2. Literature Review
Catford, from the viewpoint of linguistics, defines translation as the replacement of textual material in one language (SL) by equivalent textual material in another language (TL) (cf. Snell-Hornby, 2001:15). An illusion, though, his equivalence proposition prescribes the desired goal a translation should reach. In fact, in history of translation, a number of translators used to defend for the faithfulness to that effect. Newman declares that “he aims to retain every peculiarity of the original, so far as he is able, with the greater care the more foreign it may happen to be; so that it may never be forgotten that he is imitating, and imitating in a different material, and the translator’s first duty is, a historical one, to be faithful” (Lefevere, 2004: 68). Catford’s definition also suggests that the translator submits not only to the imagination of another but also to the way in which he orders his material and even to his elocution, as far as possible.
All these come down to the faithfulness of the original. While faithfulness has long been highly recommended, it has the least practiced. The case also holds true with China’s history of translation, and wide use of Chinese language convention is a case in point.