A Research on English-Chinese Translation of English Idioms.doc

英语习语的中译研究a research on english-chinese translation of english idiomsabstract: every language is laden with idioms. english, as the most active and widely used language, enjoys a vast idiomatic basis, which makes its learning very exciting and interesting. and the task of translating entails comparing english and chinese idioms in terms of cultural differences. when speaking of e-c idioms translation strategies, what enter our minds are two pairs of terms, literal translation and liberal translation, domestication and foreignization. the academic circle of e-c idioms translation has argued over their use for years, but till now no agreement has been reached. in fact, the two pairs of translation methods deal with translation from different perspectives, and they are just like two overlapping circles with only small shared parts. researches on its normalization of translation can facilitate translations purposefully to peaceful interaction between cultural communities.key words: english idioms; translation; culture differences; translation methods摘 要：任何语言都包含着习语。英语作为当今最活跃、使用最为广泛的语言由于有着很广泛的习语基础，使得英语学习变得十分有趣。而英语习语和汉语习语的翻译涉及到了文化差异。当谈到英语习语的中译的方法时，主要有两个翻译方法：归化和异化。关于英语习语的中译方法学术圈已经争论了很久，目前还没有达成共识。事实上，两种翻译方法是从不同的角度来对待的，它们就像两个拥有很小交集的互相重叠的圆。跨文化交际使得多面的世界变得越来越小，翻译也变得更加频繁，成为进入另一文化空间的必要手段。英语习语的学习和翻译已经成为语言学习的一个重要环节。 关键词：英语习语；翻译；文化差异；翻译方法contentsi. introduction.1ii.literature review of idioms.1a. definition of idioms.2b. origins of idioms.21. the experience of the common people.22. myths and fables.33. historical events and anecdote.34. classical literary works .45. social customs and habits.4iii. features of idioms.5a. fixed structure.5b. abundant connotations.5c. distinct cultural feature.6iv. the problems of the e-c translation of idioms.6v. cultural differences in english and chinese idioms.7vi. the main methods of the e-c translation of the idioms. 9a. definitionsofdomesticationandforeignization.9b. three methods of the e-c translation of the idioms.101. principle of foreignization102. principle of equivalence .113. principle of domestication .11vii. suggestions for translating english idioms .12viii. conclusion.12works cited.13i.introductionlanguage is the most important communicative tool of all human beings. it plays its role as not only the carrier and form of culture but also the most vital element of transmission and inheritance of culture. language of any kind is the crystallization of the culture of its own nation. as the cream of the culture, the idiom is a kind of widespread set phrases or sentences, with specific implications, abstracted from the spoken language and experience of the people and the classical works. due to its vivid image and profound connotation, the idiom is deeply loved by the masses, as a member with fine expressible ability in the family of language. idioms frequently appear in the spoken language and literary works. every language is laden with idioms. the idiom is a word or group of words that cannot be literally translated from the source language into the receptors because an idiomatic meaning cannot be understood by literally defining its component parts. english, as the most active and widely used language, enjoys a vast idiomatic basis, which makes its learning very exciting and interesting, with about 4000 idioms used in the daily communication. broadly speaking, the idiom include: set phrase, proverb, sayings, colloquialisms, allusions (ping hong 67).for the non-native speaker english learners, the most important, regular and authoritative way to find out the meaning of the english idiom is to look up the dictionary. as we all know, most of the english-chinese idioms dictionary would give the english idioms chinese meanings. if the dictionary cant demonstrate the english idioms meanings clearly and correctly, chinese readers and learners would be misled. so now we can know the importance of english-chinese translation of the english idioms.ii. literature review of idiomsidioms are those set phrases or short sentences abstracted from the spoken language or classical works, and the like. they were passed down from generation to generation for centuries. idioms are scientific summary of peoples experience and the crystallization of peoples wisdom. after thousands of years accumulation, idioms are provided with vivid images, profound implications and exquisite rhythms. idioms could mirror the local customs and practices of different regions, the living style of the people, the natural environment and so on. we could see that the idiom has a very strong color of its nation. therefore, to understand and study the idiom is supposed to start from its definition, origin, features, and classifications.a. definition of idiomsas for the definition of idioms, there are various versions according to different dictionaries and scholars. some of those definitions are picked out from some authoritative dictionaries as follows: (1) an idiom is an expression which functions as a single unit and whose meaning cannot be worded out from its separate parts (longman dictionary of applied linguistics, 1985) ; (2) an idiom is a phrase, construction or expression that is recognized as a unit in the usage of a given language and either differs from the usual syntactic patterns or has a meaning that differs from the literal meaning of its parts taken together. (websters new world college dictionary 3rd edition, 1996)b. origins of idiomsidioms, a kind of language form used by the people for a very long time, to a great extent, rely more on the specific social cultural connotations than the common words. the formation of idioms is on intimate terms with the culture of the nation which its language relies on. in a sense, the culture gives birth to the idioms. on the contrary, the idioms reflect all the features of the culture. each nation has its own national culture which owns a distinctive style and tradition that come into being in the course of their work and life, including history, language, custom, life style, ways of thinking, and so on .idioms, having an extremely strong color of a nation are one of the marks differentiating one language from another. thus, the origin of the idioms may be quite varied.1. the experience of the common peoplefor thousands of years, people drew lessons and experience from their daily life, and then wrote them down to tell their offspring what they had got from their experiences. as a result, most of the idioms could invariably mirror almost everything related to the life of the common people. take those reflecting the geographic environment of peoples inhabitations as example, britain is a country with small land area but a long coast line; so many english idioms are relevant to the ocean. people in britain always compare fish to the people. for example, they use “cold fish” to describe a person who is indifferent to something and “feel like a fish out of water” to express a feeling that is uncomfortable and unnatural. 2. myths and fablesin any nation, of any culture, there exist plenty of myths. at the first birth of the nation, its culture began to come into prosperity as well. a large mass of myths were produced orally and in the written form. those myths were passed down to next generation for centuries and were read by the people in each period of time. hence those myths left a deep impression on peoples mind. nearly everyone in a nation has an intimate knowledge of those myths. from generation to generation, lots of symbolic idioms stand out from those myths and are employed to convey some special or specific and regular meanings. take the idioms from the greek- roman myths as examples, people constantly use “achilles heel” to indicate the crucial and strategic point or fatal weakness (achilles is the hero in the trojan war), and apply “pandoras box” to signify the root of the disaster (pandora, a beauty who brought the disasters down to the world)(kevin 102). therefore, people always apply this idiom to deliver the figurative meaning that several outstanding persons try to outshine each other. 3. historical events and anecdotesin any nation, any country, people once experienced periods of ups and downs. they not only achieved brilliance but also suffered from miseries. in that way it maybe, those events, great or not, indeed had branded the history deeply. theyre so innumerable that even the historians can hardly record thoroughly. most of those events left deep impression on peoples mind and taught us many lessons, thus were often mentioned and later fixed in the form of idioms. as we all know that waterloo is the place where napoleon was defeated by the allied forces of britain, germany and netherlands, etc, commanded by duke of willington. therefore, “meet ones waterloo” is employed to represent a crushing defeat. there are also many idioms originated from anecdotes. for instance, “eat crow”, formed in the period of the war between britain and america, was employed to give us the meaning that somebody is forced to confess the mistake he has made (li qingxue 231).4. classical literary works literature is a kind of artistic form of language and also the constituent and carrier of the culture of a nation. most classical literary works written by great masters of literature in every country are invariably appreciated by people all over the world. thus, the words and sentences with profound meaning and enlightenment always form idioms, the essence of the languages. shakespeare, who is known as the greatest playwright in the world, is also a poet in the renaissance in britain. his works are greatly enjoyed by people all over the world from his time to the present. his works give birth to lots of idioms, such as “ones pound of flesh” coming from the merchant of venice, which is used to describe a legal but unreasonable requirement. the literary quality of the bible has been one of the greatest influences on english literature and the culture of western civilization for over 2000 years. there were tens of thousands of religious stories in wide circulations, since the bible was for so long a part of the widespread cultural tradition of english-speaking people, allusion and direct excerpts are recurrent in all literary genres. bible as the sacred text of christians records many stories and figures, some of which have become household names. many of them have been widely used in figurative manner. for example, “go to jericho”: “go to jericho with you.” and “i wish he had been at jericho.” are both euphemistic turn of phrases for “go and hang yourself,” or something more offensive still. old adam: this idiom now represents the tendency to sin inside each person. 5. social customs and habitseach nation has its own social customs and habits which are created by people of its own nation living together for a very long time. the formation of those customs and habits is closely linked with the natural condition, social environment, life style, tradition, etiquette and belief or even superstition. in britain, where people like to wear hats, when they greet somebody or extend their respects to others, they will take off their hats. therefore, they employ “take off ones hat to somebody” to express the meaning that a person pays ones respects to somebody. in china, people take the red color as their favorite color since ancient times; for they think the red color symbolizes happiness, flourish, brightness and success. for instance, people in china apply “鸿运高照” to indicate that someone has good fortune on his side. on the contrary, people in the western countries always regard “red” as “ill omen or violence” (jin huikang 212). thus, when they describe an ill omen, they will use “red for danger”. so we could come to the conclusion from this phenomenon that different nation has different customs, habits and cultures.iii. features of idiomsidioms display its differentiation from other general expressions or structures in its own distinctive features.a. fixed structure a specific idiom is a set phrase or accepted phrase. so the main feature is that it has fixed structure, which cannot be divided and split into small parts. for example, “make haste” (hurry up) cannot be separated as “make him haste”. meanwhile, a complete idiom cannot be used separately in two different sentence or subordinate clauses. for instance, read the riot act (give a warning) cannot be used like “it was the riot act that john read to me”. the word in the idiom cannot be changed at random, even though the replacement of the synonyms will make the idiom lose its original meaning, such as, “smell a rat” (be suspicious of something) cannot be changed into “smell a mouse”.(li yuping 122)all in all, the idioms have fixed structure, words, voice, order, forms of number and part of speech. all above mentioned cannot be altered. what we need to do is to employ the idioms directly not to transform them into any other forms. b. abundant connotationsthe abundant connotations of the idioms mainly lie in its figurative meaning. the idioms rich implications also depend on the fact that the words forming the idioms do not mean literally or not the addition of the simple meaning produced by each word. we must understand them on the whole or from their origins. for example, “rain cats and dogs” means “rain heavily”. c. distinct cultural featureidioms are the gorgeous treasures glittering with the light of wisdom in the literary treasure-house of their own nation either in chinese or english. so the idiom is just as a mirror reflecting the distinguishing feature of a nation or culture. chinese and english nations are entirely different ones with respective characteristics in history, geography, culture, customs, religion and the like. as a special language phenomenon, the idiom has a strong color of its own nation either in content or in form. for example, to describe the fact that some kind of newly emerging things develop very rapidly, we chinese people use “雨后春笋” means “something springs up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain”. however, in english, people will say something springs up like mushrooms after raining. most idioms have symmetrical pattern, exquisite syllables and harmonious rhythm. besides, penetrating implication, vivid images and succinct wording characterize the idioms likewise. those unique features of idioms should be retained as much as possible in translation.iv. the problems of the e-c translation of idiomsthe english-chinese translation of the english idioms belongs to the cross-culture communication. the key to translate the idioms accurately and correctly is to know the sources of the english idioms, the english culture and the customs, etc. if we dont know that, we would make some mistakes. take a look at these examples:“a miss is as good as a mile” does not equal to “差之毫厘，谬以千里”. it means:“死里逃生总是生，毫末之错仍为错”. “lock the stable door after the horse sto1en” does not equal to “亡羊补牢”. it means:“迟了，来不及了”. “eat ones words” does not equal to “食言”. it means:“羞惭的，不太光彩的认错”. “work-to-rule” does not equal to “照章办事”. it means:“消极怠工”(chen wenbo 263-264)。the cause of mistranslating is that we dont know the meaning of the sources idioms. in order to make better communication between nations and eliminate the gap caused by cultural differences. we may say that every translated version and every research on translating theory and method is the attempt to minimize limits caused by cultural differences and eliminate gaps between nations brought about by cultural differences. we believe, with the development of international intercourse and cultural communication, with the increase of intertranslation between different languages, with the constant effort and exploration of translators, the barriers caused by cultural differences will disappear gradually, and cultural communication will become more frequent and successful. translation will make much more contribution to advancing cultures of various nations and even pushing forward the development of the whole human culture.v. cultural differences reflected in english and chinese idioms culture is a complicated system of knowledge, moral principles, beliefs, arts, law and customs, etc. and language, as a part of culture, mirrors the rich and varied cultural phenomena. and the task of translating entails comparing english and chinese idioms in terms of cultural differences. idioms maintain close ties with peoples life and the culture where they are created and used. as china has a long history of agriculture, a large number of idioms related to agriculture have been in use. 骨瘦如柴be lean as a rake 对牛弹琴cast pearls before swine 众人拾柴火焰高many hands make light workliving on an island, the english are keen on sailing and traveling, the english language abounds in idioms connected with navigation. all at sea茫然不知所措 any port in a storm风暴来时不择港 to clear the decks准备战斗 differences of customs are multi-sided, of which the most typical one is the attitude towards such animals as the dog, the cat, etc. take the dog for example. in china, the dog is of a humble status. most of the chinese idioms concerning with dogs are used in a derogatory sense, usually describing wicked persons, though the numbers of pet dogs have increased. 狗崽子son of a bitch 狗急跳墙a concerned beast will do something desperate. 狗嘴吐不出象牙a filthy mouth