The effect of difference of culture on translation10.docVIP

中英文化差异对翻译的影响effects of cultural differences on translation1. introductionculture is a concept which has wide and complicated context, and it includes “knowledge, belief, policy, art, law, ethics, customs, and abilities and habits formed by people as social members.” language is the transition of culture. english and chinese are based on two different cultures, and they impress different cultural customs and historical traditions. translation is not only an art, but also a science, so translation does not mean to transfer one language to another. as the bridge of trans-cultural communication, fulfilling humans culture, and emerging different expressions in different countries.common things in human experiences seem to express themselves in similar terms in quite unrelated languages. the expressions are usually metaphorical, and may be as similar as “strike while the iron is hot,” which appears in chinese as “while hot strike the iron.”western culture is based on things, making nature as its standard, the culture tend to develop its external display, so it lays stress on creating things, and moreover, on the way how human creates things. instruments used in this study involved two english language proficiency tests. therefore, during the process of translation, we should consider how to get out of the sentence structures of the former article, using different forms to express the meanings.2. detail examples of the effect of social customs on translation2.1 the differences of daily life and social customsbloom (1976) 间接引用。一般是对原文paraphrase或summarize，不需引号与页码。最后的句号应放在括弧之后。 argued that teachers role is to provide the students with optimal conditions which can facilitate learning so that students can achieve similar results. obviously, these kinds of greeting are not suitable to greet people from english countries, as they may think that you are prying into their secrets and private things. a similar historical event may give rise to equivalent expressions in different countries. this sort of answers is suitable for chinese who have been cultivated by the oriental culture, but if we translate them literally into english, as “no, no, its not good enough”, the westerners may feel unacceptable and even dissatisfied. so, the proper greetings used in western countries are “how do you do?”, “hello!”, “good morning!” or talking about the weather. it has been argued that teachers role is to provide the students with optimal conditions which can facilitate learning so that students can achieve similar results (bloom, 1976). 间接引用。原作者未出现在正文中，故在括号内注明。both of chinese culture and english culture require people to respect the old. as differences of cultural thoughts exist, the ways to show our respect are relatively different. for example, when we get out having a family travel, we will firstly care about the physical situation of the old, and then decide whether we need to have arrest or not. but old foreigners dislike being considered as they are old people, and they never think that they are less vigorous and less spirit. this argument was discussed as early as 1997 (wang, 1989). 间接引用。中文作者用汉语拼音。the disadvantage of the multiple regression analysis is that it cannot show the complex interrelations between independent variable (wang & sun, 1990). 间接引用。两名中文作者。 another example, the oriental people consider being modest and obscure as a virtue, and this thought is also directly expressed on the use of language. some theorists find no value in smiths thesis and vehemently argue its faults (masters & malloy, 1978). 间接引用。两名英文作者。adverbials are divided into two groups in terms of the centrality. those that are integrated into clause structure are regarded as adjuncts (quirk et al., 1985). 间接引用。三名以上作者，仅标示第一作者，其余用et al. 表示。 another example, the oriental people consider being modest and obscure as a virtue, and this thought is also directly expressed on the use of language. this sort of answers is suitable for chinese who have been cultivated by the oriental culture, but if we translate them literally into english, as “no, no, its not good enough”, the westerners may feel unacceptable and even dissatisfied. comparatively, the westerners use commendation as frequently as they can, as a way of starting communication and helper of introducing formal topic. the turn of expression “thank you” seems to have become a conventional formula, especially in the western countries.somebody often says that without any intention of displaying this gratitude can not be correct. based on different findings, it is proposed that “the type of motivation and its strength are likely to be determined less by some generalized principle and more by who learns what in what milieu at that time” (freeman & long, 1993:174). 直接引用。需加双引号及页码，原文若已带引号，应将其改为单引号。原文内容不能更改，若中间有省略，需加英文省略号。 english has no regular answer at all. gardner (1985:10) sees motivation as “the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitude toward learning language”. 直接引用。原作者已经在正文中出现。australian literature in english began soon after the settlement of the country by europeans. common themes include indigenous and settler identity, alienation, exile and relationship to place, but it is a varied and contested area .the australian literature is characterized as follows: emphasizing the orthodox tradition of jurisprudence and supporting the standard style of poetry. this represented the main trend of wu age. this view was in accordance with wus ideas and status as a confucian scholar and it embodied what literary men of wu emphasized: the authors personality should correspond to his writing style and jurisprudence should be mingled with literature. people insist on learning from the ancient people and their rich minds (herders, 199:126). 直接引用。引文在四行或四行以上，需单独成段，不需引号。上下各空一行，整段向右退8个字符。字体字号不变，但行距从“固定值20磅”变为“单倍行距”（两个空行均为单倍行距）。we will discuss australian language, letters and literature, including discussions about poetry, novels, childrens literature, plays and theatre scripts, literary magazines and newspapers. in his “hymn to intellectual beauty,” shelly personifies the immaterial, spiritual world: “the awful shadow of some unseen power / floats though unseen among us”(1809:75). 直接引用。诗歌不超过两行，直接引用，加双引号，两行间用斜线分开。in “song of myself,” walt whitman uses the dictation and rhythm of natural speech：a child said what is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;how could i answer the child? i do not know what it is any more than he.i guess it must be the flag of my disposition, hopeful green stuff woven (1892:23). 直接引用。诗歌超过两行，需单独成段，规则同注9。indeed, only those foreigners who know a little about chinese culture may understand these explanations, and most of them can not get the marvels inside. so such words with peculiar cultural meaning should be added some explanations to illustrate their pragmatic usages. after the year all other years of the rooster, according to an old chinese saying, become either-good-or-bad-luck years for them.goethe wrote that “it takes more culture to perceive the virtues of the magic flute than to point out its defects” (qtd in newman, 1998:104). 无原著，内容来自二手资料，需在来源前加上“qtd in”字样。在参考文献部分，以二手资料撰写条目。a similar historical event may give rise to equivalent expressions in different countries. when caesar crossed the rubicon, he had his army burn the bridges behind them, so that they had no choice but to march on and conquer rome.in six months time, he was tramped into marriage with her, though “he had no respect for her” (40). 论文是文学评论，需从同一作品反复引用。为方便起见，从第二次引用起，只注页码。actually, it was once translated into “five stresses, four points of beauty and three aspects of love” without any explanation. as a result, it would cause misunderstanding that foreigners who had little knowledge about china may probably consider it as “four beauties, and five lovers”.the web-based oral english teaching mode advocated by college english curriculum requirements is a new and developing mode with broad prospects and will exert a far-reaching influence on english teaching reforms. in chinese, a sentence can be embedded in a noun phrase to modify its head noun and such a process is called gelatinization. gelatinization usually results in relative clauses or adjectival clauses. studies on such constructions in the past were mostly guided by structuralism linguistics with a focus on structures, ignoring semantic, pragmatic and cognitive factors.in the preface, pineland claims “this icelandic is the story of an adolescent whose needs are not understood by his descendants” (hardliners, 99:128). 原文中的词语，因失去语境，指代不明。用方括号标注。2.2 analogy and imaginationthis usage wants to express that it is extremely easy to invest or deposit money in united carolina bank. (1) do your teeth a flavor. no matter what the flavor, when your kids brush with crest, they are doing their teeth a flavor. arent your kids worth crest? 例句按顺序用（1）（2）（3）（4）等统一编号，全文排序。每例左起头，回行时与上一行例句对齐。上下各空一行，例句连同空行的行距均为“单倍行距”。（注：正文为“固定值20磅”）。in this advertisement for crest, “do your teeth a flavor” completely imitates the phrase “do somebody a favor”. the sentence structures are the same, and the effect is also goodthe superstition that naming an evil force will cause it to appear was once widespread. the texts were then segmented by the automatic segmentation system of academia. (2) *although the city is modern and convenient, but there are still some problems.(3) ?how old are you, professor smith?不合语法的例句前用“*”；合乎语法，但有语用问题的例句前用“?”。同一组例句间不空行。the results of segmentation show that the total corpus for editorials contains approximately 26229 words of running text; the total corpus for magazines contains approximately 22,900 words; and the total corpus for fiction contains approximately 9,291 words. a simple complete sentence consists of a subject and a predicate. the subject is typically a noun phrase, though other kinds of phrases (such as gerund phrases) work as well, and some languages allow subjects to be omitted. the differences between the two tenses can be seen from the following two sentences:(4) a. i have been playing the piano since i was a child. b. i have played the piano since i was a child. 例句对照比较。文中提到该例句时，用(4a)、(4b)、(4c)的格式。we can find that sentence (4a) is different from sentence (4b) in meaning. however, i know of no other grammarians that allow any of sentences. now the descriptive part of the test: do educated indonesians use sentences like this?the typical differences between english culture and chinese culture are the understandings of words about animals. both of chinese and english have amounts of similes, sometimes they are similar, such as “fox” means cunning, “sheep” means a bashful, defenseless or easily-led person. but it happens rarely because of different customs, historical traditions, and concepts of aesthetic appreciation, and as a result, the differences of analogy exist.5) 己所不欲，勿施于人。do as you would be done by. 例句翻译，英汉对照。as we all know, the cat is cute and obedient animal in chinese tradition; while, it represents “malicious woman with hostile temptation” in english. obviously, it is not the product of chinese culture. as a matter of fact, direct translation can not be acceptable in chinese culture. “chick” has the meaning of “to be a coward”, as same as “mouse” in chinese culture.animals like bear is connected with stupid, foolish, and useless image in china; meanwhile, in the westerners opinion, although bear is a kind of dangerous, and cruel animal, the bears in the zoo are lovely and naughty, so if we want to mean someone is useless, we can not use the analogy in china into english. not the same as people in china think rabbits are quick and smart; the westerners compare rabbits with cowards.labor creates the world as well as language. due to different geographical situation and ecological atmosphere, the use of analogy is obviously different. china is the great agricultural country. in early years, peasants were mainly based on cattle-plough, and cattle were excellent helpers of peasants in the agricultural process, so chinese people had deep relationship with cattle. we usually say “to work hard and modestly as old cattle, and “he has the strong spirit like cattle”. this is stated by many linguists. “whatever the ultimate goals, one will almost certainly wish not only to codify the text in terms of cohesive categories but also to inspect the individual instances of cohesion, to look closely at the actual words and phrases that enter into cohesive ties and see what patterns of texture then emerge. a particular text, or a genre, may exhibit a general tendency towards the use of certain features or modes rather than others” (halliday & hasan 1976:332). 2.3 chronological order and geographical space2.3.1 the understanding of colorsalthough in the same situation of wedding party, the new-married couples wear full dress with different colors during the process, according to the influence of different cultures. on the chinese traditional wedding party, the bride wears bright red cheongsam, and on western-style wedding, the first married bride wears pure white bridal gown, because in the western tradition, white means purity and happiness. the ways of expressions of time is restrained by differences, and every culture must distinguish itself from others, according to the focus on time: the past, the present, and the future. table 1. readability formulae calculations and readability characteristics 表格统一编号，全文排序。标题与表格居中，上下各空一行，标题与表格间空一行，所有内容（含空行）均为“单倍行距”。textsflesch readingease scorefleschgrade levelnumberofsentencessentenceaveragelengthnumberofwordscharles dickensa tale of two cities86414112.4 words1663frances burnettthe secret garden86415310.0 words1633louisa may allcottlittle women86513214.1 words1667although in the same situation of wedding party, the new-married couples wear full dress with different colors during the process, according to the influence of different cultures. on the chinese traditional wedding party, the bride wears bright red cheongsam, and on western-style wedding, the first married bride wears pure white bridal gown, because in the western tradition, white means purity and happiness.learners dictionaries can be classified into two major types: monolingual dictionaries like the oxford advanced learners dictionary, the cobuild dictionary, longman dictionary of contemporary english. another example is frequently mentioned in chinese, and if we translate it literally into “to wear a green hat”, it may cause misunderstanding, i.e. that people have not been cultivated in oriental culture, because this expression is not the product of western culture. western readers will simply consider that someone is wearing a green hat. so, we have to explain it into “to be cuckold” with the similar meaning. we can see this from the following figure: 图示统一编号，全文排序，格式同表格。listeningspeakingreadingwritingtranslationfigure 1. time consumption of intermediate learnersmoreover, “blue” is the imagery of being peaceful and harmonious in chinese culture, but it means to be sad, and depressed in english; besides, “blue” also means “indecent, pornographic”, such as a blue joke, a blue film. on the aesthetic standard, oriental females always pursuit white skin as they think having white skin is the most important way to become beautiful, but western females like wheat-colored skin and they consider having white appearance to be unhealthy. so every summer, amounts of western females crowd into beach to become sun-tanned.2.3.2 the influence of religious beliefreligious belief is a part of humans spiritual activities, and it has great effect on the development of nations. in english-speaking countries, it is a custom to give best wishes to a newly-married person by saying “congratulation”. however, in the specific context of this humor, the speaker is an undertaker, and the hearer is a bereaved husband. what will the poor man feel when he hears such a “congratulation”? this dialogue reminds people that they should pay much attention to the specific utterances according to the actual contexts; otherwise, the conversation will sound humorous or even hurt others feelings. therefore, in specific contexts, people should express themselves in a proper way. and this is obviously unsuitable to convey the former work. however, these idioms are hard to be transmitted into english. people believe in christian religion in western countries, especially in britain and america. they treat god to be the sole and supreme being, and men are born equally. so these expressions come into being, such as “god helps those who help themselves”. 3. findings and discussionthere are some idioms in english from greek myths, homers epic, etc. for example, the heel of achilles：the idiom comes from greek legend. it was said that when achilles was born, his mother wanted him to be an iron man, so she put him into the styx with holding his heel. as a result, his heel becomes his sole weakness. literal translation, as peter newmark puts it, is a translation where “the sl grammatical constructions are converted to their nearest tl equivalents but the lexical words are translated singly, out of context” (2001:46). this kind of method follows closely the form of the source text and is able to achieve a unity of the form and the content when applied properly. it aims at preserving the most possible cultural messages, including the formal elements of the source text, and at the same time, maintaining the intelligibility of the target text. it is advised that literal translation be employed as much as possible in the cultural translation.language and culture may thus be seen as being closely related