading (from Orr, 2003, p. 39). As both a translator and a reader, Roberts had gained a panorama of the novel and deeper comprehension of its spirit and merits after his translation of the whole novelSan Guo Yan Yi. Also, based on a better command of the original text, the translator was fussier on the quality of the retranslated work. The reviewer Schimmelpfenning commented:

When Moss Roberts presented the second complete translation of the book into English in 1991—the first translation was made by C. H. Brewitt Taylor in 1925—scholars were full of praise for his work. Roberts had already had considerable experience in translating the novel; in 1976 he published a translation of excerpts under the titleThe Three Kingdoms: China’s Epic Drama(New York: Pantheon Books, 1976). Now he offers an abridged edition of his complete rendering. It contains a preface, the acknowledgments and foreword to the unabridged edition, a fundamentally abridged translation, the afterword from the unabridged edition, one map, a list of principal characters, and a chronology of the main events. It is a rare coincidence that an author acquainted with the problems posed by selections from a novel after completely translating it has the chance to reverse the process and create a condensed version. Roberts is closely familiar with the original. He can base his redaction of this extensive novel on a generally sound and lively translation. Thus, he is the perfect author to present a balanced combination of the most famous, exciting, and beautiful scenes along with those parts that are necessary for following the plot. (Schimmelpfenning, 2001, p. 215)

One more thing which needs our attention here is that Roberts mentioned a previous fulltext translation by Brewitt-Taylor in his Acknowledgements. “A word of recognition is also due to C. H. Brewitt-Taylor, whose 1925 translation ofThree KingdomsI readlong before gathering enough Chinese to confront the original” (Roberts, 1991, p. xii). It implies an intertextual relation between Roberts’s 1991 version and Brewitt-Taylor’s 1925 version and enlarges our interpretation of Roberts’s reference as well as self-reference since the translator’s knowledge of the original text was also etched by referring to other pre-existing translated texts.

3.2.2 Time and space

Time can certainly be a factor to subcategorize retranslations. Gambier (1994, p. 416) discusses the issues of frequency of retranslations. “Synchronic retranslations may be produced with the purpose of offering a different rendering or interpretation of a source text, fulfilling a different function, or addressing a different readership or audience” (Alvstad & Rosa, p. 12). Retranslated texts may share a broad context including time and space but they are for different intentions and situations.

Consider a mirror metaphor. One who looks into the mirror might be influenced by the surrounding environment, and the changing of his or her profile is settled in and fits the specific situation. It also applies to the retranslator. As I have analysed above, these paratexts help us to follow the development of the translator’s view on the original novelSan Guo Yan Yias well as his different intentions in Roberts’s three versions. The context, such as the social norm, political needs, editors and publishers, has a hand in both Alexander’s and Roberts’s self-reflections as well as their retranslation process. So the values added in the self-reflections are housed in both the translator’s individual intentionality and the social or cultural formations, which veils the self-reflexive process with mystery and complexity.

Time is a diachronic factor for which insufficiency results in a lack of knowledge or cultural understanding; this is one of the reasons for Roberts’s full-text version in 1991 and the second abridged version in 1999. Intralingual translations instigated by the parameter of time (diachronic translations) are typical retranslations that are produced many years after the previous version. As Steiner (1975, p. 28) interprets, for intralingual translation that was diachronically motivated, “the barrier or distance between source and receptor is time”.

In Roberts’s case, the first abridged version (1976) is titled “an epic drama” and applies language in a dramatic style for the dialogues between characters which is somewhat unusual in the genre of a novel; while the second abridged one keeps the language style of the full-text version (1991), which is more in line with the stylistic features of a novel or romance. The second abridged version refers to and stems from the full-text translation and presents the original novel in a different perspective with the first abridged translation. The change in genre between the two abridged translations is closely related to time and historical background: in the 1960s and 1970s, due to the Cold War around the world and political events in mainland China, western readers did not have a deep knowledge of China’s history or historical novels. Roberts wanted to convey the vivid description and literary merits of the original novel in the 1976 version (Roberts,1976, p. xx). So many historical details have been left out and the dramatic conflicts in narration are centred on in the first abridged translation (ibid.).

Roberts himself compared the 1999 abridged version and the 1991 full-text one: “The extensive scholarly apparatus of the unabridged edition has been altered as follows: all footnotes to the text and to the afterword have been removed, but the complete afterword has been retained” (Roberts, 1999, p. vii). Roberts also spoke of some features of this edition. For example, “where necessary the excerpts have been connected by bridging material written by the translator to ease the reader’s transitions from one section of the novel to another and to preserve to the fullest extent possible the main lines of the narrative” (Roberts, 1999, p. vii). Also, the second abridged version is in a more ‘fluent’ style as opposed to the more staccato presentation of dialogues in the 1976 version.

The profile of the translator situated in a certain historical context plays a role in the purposes of retranslation as well. Historically, many English translations, excerpt or fulltext, ofSan Guo Yan Yiwere done by western sinologists or experts in China and Chinese literature. Roberts is a sinologist and professor at New York University; he is an expert in understandingSan Guo Yan Yi. The afterword over 40 pages long, illustrations of characters and lengthy notes of the allusions and historical background have illustrated its academic style which is closely related to the translator’s individual background. Also, many American universities or institutes established Chinese majors mostly backed by the authorities in the 1960s and 1970s for political and ideological reasons, contributing to the study of China and translations of Chinese literature.

3.2.3 Readership

Another parameter that needs our attention is the intended readership. Much more attention has been paid to the reader in translation studies since the reader-response theory was first constructed in the 1960s. The theory recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts “real existence” to the text and completes its meaning through individual interpretation. This also applies in analyzing translation and its target reader. How a translator positions the target reader influences his or her translation strategy, and determines the way the translator conveys the message and cultural elements in the text to the reader. It can be seen from the preface and afterword in Roberts’s versions that the target reader was mentioned several times. Given different demands, underlying knowledge of Chinese history and cultures of different groups of target readers, Roberts does some adaptations to make the versions acceptable for the reader.

The intentions in his different versions show the translator’s consideration of the different readers, since Roberts believes that readers who came from different backgrounds have different reading experiences. Readers clearly do not share a single sociolect. It seems that Roberts has a sound recognition of the situatedness of the reader and the historical, social, ideological and even individual specificities of the text production. In different times of publication, for different intended readers, he managed to apply different strategies, abridged or unbridged, loyalty or omission. In fact, non-translation is a form of censorship. It suggests that the translator thought that certain parts were not so important in the abridged version for certain readers than in the full-text version for another sort of intended reader.

Roberts explained why he added so many historical notes to the 1991 translation in the Afterword. “To the Chinese reader—who has grown up with Three Kingdoms tales in stage and radio performances and even comic books—names of persons, places, titles, and battles are household words, words that have also been incorporated in scores of proverbs. But the Western reader, coming to this novel for the first time, is unlikely to find much that is familiar” (Roberts, 1991, p. 940). That is why he gave notes to “provide the background to make the novel somewhat more accessible” (ibid., p. 940). Apart from the Afterword, the translator also illustrates principal characters’ names, titles, institutions and important events in the novel and also in the 93-page-long afternotes. A foreword by John S. Service, who was an American diplomat in Foreign Service in China prior to and during the WWII, was added before the text. His foreword is not long (two pages), centered on the historical background of China in the original novel and the merits of this novel. What makes this foreword special is Service’s combination of both his own experience in China and learning of this novel with his introduction, which draws the reader closer, consciously or unconsciously, to encourage their reading. It implies another level of intertextual relation between the critic’s own experiences and his understanding of this novel, which thus influenced his interpretation of Roberts’s retranslated work.

Roberts makes adaptations, additions or omissions on the language, genre or style of the translated versions according to different demands and backgrounds of his target readers. In the 1976 edition, he did not take a word-for-word translation strategy; he framed new narrative by selecting certain dialogues and main plot in the original novel. The translator gave each chapter a new title in English rather than directly translated the titles in the original novel. For example, the first chapter in the original novel is titled “Three Bold Spirits Plight Mutual Faith in the Peach Garden; Heroes and Champions Win First Honors Fighting the Yellow Scarves” (Roberts, 1991, p. 5). Yet in the 1976 version, Roberts adapted as “The Oath of Fraternity in the Peach Garden; Three Heroes Establishes Their Name” (Robert, 1976, p. 1). The phrases like “斬黃巾” (Fighting the Yellow Scarves) and “豪杰” (Heroes and Champions) in the original title were omitted. Apart from the adaptation in chapter titles, many details in the original text have been either deleted or condensed into brief descriptions. Roberts said in the preface, “many of these inner sixty-five chapters are only partially translated, with many summary bridges, condensations, and splices” (Roberts, 1976, p. xxiv). For the readers who have little knowledge of Chinese culture and literature, the 1976 version simplifies the complex and confusing historical details and focuses more on the plot and main characters.

Why did the translator publish another abridged version, since he had already published the 1976 abridged one and the 1991 full-text version? One of the reasons lies in the intended reader. In 1999’s preface, the translator introduced the purpose of this version. “This abridged translation ofThree Kingdoms, based on the University ofCalifornia Press—Foreign Languages Press edition (Berkeley, 1991; Beijing, 1994), has been designed to serve students in courses on Asian history and literature as well as comparative literature” (Roberts, 1999, p. vii). It explains one of the reasons why the translator produced another abridged version and also accounts for the deletion of many details and notes in the previous full version, since compared with the full-text version, the second abridged version works for college teaching. In the 1999 version, according to the preface, “chapter numbers and tiles have been retained even for shortened chapters”, and it is “for convenience of reference to the unabridged edition” (Roberts, 1999, p. vii). The translator believes that those readers “who wish to know more of the novel’s historical and literary context, or who wish to pursue particular problems of character, incident, or style, may benefit from consulting the unabridged edition” (ibid.). So it aims to satisfy the demands of different readers and epitomizes the translator’s sense of readership in his self-retranslation.

4. Conclusion

Compared with interlingual translation, intralingual translation has been significantly less investigated since naturally traditional translation studies focus more on texts in different languages and less on comparing those translations that are in the same language. This paper draws on Jakobson’s definition of intralingual translation and examines a special group of texts which were conducted by the same translator on the same original text, i.e. self-retranslation, but produced in different periods and contexts. If we look at the issue from intralingual translation, in terms of this paper’s three perspectives—self-quotation, indirect translation and self-referentiality—then we have more access to the process of the translator’s intention (such as for different target reader groups or for more accuracy), translation strategy (addition, omission, adaptation, annotation) and self-reflection (of their own previous translations).

We see many sorts of intralingual translation including varieties of easy-reads for children, subtitling for the deaf, expert-to-layman communication, summaries, news reporting, new translations of classics and so on. Differently, intralingual translation in this case study is housed in the various genres of these translated versions. The translators’ transformation of genre from novella to drama in self-retranslation makes this kind of intralingual translation unconventional. This paper’s detailed analysis of both the main translated texts and the paratexts of the translator’s social and cultural background in the two cases of translatingSan Guo Yan Yicontributes to understanding transformation between genres of translation and the freedom or otherwise presented in self-retranslations, thus helping to frame a more comprehensive image beyond the linguistic differences in the text.

Note

1 A note is attached to the poem at the end by the translator in the 1991 version, and will befurther analyzed in the following paragraphs in this paper.

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About the author

Wenqing Peng (jspwq5656@163.com) is a Lecturer at Soochow University, China. She completed her PhD program at Shanghai International Studies University, China and University College London, Britain. Her research interest is the translation of ancient Chinese literature into English, as well as the translator’s voice and value inscribed in the text. Her PhD project is about the English translations of a classic Chinese novelSan Guo Yan Yi(Romance of the Three Kingdoms).