Translation of Social Deixis

 Abstract :
Deixis is considered the most obvious and direct linguistic reflection of the relationship between language and context . Social deixis occupies a very important position in deixis. Social deixis gives an indication not only of where the speaker stands in time and place, but also of his/her status within the social structure, and of the status the speaker gives the addressee. Then as for the translation of social deixis, translators should pay special attention to the social context,which contains language factors and non-language factor. The former means the differences between the source language and target language, the latter emphasizes all the relative factors of communicators such as statue, rank, position, culture. Through analyzing the different elements, this paper tries to explore the effective approches to the translation of social deixis.
Key words :
social deixis ; social status ; source language; target language

I. Definitions of Deixis
In pragmatics and linguistics, deixis is collectively the orientational features of human languages to have reference to points in time, space, and the speaking event between interlocutors. A word that depends on deictic clues is called a deictic or a deictic word. Deictic words are bound to a context — either a linguistic or extralinguistic context — for their interpretation. According to Fillmore, deixis can be roughly categorized into five types. They are person deixis, time deixis, place deixis, discoursal deixis, and social deixis.Some English deictic words include, for example, the following: now vs. then ; here vs. there; this vs. that;me vs. you vs. him/her ; go vs. come.

II. Definition of Social Deixis
Social deixis[. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deixis] is the use of different deictics to express social distinctions. An example is the difference between formal and polite pro-forms. Relational social deixis is where the form of the word used indicates the relative social status of the addressor and the addressee. For example, one pro-form might be used to address those of higher social rank, another to address those of lesser social rank, another to address those of the same social rank. By contrast, absolute social deixis indicates a social standing irrespective of the social standing of the speaker. Thus, village chiefs might always be addressed by a special pro-form, regardless of whether it is someone below them, above them or at the same level of the social hierarchy who is doing the addressing.

III.Translation of Social Deixis
In all the five catogeries of deixis, social deixis occupies a very important position because it indicates, the relationship between the participants in interpersonal communication, gives prominence to the relative social status of the addresser and addressee and projects different cultures. Namely, it can reflect the participant’s social appearance; the relative social status between addresser and addressee and the relative social status between the addresser and the third party mentioned in the conversation. In a word, social deixis concerns “that aspect of sentences which reflect or establish or are determined by certain realities of the social situation in which the speech act occurs”.[ Fillmore, 1975:76] It gives an indication not only of where the speaker stands in time and place, but also of his/her status within the social structure, and of the status the speaker gives the addressee. Then as for the translation of social deixis, translators should pay special attention to the social context,which contains language factors and non-language factor. The former means the differences between the source language and target language, the latter emphasizes all the relative factors of communicators such as statue, rank, position, culture. In the following part, I’d like to explore the approaches to translation of social deixis from four points.

1. Cultural Difference
It’s well known that translation is not only the rendering of one language into another language but also embodies the clash and the blending of the two cultures. And social deixis is the centralized representation of a culture for it is shaped during the long development process of a language. So the context, the participants’ identities and cultural factors reflected must be taken into careful consideration and the version should be as faithful as possible.
The kinship terms in Chinese are very complicated,which are greatly different from that in English.by analyzing the translation of the kinship terms in some Chienese literary classics, we can make some exploration on the translation of social deixis. In Chinese literature classics, a great many kinship terms are used as social deixis.the relationship they represent does not actually exist. This is called assumed kinship terms.emplying kinship terms as social deixis is typical practice in Chinese culture.it makes people feel respected and intimate and will consequently shorten the distance between the two sides of communication, assuring a better communicative effect.however, in English,it is not accepted to use kinship terms freely to other persons. Popularly used social deixis in English has sir, madam,miss Mr.(Mrs,Miss,Ms)＋ family name;or call sb’s name directly。This ia a big difference between Chinese and English language as well as culture.in Chinese, “兄”、“弟”or“兄弟”are common social deixis.it tends to show respect to others and it has various specific usages.but in English, “brother”is a general term refering to kinship,and often used as the second person context,which is seldom used in social situations. For example：
银子是你我各出一半，无论用多少，皆是这个办法。但是我行所有，颇不敷用，要请老兄垫一垫。到了省城，我就还你。———《老残游记》第十四回
Lao Ts’ an said,“as to the money,we each supply half. No matter how much it costs,we divide it that way.The only trouble is that I haven’t enough money with me in my chest.I will have to ask you to advance it. When I get to the provincial capital ,I will return you my share.” “老兄”is a casual form of address used between intimate persons. it embodies the respect from the younger one to the older one.if we translate it word to word into “old brother”, it seems have achieved the semantic equivalence, but it obviously leads to pragmatic mistakes,will probably cause misunderstanding between addresser and addressee.here Shadick directly translate it into“you”，which ensure the pragmatic equivalence, in order to embody the relationship between the two parties of the communication.
士隐听了，大叫：“妙极！弟每谓兄必非久居人下者”
———《红楼梦》第一回
“Excellent! ” cried Shih-yin “I’ve always maintained that you were cut for great things…”
———杨宪益戴乃迭译
In English language, “brother”can refer to both older brother and younger brother which is constantly used in the second person point of view. In this sentence, if we translate“兄”and “弟”both to “brother”,it will confuse readers as well as translators themselves,so it is unworkable.In Chinese, refering to oneself as “弟”,other people as “兄”is just a way to show respect.this is a very typical feature of Chinese language which is absent in English language.in the translatin done by Mr.YangXianyi, “I”and“You”are used which clearly points out the exact relation between the two sides of communication, clearly and unmistakabley.
2. Translation of First Person Deixis
As for the first person social deixis, the grammatical single pronouns in Chiese include “我”、“俺”、“咱”, but there are at least 20 first person social deixis in Chiese. Pronouns like “我”, “俺” ,“咱” do not show represent the social status of the speakers. But the following words show clear self depreciation, such as鄙人、贱妾、奴家、臣、小人、小生、奴才、愚兄、小弟、老拙、老夫、老身、贫僧、老衲、寡人、学生、在下、婢子、下官。In translating process, it is not difficult to find counterpart of the grammatical pronouns in other languages, but as for the translation of socail deixis, sometimes it is impossible to find coungerpart at all. For instance, there is no exact counterpart of “鄙人”In English. Maybe we can translate “鄙人” into “I”, but in this way the original social pointing function of “鄙人” will absolutely be lost. if we translate “鄙人” into “my humble self”, semantically, the translation version is “loyal”to the original version, however from the angle of pragmatics, this kind of translation disobeys the principle of “loyalty”, and also destroy the principle of “coherence”which is closely related with the principle of “loyalty”，Because, there is no such expresion like “my humble self” in English, so the English readers can not relate it with “I” very naturally. So , in translating this kind of social deixis, we have no other choice but to adopt a much easier way, (that is to simply translate them into “I” on the above occassions.) , all the implied cultural essence disapear in the translated version pitifully. For example：
那女儿将一粒纳于小员外袖内,一粒纳于口中, 叫声:“奴去也,还乡之日,千万到奴家荒坟一顾,也表员外不忘故旧之情。”[ 冯梦龙《警世通言》,岳麓书社第三十卷260 页]
In ancient Chinese, “奴” and “奴家” are the self-abasing words for married women. If we translate them into the English “your slave”, semantically it is faithful to the original material, but pragmatically this kind of translation is exaggerated and misleading. It may make the readers believe that the Chinese “奴” and “奴家” mean “your slave”。In other words, pragmatically the translated “your slave” is not “faithful”to the original text, and also cause great misleading to readers. The “奴” and “奴家” in the above sentences can be translated into “I” which is quite proper, but in this way , the pragmatic features of these “奴” and “奴家” totally disapear, so it is still not loyal translation.
3.Translation of Second Person Deixis
Apparently a social deixis is for the sake of politeness in social interaction. An often cited example is the French “tu” and “vous”, the former a plain way of referring to any second person hearer while the latter a polite or indirect way of referring to any second person hearer. Since the Chinese language enjoys a long history of civilization and is associated with rich etiquettes, it is abundant in social deictical expressions. For instance, the Chinese use “您” instead of “你” for politeness purposes, and “我们” instead of “我” for indirectness. Other examples include: “贵姓”, “尊姓大名”, instead of “你姓什么”, “你叫什么名字”, and “玉照”, “大作” respectively for “你的照片”, “拙著”.
The second person social deixis can be classified into three different types. First, relation usage, In Chinese it mainly includes “您”、“君”、“卿”、“足下” and so on, in Italian there is Lei , in Spanish, there is vos ; second, address usage, such as “毛阿姨”、“外公”、“吴老”、“三大爷”、“朱院长”、“老先生”、“贤弟”、“老翁”; in Chinese, and professor Wang、Your Excellency and so on in English; Third, relation-address usage. It is the mixed usage of the previous two types. Focusing on the relation, although there is a certain word in English which is similar in meaning to the Chinese “您”, but to find an exact counterpart is very difficult. So when translating “您”, we will naturally feel confused. The addressing system in different languages varies greatly. For instance, since Chinese people place great importance on kinship and social rank, there are consequently a great number of various addressing words such as “李老师”、“师母”、“张厂长”、“黄兄”、“大妗子”、“大姨娘”、“大姑妈”、“大婶子”、“二大娘”; in the western languages, however,although we can find out some expressions with the similar meaning,but to find the exact counterpart expressions are almost impossible. In Dream of the Red Mansion, there is a short conversation between XiRen and Lin Daiyu which goes like this:
“姑娘怎么还不安息?”
黛玉忙让: “姐姐请坐。”
袭人在床沿上坐了。[曹雪芹、高鹗《红楼梦》,三秦出版社第三回25 页]
“姑娘” and “姐姐” in this short conversation both are not the real identity of the two young ladies. In other words, “姐姐” used here is not equal in meaning with the English “aunt”; and it is not the counterpart of the word “sister”. As to this kind of phenomenon, the explanation of applied linguistics is that they belong to social deixis. According to the theory of applied linguistics, the social deixis can be classified into two types in the addressing expressions. One is kinship terms, the other can be called assumption kinship terms. The two addressing expressions “姑娘” and “姐姐” in the sentence above belong to the assumption kinship terms. Following the conventional way of translating, kinship terms have to be translated and the translation itself is very easy; but translating the assumption kinsip terms faithfully and correctly is really a very tough job. Taking the two addressing expressions “姑娘”、“姐姐” in the sentence above for example, in translating these two words, it seems the only way is to take up the word with the most similar meaning ,and no other choice. The conversation above can be translated like this:
(1)“Why didn’t you go to bed ?”
(2)“Sit down ,please. ”
In this translated version, “姑娘” has been translated into “you”, with “姐姐” disappearing, semantically as well as pragmatically, it is much more close to the original text than “Why didn’t Aunt go to bed ?”/“Sit down , sister. ”, but it can never be called faithful to the original one. Through the detailed analysis above, we can easily see that social deixis of relation usage is very hard to translate, so is the address usage, than what about the relation-address usage? Here we also adopt an example to make it clear to the reader:
西门庆举手道:“数年不见你老人家,不觉越发苍髯皓首。”[兰陵笑笑生《金瓶梅词话》,香港太平书局第六十一回816 页]
“你老人家” is a relation-address usage expression, we can not translate word to word into “you old man” in English. Because if we translate “数年不见你老人家” into “Haven’t seen you forages old man”, readers of the translated version will probably think that the addressor doesn’t respect the addree at all, or even think the addressor is kind of laughing at the addressee. And if we translate “你老人家” simply into“you”, pragmatically it is more faithful to the original text than “you …old man”.but the problem here is that all the respect shown to the addressee implied in the original text is completely lost, so it is actually seemingly faithful.
3. the third person deixis.
The targe pointed to is the third person , namyly “他” or “她”. This kind of classification is very much alike with the grammatical classification of personal pronoun, but the different point is that the grammatical personal pronouns are seldom related to the addreessor, addreessee, or the social status of the third person, except the grammatical changes such as single form or plural forms. However the social deixis is different. On many occassins, it is closely related with the social status of the different parties involved in a conversation. Considering this, the third person deixis can be further classified into three different kinds. The first kind is placing the first person as the point of reference, usually includes the semantic feature of self-derogating such as “犬子”、“敝公司”、“寒舍”、“内人”; the second kind is placing the second person as the point of reference, always indicates the semantic feature of benefiting other people such as“令尊”、“令堂”、“令郎”、“令爱”、“令兄”、“贵公司”、“尊嫂”、“尊夫人”, so on and so forth. The last kind is placing the third person as the point of reference, uaually showing the semantic feature of benefiting the third party mentioned in the conversation, such as“他令婿”、“杨家二少爷” and so on. Let’s see the following example.
“辛苦,辛苦,老友,难得你到敝地来,我们地孩子真是幸福不浅。”[柔石《二月》,见伍仁《中国现代颓废小说》,西北大学出版社384 页]
In this sentence, “敝地” is placing the first person as point of reference,showing obvious self-derogating. If it is translated into “my humble place”, semanticlly it is faithful to the original sentence, but from the angle of pragmatics, it is far from faithful at all. Besides, translating it into “my humble place” causes serious threat to the coherent understanding of the readers. If we translate ito “my hometown”, pragmatically it seems very faithful to the original, but obviously loses the connotation of humility of the original text, which still can not be called exactly faithful. Then, let’s see the translation of a third person deixis which is placing the second person as the point of reference:
施复道:“老哥高见,甚是有理。就如你我相识, 也有各定数。向日你因失银与我识面;今日我因失物,尊嫂见还。方才言及前情,又得相会。”[冯梦龙《醒世恒言》,岳麓书社第十八卷210 页]
In this long sentence, “尊嫂” shows the respect of the addreessor to the addrressee, which holds very important social functions in the society in which Chinese is the main communication means. However, we can not find the existing counterpart of the this kind of expressions in the English language system. Consequently, it will make up great trouble for translators. Facing this kind of the social deixis, it is really very confusing to translators. If they ignore it, the important social information implied will disappear; if they choose to translate it, it is almost impossible to pick up an exact word which holds just the same meaning and implied information, and besides, it will inevitably mislead the English readers in understanding the text. Here, I would like to pick up an example of the translation which places the third person as the point of reference.
伯爵道:“哥,你好歹让他出来俺每见见儿。俺每不打紧,教他只当唱个儿与老舅听也罢了。休要就古执了。”[兰陵笑笑生《金瓶梅词话》,香港太平书局第六十一回812 页]
In the sentence above, “老舅”’s point of reference is the absent third person of role. The complete meaning here is “我孩子他老舅”. So semantically the “老舅” in the above sentence should be translated into “my kids’uncle”. But if we really translate it this way, it bring up a new problem. Because, based on the clue of the original novel, this “老舅” is not the uncle of the“伯爵”’s son. Obviously, “老舅” used here places an obstacle to the the faithful translation. Analyzing this problem from the viewpoint of Sociology, the root reason prevent the faithful and fluent translation of “老舅” if that, this expression in the above text is used totally based on the Chinese language and culture background, showing a very close brotherhood relationship with “西门庆”。 In other words, the use of “老舅” has its sociological implication of the Chinese culture. While in the English-used society, “uncle” does not have this pragmatic function of “老舅” in Chinese.
IV. Conclusion
Chinese civilization is an agricultural culture. People are confined to the land and there is little mobility, either socially or geographically. This agrarian lifestyle directly explains the collective （group-oriented）nature of Chinese value concept and the emphasis on family. In Chinese family, children learn the social skills necessary for group harmony, family togetherness, interdependence in relationships, respect for their place in the line of generations and saving face. Hence kinship terms play key role in maintaining the harmony in the family. Because kinship terms are narrative and detailed, they not only can express one’s respect for others but also show one’s self-debasement; the most important point is that they weave a complicated kinship net that holds the whole family members of a large extended family together, in which the order between the elder and the younger and the hierarchical ranks between the honorable and the humble are clearly marked. Namely, Chinese are more likely to be conscious of kinship relationships, which are seen as significant tie among members of society and will, in turn, lead to their assumptions of hierarchy. Moreover, the kinship terms extend to the whole social members and make the whole society teemed with harmony. Honorifics and self-abasing terms altogether form another important means for ancient Chinese to smooth the relationships between people. Chinese tend to be concerned about maintaining good relationships in communication; they usually show respect for social position of addressees by means of debasing themselves. The English people have no ideas about this concept and hence have no equivalent words to express the concept, which give rise to the dilemma. Therefore, the translation of the addressing terms with distinctive nationality and conventionality is in fact the shift of cultures. That is to say, in the process of the translation, the translator will be confined to the factors of social identity, status, face-saving and intimacy between the addresser and addressee. Venuti pointed out that the process of translation was the process to find out the common ground in two cultures. But during this process, it is hard for us to avoid meeting various differences because of different society, culture, historic background, geography, customs and so on. How to sort out the common ground? And how to handle the lexical gap? First, the translator must be aware of conventionality of social deixis. Of course, the absolute equivalence is only an ideal, it’s almost impossible to achieve such an ideal state. What the translators can achieve through their hard work can only be something alike in spirit. To acquire this similarity in spirit, the translators also need to alternate between the two possibilities: something very alike in form or something very alike in pragmatic meaning. In translation practice, for most cases, we cannot acquire both. Then sometimes it is necessary to be faithful to the pragmatic meaning and sacrifice the form and vise versa just as a Chinese saying goes: “If I cannot have fish and the paw of the bear together, I will let the fish go, and take the bear’s paws.”
In general, social deixis distinctly marks various social status and corresponding features. The application of the social deixis is the representation of the participants’ identity, status, culture and diathesis on the communication occasion. Each generation must learn and accept its position in the system when they understand the conventionality of the social deixis. Likewise, the translation of social deixis plays a key role in accurate expression of the participants’ identity and social status as well as the representation of the characters in the original work, it is necessary to learn and accept the conventional difference in social deixis between the source language and the target language and consider the cultural context. If all the information is conveyed into the translation without selection, it will lead to the wrong expression or even to the misunderstanding of the readers in the target language. Therefore, the pragmatic equivalence to solve such an intercultural problem is advocated.
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