（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）论在英中同声传译中习语翻译的策略.pdf

论文摘要 口译作为一项重要的跨文化交流方式已经逐渐发展成为一种职业并在世 界经济和文化交流中发挥着举足轻重的作用 口译无处不在 其重要性显而易见 本篇论文主要应用文化图式的理论阐释了在英到中同声传译里习语的可译 性以及习语同声传译的策略 基于对习语的理解及翻译的机制本文采用了同声 传译和笔译相结合的实验方式旨在回答如下问题 1对文化图式的熟悉程度是否会影响同声传译的表现其影响性是否与笔 译相同 2在英到中同声传译中所采取的习语翻译策略是什么此策略与笔译中 采取的策略是否相同 试验对象为对外经济贸易大学英语专业二年级研究生实验内容包括对习语 熟悉程度进行初步判断的调查问卷现场同声传译和笔译在实验和论文中对 文化图式的熟悉程度以及同声传译和笔译译员的表现被设定为变量 在对实验结 果进行认真的描述性和量化分析之后作者得出了下述结论对文化图式的熟悉 程度对同声传译译员的表现具有重要影响尤其在第三类习语中即不熟悉 类的习语中有突出的表现 译员在英到中的同声传译里采取的基本策略是一一对 应法交叉对应法和创新或解释法 本试验完成了设计实验的初衷并且对在英到中同声传译里习语翻译的训练 提出了一些建议同时作者通过比较同声传译和笔译的实验结果进一步阐释了 联系理论在习语理解和口译中应用 论文关键词文化图式同声传译口译策略 abstract interpretation, as one of the most significant means of cross-culture communication, gradually developed into a widely accepted profession when economic and cultural communications and interactions are needed. the importance of interpretation is clearly manifested and interpretation exists everywhere. the thesis will mainly use the theories of cultural schemata to illustrate the translatability and interpretation strategies of idioms in e-c simultaneous interpretation. and based on the idiom comprehension and interpretation mechanisms studied by former scholars, the experiments of simultaneous interpretation and translation carried out in this study aims to seek answers to the following research questions: 1. does cultural schemata familiarity affect the simultaneous interpretation performance? and is the effect identical to that in translation experiment? 2. what idiom interpretation strategies have been adopted in e-c simultaneous interpretation? are they similar to those in translation? the methodology adopted in this empirical research through experimental tests on second-grade postgraduates majoring in english from uibe. two tasks are designed for these subjects, with cultural schemata familiarity and simultaneous interpretation and translation performance as variables. through a careful descriptive and qualitative analysis of the experiment results, the following answers are concluded: the familiarity degree of cultural schemata strongly and significantly affects the simultaneous interpretation performance. this effect is specially presented in category 3 idioms which are considered unfamiliar by the subjects; the basic strategies adopted by the subjects in simultaneous interpretation are a a method (one by one correspondence), a b method (indirect correspondence) and a zero method (innovation correspondence and interpretation correspondence). the present study also brings some useful suggestions to training in idiom interpretation in english to chinese simultaneous interpretation. as by-product, this study also testifies relevance theorys application to idiom interpretation comprehension by comparing the results of simultaneous interpretation and translation experiments. keywords: cultural schema, simultaneous interpretation, interpretation strategy acknowledgment first of all, i wish to express my sincere gratitude to all the teachers of the school of international studies, uibe, whose instruction and guidance have made my seven years at this university a truly rewarding experience. words fail me when i try to express my heartfelt thanks to my supervisor, professor sui yun, for all her kind help and brilliant insights throughout the process of my completing this thesis. throughout this process, she provided me with helpful suggestions, collected many valuable materials for me, supported me with clear guidance when i met difficulties, and adjusted the overall structure and patiently corrected many mistakes after the paper took shape. without all these, the completion of this work would have been impossible. i owe a special debt to the vice president of uibe, professor chen sudong, for it was in her exciting course of psycholinguistics that i first touched upon this area of research, and became entirely fascinated by all the invaluable work towards a better understanding of the process involved in language comprehension and production. it was also through many heated discussions in class under her insightful guidance that the idea of making the present study was first ignited. many thanks go to professor huang hao, for his instructions in the course of research methodology and thesis writing, which i later found extremely helpful and important. many thanks should also go to professor chen yanjun for her sincere and helpful suggestions during my thesis proposal defense which facilitated my experiment processing and thesis writing. many thanks also go to those people who so graciously took time out of their busy schedules to help me. their encouragement, ideas and experience made an enormous contribution to the completion of this paper. 1 chapter 1 a brief introduction to the present study interpretation, as one of the most significant means of cross-culture communication, could be dated back to the first contact and communication among different primitive tribes and since then became an indispensable verbal communication tool among people holding various cultural backgrounds and speaking diverse languages. as time goes on, interpretation gradually developed into a widely accepted profession when communications and interactions between different parts of the world increase. nowadays, with the development of economic integration and globalization and chinas entry into the world trade organization, the importance of interpretation is clearly manifested and interpretation exists everywhere conferences, business and political negotiations, trade fairs and even press releases and high-level interviews. interpretation, essentially, means an extempore oral reproduction, on one language of what is said in another language.1 practically speaking, the two most widely used forms of interpretation are consecutive interpretation and simultaneous interpretation. in the thesis, the author will only focus on simultaneous interpretation. zhong shukong pointed out that “as proved by practice, interpretation cannot be viewed as a merely linguistic undertaking, but should be regarded as an aspect of a larger domain namely, that of communication. in the case of complex discourses or speeches, interpretation involves not only linguistic proficiency, but also encyclopedic knowledge.” 2 here the “encyclopedic knowledge” refers to extralinguistic knowledge, among which “culture” is the most difficult part to interpret. and in terms of psycholinguistics, culture has its own schemata and cultural schema refers to the knowledge slots on culture in brain, and is the existing model of knowledge organization on culture with the help of foregoing 1 zhong shukong, 1999, a practical handbook of interpretation (enlarged and revised edition), 中国对外翻 译出版公司 2 zhong shukong, 1999, a practical handbook of interpretation (enlarged and revised edition), p1 2 experience, which could be used to apperceive and understand all kinds of cultural phenomenon in human society3. all for all, language and culture are closely related in the sense that language expresses and transmits culture, while culture influences language. therefore, the interpretation of idioms can be more appropriately perceived at the level of culture than that of language. the thesis will present the concept of cultural schemata, and discuss simultaneous interpretation and the translatability of idioms in terms of cultural schemata, because in all kinds of forms of cultural schemata, idiom is seen as the most representative form of cultural schema. for the past several decades, quite a number of studies have researched deeply within the framework of psycholinguistics the process of second language reading comprehension and listening comprehension, and have achieved great insightful findings. based on the support from theories on interpretation, schema theory, relevance theory as well as coopers idiom comprehension strategies, the present study aims to examine english to chinese interpretation strategies of idioms by comparing results of simultaneous interpretation and translation using the same target article to illustrate the reasons behind and meanwhile give out suggestions to idiom interpretation training. the major hypothesis of such a study is that cultural schemata could be interpreted in simultaneous interpretation and the strategies adopted are different from those used in translation. the methodology adopted is an empirical research through experimental tests on second-grade postgraduates majoring in english from uibe. two tasks are designed for these subjects, with cultural schemata familiarity and simultaneous interpretation and translation performance as variables. the tested article was read by the teacher with the same speed when students doing simultaneous interpretation exercises. and after the oral experiments, students were given the passage and did translation with enough time for consideration. 3 liu mingdong, 2003, translatability and translation of cultural schemata, chinese translators journal, march, 2003, vol.24 no. 2 3 the present study shed some light on idioms comprehension and interpretation strategies in simultaneous interpretation, and also the difference between the strategies adopted in simultaneous interpretation and translation. since it takes subjects from postgraduates majoring in english, it brings some useful suggestions to training in idiom interpretation in english to chinese simultaneous interpretation. as by-product, this study testifies relevance theorys application to idiom interpretation comprehension by comparing the results of simultaneous interpretation and translation experiments. those previous studies concerning second language listening have tested comprehension by asking students to recall the message in english, or to answer open questions, or to answer multiple-choice questions. in case of recalling tasks, when those subjects try to express ideas in english, the process may be limited by their english proficiency, hence they can not fully utter what they have comprehended. in case of open questions and multiple-choice questions, the subjects may be interfered by the tested questions or the provided choices, therefore, their comprehension could not be accurately measured. by asking the subjects to translate the original interpretation article, the present study avoids the above-mentioned two weaknesses to some extent by giving subjects enough time to read, think and comprehend. 4 chapter 2 theoretical foundation and previous studies 2.1 idiom comprehension 2.1.1 definitions to idioms the term idiom has been around since antiquity and used in a variety of senses, with some more frequently and consistently used than others. the oxford english dictionary (v, “i”: 21-22; and which will be stated as “oed” in the following parts) gives the following senses of the term: 1. the form of speech peculiar or proper to a people or country; own language, own tongue. 2. (in a narrower sense): that variety of language which is peculiar to a limited district or class of people; dialect. 3. the specific character, property or genius of any language; the manner of expression which is natural or peculiar to it. 4. a form of expression, grammatical construction, phrase, etc., peculiar to a language; a peculiarity of phraseology approved by usage of the language and often having a signification other than its grammatical or logical one. 5. a specific form or property, peculiar nature, peculiarity. sense 1 and 2 of the oed are particularly encountered in european dictionaries and encyclopedias. and a mixture of sense 3 and 4 can be found in murat h. roberts “the science of idiom: a method of inquiry into the cognitive design of language” (1944)4. sense 5, however, will not concern us any more throughout the present studies for it is relegated to the nonverbal arts, such as music, sculpture and painting, etc., hence, the phrases picassos “unmistakable idiom” or “the idiom of henry moore”. sense 4 is extremely rich but also an abstract interpretation of idioms which only describe generality of idioms. the present study will further narrow down the definition and only studies “phrasal idioms”, 4 adam makkai, idiom structure in english, 1972, belgium, page 24, line 15 5 that is phrasal units whose meaning is not obtainable from its syntactic components and consist of a verbal phrase with a verb and a noun phrase. as we all know that idioms are transparent to native speakers, but are a cause of perplexity to those acquiring a second language. but linguistically speaking, idioms, in particular, have often been considered as “dead metaphors” i.e., expressions that were once innovative, but are now conventionalized and frozen and hence scarcely relevant in comparison with metaphor. idioms are a clear challenge to current compositional models of language comprehension, and their use in the language is so widespread to justify searles (1975) informal rule of conversation: “speak idiomatically unless there is some good reason not to do so.” besides, flores darcais (1993) pointed out that people interpret unfamiliar idioms much like metaphors, relying whenever possible on similarities with more familiar expressions. therefore, the thesis will try to illustrate and support this idea by carrying out simultaneous interpretation and translation test concerning idiom comprehension. 2.1.2 flores darcais theory on comprehension and interpretation of idioms giovanni b. flores darcais (1993) carried out five different studies concerning the processing of comprehension and interpretation of idioms defined as “a phrasal unit whose meaning is not obtainable from its syntactic components”5. the first study included a number of ratings and scaling experiments designed to obtain information about familiarity and about the point of idiom uniqueness for a large number of idioms. the second study tested the assumption that idiomatic phrases that, according to the list hypothesis, could be stored as multiword lexical units, and could be interpreted as such, still undergo full syntactic analysis. the third study tested the hypothesis that highly familiar idioms are recognized easily without any need for computing the literal meaning, whereas low-familiarity 5 giovanni b. flores darcais, the comprehension and semantic interpretation of idioms, idioms: processing, structure, and interpretation, 1993, usa, edited by cristina cacciari and patrizia tabossi, page 79 6 idioms require additional processing effort. the fourth and fifth studies tried to find out how people interpret unknown idioms and which principles they may use assigning such an interpretation. flores darcais summarized that processing idiomatic phrases may present some computational problems only when the idioms are very or completely unfamiliar. the interpretations given to these idioms are very often appropriate or at least close to their conventional meaning. in order to reach such interpretations, the language user adopts a number of strategies that are based on simple principles. however, there are two shortcomings of this series of studies: 1. what strategies are used in interpretation experiment and are these strategies really “simple” strategies? 2. whether the given context will help the subjects understand, comprehend and interpret new and unfamiliar idioms? this thesis will try to explain the above two questions based on the results of simultaneous interpretation and translation experiments. 2.1.3 cooper (1999)s idiom comprehension strategies cooper (1999) investigated the on-line processing strategies used by a sample of eighteen non- native speakers of english who were asked to give the meanings of twenty selected common idioms in written context. cooper used think-aloud protocol to collect data, i.e. participants were asked to verbalize their thoughts as they touched the meanings of those idioms. cooper (1999) summarized the l2 idiom comprehension strategies into two groups: the preparatory strategies include strategy rp, repeating or paraphrasing the idiom, strategy da, discussing and analyzing the idiom and strategy ri, requesting information about the idiom; the guessing strategies including strategy gc, guessing from context, strategy lm, using the literal meaning, strategy bk, using background knowledge, strategy l1, referring to l1 idiom and strategy os, 7 using other strategies. strategy gc (28% of the total), da (24% of the total) and lm (19% of the total) were found to be the most frequently used. however, the subjects of coopers study were those non-native speakers who lived in us for an average 5.1 years and the idioms presented were in written context. what if we use some subjects of non-native speakers who have never been to english speaking countries and the idioms were given in oral context? and meanwhile the author has made the following assumptions about the most frequently used strategies in simultaneous interpretation of idioms within oral context: 1. a a method (one by one correspondence): which is strategy l1, referring to an l1 idiom; 2. a b method (indirect correspondence): which combines strategy lm, using the literal meaning and strategy bk, using background knowledge; 3. a zero method (innovation correspondence and interpretation correspondence): which combines strategy da and strategy gc, and the authors assumption is that when the idiom belongs to the category of “unfamiliar”, this is the most frequently used strategy among these three. 2.1.4 idiom teaching and learning in foreign language teaching and