The influence of context on English translation.doc

the influence of context on english translationabstract: in the translation process, the context is the main determinant factor of semanteme. this article will analyze the effect of context to english translation from three aspects, they are the text context, situational context, and cultural context in order to raise peoples awareness of the importance of context.key words: context; lexeme; translation1.introductionpeoples communication is carried out in a certain language environment, that is in the context. in the process of translation, context is even more important. this article aims to present examples to demonstrate the impact of context on translation. context refers not only to a sentence, a paragraph or a part of an article, but also the entire scene with the event-related background and the environment. semantics depends on the context and also influenced by context. communication takes place through a medium and in situations that are limited in time and place. each specific situation determines what and how people communicate, and it is changed by people communicating. situations are not universal but are embedded in a cultural habitat, which in turn conditions the situation. language is thus to be regarded as part of culture. and communication is conditioned by the constraints of the situation-in-culture. so is translation as a form of cross-cultural communication. the complexity of translation, one of the most complex things in human history, lies in the multitude of and the delicate relationship among its relevant factors. translation is never innocent. there is always a context in which translation takes place, always a history from which a text emerges and into which a text is transposed. the situation-in-culture has been given much emphasis. 2.the influence of context on translation2.1. the influence of text context on translationthe scope of the text context is very broad. it could be the mix of different words, sentences and paragraphs, or even the entire article. to understand the meaning of each word is very important. this paper will analyze two aspects of the text context: context in the sentence and context between sentences.2.1.1. the influence of context in the sentence. within the context of the sentence, the word refers to the word in a sentence before and after the sentence context. in translation, the meaning of the word is influenced by the context in the sentence and also confined by other words in the same sentence. take “figure” for example, lets compare the following sentences:he wrote down the figures 09. numberhe is a man of fine figure. staturechurchill is the greatest figure of his time. characterthrough the mist we can only see the figure of the hill. outlinefrom the above sentences we can see that confined by the context in the sentence, each word has a different meaning. thus to get the correct meaning of a word, we should get some hints from the context in the sentence.2.1.2. the influence of inter-sentence context inter-sentence context refers to an article in the context which has the impact over other parts of the sentence. sometimes taking into account only the sentence itself is difficult to translate the exact meaning of the word out. in particular, the sentence that has vague meaning, but from inter-sentences we can get some context. for example “he drove to the bank”, we cant get the exact meaning of “bank”. should we translate it to “银行”or “海边”? both seems to happen. but the following sentence is “he likes the sea, so he usually goes there whenever he is free”. so from this sentence, we can get the word “bank” translated as “海边”. 2.2. the influence of situational context situational context refers to the activities carried out by the actual situation. it includes a number of factors, such as time, place, participants, topic, weather, and other occasions. this article will take occasions, participants, and theme to analyze how the influence of situational context happens.2.2.1. occasionsin the translation process, the occasion is a very important factor for us to understand the original language properly. to translate the meaning properly, we must refer to the activities carried out on specific occasions.for example, mike splashed milk on mary carelessly. so mary shouted to him “you are always so careful!” if we translated it to “你总是这么小心”, obviously it is not proper. because when mary said this to mike, she meant mike was so careless. so this situational context changed the translation of “careful”. 2.2.2. participantsduring the text translation particularly the translation of the script, we often encounter some of the dialogue. these dialogues are very important for the characters to show personality so it must translated on the base of character references, educational background, the speaker of the language patterns and relationships between characters. for example, the novel jane eyre there is a conversation between jane and her cousin; “wicked and cruel boy!” i said“you are like a murder一 you are like a slaverdriver you are like the roman emperors” translated in chinese, the first version is “残酷的坏孩子!”我说“你象一个杀人凶手 你象一个监狱管奴隶的人 你象一个罗马皇帝!”. the second version is “你这凶残的坏家伙! 我说，“你简直像个杀人犯一你像个监工头一你就是那罗马暴君!” comparing these two versions , the first version is obviously not suitable for a simple emotions. she was full of angry, very excited and can not control her emotions. the second version had done better than the first one because it took the speakers emotion into consideration.2.2.3. themetheme refers to the main contents of the exchange. specific topic can translate the semantic specific. for example, a: ournewly-developed product is really greatlook，what a large ear! b：its really large enough甲：我们开发的新品种确实是你们最好的选择。看，多大的玉米穗呀!乙：确实够大! this conversion is between an agricultural expert and a farmer . the expert is holding a large ear of corn to the farmer about his research and development of new products. here “ear cant be translated into “耳朵” , based on the theme and the background it should be translated as “麦穗”.3. the influence of cultural context on translation reflecting peoples tradition, culture is a complex factor. the culture between different nations is also different. translation is a cross-culture exchange, so next we will discuss the influence of culture, religion and idiom on translation.3.1.customif the culture is different, the custom is different. so in doing translation, the related custom must be considered. lets first see a sentence; “quick， nancy”mike said and swung the car into the left lanethe translated version is “快，南西。” 迈克边说边把车子拐进快车道. maybe someone will ask in this emergent time why he didnt turn to the highway but the lane(巷子)? if they have this kind of thought it is because they dont know in america “the left lane” is just like what we chinese say “highway”.3.2. religion in the western culture religion is very important and it had made its way into every aspect of life which had become a character of its culture.so , when doing translation, religion must be an important factor that has influence. thus the translator should have the basic knowledge of religion. for example, the sentence the end of the world is coming should be translated as伸张正义的时刻就要到来了.the phrase “the end of the world” comes from christian , it means the end of the world will come and when this day comes everyone will accept the assessment of god. the good ones will go up to heaven and bad ones go down to hail.3.3. idiom most translator who have done translation agreed that the idiom translation is a difficult field of foreign language translation. and the main point of this problem is culture barrier and cultural deficiency. so, when doing idiom translation, we must know how it comes into being. first lets discuss the translation of idiom with fix collocations. there are two types of idioms in english. one is those having fix collocations but no implying meanings or allusions. another is those originating from history, religion, ancient mythology with implying or figurative meanings. the method of literal translation can be used in translating the first type of idioms. for example: to knit ones brow 皱眉头, last but not least 最后但不是最不重要的一点.sometimes the same idiom can be translated into different chinese idioms according to the context. for example: to reap what one has sown can be translated as自作自受；自食其果；自掘坟墓；飞蛾扑火and so on. most of the english idioms can not be match