On the Differences of English and Chinese Idioms with Numbers and C-E Translation 英汉数字习语的差异及互译1.doc

英汉数字习语的差异及互译on the differences of english and chinese idioms with numbers and c-e translation内 容 摘 要习语是语言的结晶，是文化的载体，它具有语义的整体性和结构的稳定性。导致英汉数字不同之处在于社会自然环境、风俗习惯和心理状态、宗教文化传统及历史文化传统等因素，他们表现在英汉数字的习惯表达、量词、暗含意义及对数字的喜好与禁忌，其中对奇偶数有不同的喜好。为了更好的翻译数字习语而不失原意，经常使用直译、意译、直译加意译等翻译方法。 关键词：数字习语;语言;文化abstractidioms are the corn and the essence of a language. the characteristics of idioms are semantic unity and structural stability. causes of differences between english and chinese numbers include society and natural environment, custom and psychology, religious cultural tradition and historical cultural tradition, which lead to the differences of english and chinese idioms with numbers in presentation, habit expression, quantifier, implicit meaning, and favor and taboo, especially preferences for odd and even numbers. literal translation, liberal translation, literal-plus-liberal translation are usually applied in translating of idioms with numbers of the two languages in order to sustain as much the information of the original as possible.key words：idioms with numbers; language; culturecontentsintroduction.11. brief study on idioms.2 1.1 definition of idioms.2 1.2 characteristics of idioms.3 1.2.1 semantic unity.3 1.2.2 structural stability.42. causes of differences between english and chinese numbers .5 2.1 society and natural environment.5 2.2 custom and psychology.7 2.3 religious cultural tradition.8 2.4 historical cultural tradition.113. differences of english and chinese numbers.11 3.1 different representation of english and chinese numbers .12 3.1.1 differences of habit expression.12 3.1.2 differences of quantifier.13 3.2 differences of implicit meaning.13 3.3 favor and taboo of numbers.14 3.3.1 the odd and even number preference.14 3.3.2 differences of taboo.15 3.3.2.1 “four” and “thirteen”.16 3.3.2.2 “five” and “friday”.164. approaches of translating chinese idioms with numbers into english.17 4.1 literal translation approach.17 4.1.1 one-by-one literal translation.19 4.1.2 literal meaning and explanation.19 4.2 liberal translation approach.19 4.2.1 change the original figures. .20 4.2.2 add numbers.21 4.2.3 omit numbers.21 4.3 literal-plus-liberal translation approach.22conclusion.23notes.25references.26 introductionidioms are formed through the use of language over a long period of time, including colloquialisms, proverbs, slang expression and so on, making up one of the essential parts of language of that country. it is not only the special component of language, national form and all kinds of rhetoric, but also the concentrated on the crystallization of the wisdom of the people. idioms are part of the language and culture. most of idioms are vivid, carrying strong local color or national features. 1 some of them are explicit; some are implicit and can arouse varieties of associations; some may contain more than one meaning and must be judged from the context. the importance of studying idioms with numbers translation from the perspective of culture lies in the following aspects: first of all, studies of the cultural distinction in idiom translation are still relatively weak in the field of translation in china. we know that cultural connotations engage in idioms. exclusive research on the translation of idioms is still inappropriate and incomplete. in the last twenty years, idiom translation has mostly emphasized on the level of interlingua communication, but cultural differences were rarely involved in it. in 1998, chen dingan wrote a book on comparison and translation of english and chinese idioms, in which he used general translation strategies: literal translation, free translation, borrowed translation and additional translation and tried to find solutions in idiom translation. it can be concluded that it is time for us to study idiom translation from the perspective of culture and researchers today are paying more attention to such studies. secondly, it is inevitable that cultural transmission will affect the english-chinese/ chinese-english idioms translation. in the broad sense, culture and language are closely related to each other. language is part of culture; it is also the carrier of culture. in the narrow sense, cultural differences have great influences on idiom translation. idioms are culture-loaded linguistic symbols and we can find almost every aspect of national culture in idioms. idioms are just like a huge mirror whereby we can see the kinds of cultural views of a nation. it is certain that the special difficulties for the translation of idioms will rise. translation, in fact, is not only interlingua communication but also intercultural communication. a good translator is supposed to translate idioms underlying the culture. england and china have totally different cultures while their sources and development roads are distinctive. having different living environments, social customs, religious beliefs and historical allusions, chinese and english idioms loaded with cultural connotations are characterized by certain cultural terms. the idioms were endowed in the two different cultures and were brought about by cultural barriers for the receptors to comprehend and appreciate. in that case, a translator should consider the cultural terms in idiom translation and make efforts to find the accurate solution underlying these terms. we can achieve “faithful” translation in that way. it means that we can manage the interpretation of both the semantic information and cultural connotations of idioms in question.1. brief study on idioms in order to understand the idioms, we should learn form the definition and characteristics of idioms in the first place. idioms are made up of set phrases and sentences. it has characteristics.1.1 definition of idioms idioms are the corn and the essence of a language. it is a construction, expression, etc. having a meaning different from the literal one or not according to the usual patterns of the language.2 this definition tell us two of the reasons why idioms are difficult to learn. firstly, their meaning is unpredictable even when their component words are known. that is to say, the relationship between these expressions and their meaning is arbitrary. for example, “to kick the bucket” means “to die”. however, none of the words in this idiom is itself associate with death. an idiom has to be learned as a word even though it may consist of several words. secondly their patterns may be unusual. for instance, “each man for himself and the devil take the hindmost” is unusual in that the coordinate conjunction “and” dose not link two constructions with equal syntactic status and “take” dose not bear the third person singular present tense maker it otherwise should. 1.2 characteristics of idiomsidioms consist of set phrases and short sentences, which are peculiar to the language in question and loaded with the native cultures and ideas. therefore, idioms are colorful, forcible and thought-provoking.1.2.1 semantic unitybeing phrases or sentences, idioms each consist of more than one word, but each is a semantic unity. though the various words which make up the idiom have their respective literal meanings, in the idiom they have lost their individual identity, i.e. their meanings are not often recognizable in the meaning of the whole idiom.3 for instance: “till the cows come home”, which comprises a conjunction “till”, an article “the”, a noun “cow”, a verb “come” and an adverb “home”, means forever and functions as an adverb, thus replaceable by the word forever.the semantic unity of idioms is also reflected in the illogical relationship between the literal meaning of each word and the meaning of the idiom. for example: “wear ones heart upon ones sleeve” which means show ones feelings plainly what is literally impossible. “rain cats and dogs” which is used in the sense of rain heavily literally makes nonsense.1.2.2 structural stability unlike free phrases, the structure of an idiom is to a large extent unchangeable. firstly, the constituents of idioms cannot be replaced. take “in a brown study” for example. used as a free phrase, we can say “in a brown (red, green, white, etc.) study” or “in a brown study (room, den, hall, studio, cell, etc)”. secondly, the word order cannot be inverted or changed. for example, “by twos and threes and tit for tat” are not to be turned into “by threes and twos and tat for it”.thirdly, the constituents of an idiom cannot be deleted or added to, not even an article. for instance, “out of the question” means impossible. if the article is deleted, the idiomatic will be lost and it will signify “no question” instead. finally, many idioms are grammatically unanalysable. for example, “diamond cut diamond” (two parties are equally matched) is grammatically incorrect, for normally the verb “cut” should take the third person singular -s as the subject diamond is singular.2. causes of the differences between english and chinese numbersidioms are formed in the long years of work and life practice. it has a fixed mode of expression. it also called proverb or phrase. it is the essence of language. every nation has its own idioms. 4 idioms are certain national history and culture by precipitation and enrichment. so, idioms have distinct national characteristics. english and chinese are two high development of language. thus they have abundant idioms. different language can reflect the similar or different culture. as essence of language, idioms can typically reflect of english-chinese cultures similarities and differences. eugene a. nita divided the character of language culture into five groups: ecology, material culture, religious culture, and linguistic culture. 5 so we summarize the cultural differences of english and chinese idioms into four aspects: society environment and natural environment, custom and psychology, religious culture, and historical culture. 2.1 society and natural environmentgeographical environment plays an important role in shaping ones countrys culture and human beings have no choices and capacities to change the geography. and the idioms with numbers maintain close ties with peoples life and the culture where they are created and used. as a result, idioms with numbers based on geographical features appear different. britain is an island country, which does not share land border with any other countries except the republic of ireland. british people have a special passion for water, which we can find in the following examples: “keep ones head over water”(奋力图存)，“to know the ropes”(懂得秘诀，内行)，“to rest on ones oars”(暂时歇一歇)，“plain sailing”(一路顺风), and so on. however, the most part of china belongs to mainland where people cannot live without earth. for example, to show somebody being extravagant, there is a chinese idioms “挥金如土”, but in english the idiom is spend money like water. in china we have “面朝黄土背朝天” to describe the chinese farmers. “toil in the field and “泥菩萨过江，自身难保” to describe those who cannot even protect themselves at certain circumstance. take the other instance, in southern china with mild and moisture weather, bamboo is familiar plant for people there, so they use the idiom “雨后春笋” to describe the new things cropping up in great numbers. correspondingly, english have the idiom “spring up like mushroom” to tell the same meaning, since in england mushroom in spring can be seen everywhere. besides the different idioms expressing the same notion in the two languages, there are a lot of idioms related to water in english and earth in chinese which have no corresponding counterpart in the other language, like the english idioms “to rest on ones oars”, “to keep ones head above water”, “all at sea” and etc.2.2 custom and psychologythe differences of culture and custom between english and chinese often caused the different usage of numbers. custom is a kind of social phenomenon what created by social groups that not product of personal factors. in china, the number of car is small to imply the title of the master is high. this is social history reason cause alienation of the license number. the western society also had a similar situation, in english four hundred（上层、名流）.therefore, in 1892 the guests of mrs. william astor party reduce to four hundred what become the name of people who high position. four and fair is homophonic, so the westerners like four very much. they think four stands for fair, justice, a symbol of power, the original of creation and keys of everything. for example: “four star”(极好的), “a four leaf clover”(幸运）. but chinese dont like four. the different national habit of english and chinese, they have different psychological state to the same thing. so, the sentimental color or meaning is also different. such as metaphor evildoer, english “a black sheep ” (黑色的羊)，chinese“害群之马”.and both of english and chinese like feed dog. english think dog is very loyalty. they like make friends with dog. in english, idioms contains “dog” have no bad meaning, many idioms is used to describe people live and behavior. such as: “love me, love my dog”(爱屋及乌); “every dog has his day.”(凡人皆有得意日); “a lucky dog”(幸运儿). 6 but in china, they think dog isnt loyalty. the idioms of dog are mostly containing derogatory sense. such as: “狗咬吕洞宾”(把好人当成坏人), “狗头军师”(不高明的参谋), “狗仗人势”, “狼心狗肺”, “狗急跳墙”, “狗血喷头”.2.3 religious cultural traditionform the angle of cultural history that religions are often considered to the core source of a culture. there once appeared a time when religious cultures were dominant in the civilization of some developed countries. religion influences peoples conception invisibly. chinese civilization is one of the oldest in the world. the philosophical confucianism has been dominant for over 2,000 years. chinese philosophical traditions and religions can not be interpreted separately because confucianism, taoism and buddhism have intertwined so tightly that a common chinese who claims to have some religious beliefs can not really tell from which one of the three his belief system comes exactly. taoism and buddhism are held as the two major religious schools in china, which have functioned in peoples lives as philosophical thoughts in chinese history.taoism and buddhism are important with their exertions on the cultural connotations of the chinese numbers. in “lao-tzu”, lao zi expressed that one produced two, two produced three, and three produced everything. one of the laws he found was that everything had two opposite sides: good and bad, right and wrong, long and short, bright and dark, motion and motionlessness. this drove home the sides of everything correspond to the chinese traditional aesthetics, and that in social and cultural activities; even numbers were consummate and lucky. “one hundred and eight” is the symbol of buddha, which links to the daily life and the important matters of buddhism. the representatives of the embodiment of buddha are one hundred and eight bodhisattvas in a temple. the religious bell rings one hundred and eight times. the buddhist beads that a buddhist moves are 108 in a chain. these activities show sincerity to buddhism. it is also said in buddhism that a person has one hundred and eight worries. if he or she hears the sound