阅读理解与翻译.doc

ContentsAcknowledgement1Abstract 2 提要.3Introduction.4Chapter 1: Context7 1.1 Notion71.2 History .71.3 Meaning and context.9Chapter 2: Cultural Context and Translation.122.1 Culture concerning natural scenes are different132.2 Social regulations and rules are different.152.3 The ideational cultures are different.16 2.3.1 Cultural values.16 2.3.2 Habitual psychological association.18 2.3.3 Culture in beliefs.20Chapter 3: Historical Context and Translation.23 3.1 Language itself has a history.23 3.2 Historical situation.26 3.4 Historical incidents29Chapter 4: Participants and Translation.31 4.1 Status and Role.31 4.2 Education.34 4.3 Relationship between the Participants.36Conclusion.43Bibliography.45 Abstract Accurate understanding is one precondition of translating so translators first should concentrate on the definition of the original meaning before rendering. Yet every expression may hold various denotative and associative meanings besides certain occasional meaning derived when put in the practical using. Of these polysemous meanings around, which to choose may cudgel the translators brains. Under this circumstance the translator has to resort to the linguistic and non-linguistic contexts as the sole determiner. The non-linguistic context is a most complex system including all the factors, material or spiritual, of which social contextual elements are of key significance. Culture plays a very important role in translation as the same object or act carries distinct national flavors into different cultural groups that may puzzle or even shock the foreigners. As a translator, one should try best to reveal all the flavours and images in the target language to the fullest on the base of completely grasping the two cultures. All on the earth is in the process of changing, which results in the language changes. The primitive meaning may be narrowed, broadened or completely altered in the process of being used. The historical periods affect peoples choice of expressions in communicating and endow some utterances with special meanings from the point of view of todays readers. The different social status individuals hold, social occasions and relative social relations between the participants also have great influence on the speakers word-selection and the subsequent analysis of his utterances by the listeners and translators.In summary besides the verbal meaning, translators have to take contextual elements, especially the above-mentioned social ones, into consideration. In the following paper the author will make a detailed study on how the analysis of meaning and the translation are influenced by the social context.Key Words: （1） Context （2） Cultural Context （3）Culture Concerning Nature; （4）Ideational Culture; （5）Historical Context; （6） Communicating Participants 提要准确理解是翻译的前提，因此在动手翻译前译者首先确定原文的意思。每一语言单位除了收入字典里的各种各样的概念意义和联想意义，在实际的运用中还可能产生一定的场景意义。面对这些围绕着意核形成的各种意义，如何选择使得翻译者伤透脑筋。此时翻译者只得求助于限定语意的语内语境和语外语境。语外语境是一个包括所有物质和精神因素的极为复杂的体系，其中社会语境因素是关键。文化在翻译中发挥着很重要的作用， 同一个物体或动作在不同的文化群体中可能携带着不同让其他群体迷惑不解的文化色彩。翻译者应该在充分掌握二者文化的基础上最大限度地在目的语里再现源语的色彩和意象。世界上的一切都在变化中，语言也得随之变化。原始意义在使用过程中或缩小或扩大，有的甚至完全改变。历史时期影响人们在交流中的选词并可能赋予话语特殊的含义。一个人的社会地位，所处的社会场合及交际者相互社会关系也会对他的选词及其后听读者的理解产生很大的影响。总之，除了字面意义，翻译者还得考虑语境尤其是上面提到的社会语境因素。在下面的文章里，作者将详细分析社会语境是如何影响语义分析和翻译的。关键词：（1）语境 （2）文化语境 （3）有关自然的文化 （4）理念文化 （5）历史语境 （6）交际者Introduction Eugene Nida once said: “ Translation consists in reproducing in the target language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, firstly in terms of meaning, secondly in terms of styles.” From The Theory and Practice of Translation, P200. The definition concerns two key points: the grasping of the original message and the expressing of it in the target language. The first is of basic importance and the first step of translation. If one cannot understand the original idea, how can he express it in the target language? How to get the original information well expressed in the target language has become the main controversial issue within the translation field. Anyone having a lot of translation experience will often find it very difficult to deal with due to various factors outside or inside language which obstacle and mislead the translators astray. Here is an example of Chinese English-Chinese translation:A: 少年家觉得这小姐尚有可风之处，商得了女家同意，大吹大擂地接小姐过去，迎了灵柩，麻衣红鞋，抱着灵牌，参拜了家堂祖庙做了新娘。B: The young mans family thought there was some praiseworthy quality in the girl after all. They got the consent of her family and amid wedding music took the girl home to receive the young mans coffin. She went through the wedding rituals in mourning dress and bridal shoes, and holding a wooden tablet inscribed with the name of the deceased young man, paid homage to ancestors. C：这个年轻人的家人想：这女孩儿的身上多少有些为人称道的地方。于是他们在征得她家人的同意之后便吹吹打打地把女孩儿接回，给年轻人守灵。她身着丧服，脚上穿一双专门为新娘缝制的鞋，和年轻人举办了婚礼。然后，她手捧着刻有仙逝者姓名的灵牌，向祖先祭拜。Comparing the above three paragraphs, A is well changed into B and so is B to C in respect of the verbal meaning but not in the deep meaning. Firstly, the style is changed completely. Sentence A is elegant, formal and a little bookish while Sentence C is plain and even a little colloquial.Secondly, the meaning varies greatly too. Sentence A describes a kind of wedding taking place in ancient China called “冥婚（the marriage between two dead persons or between a living person and a dead one）”. This is given clearly in A but is ambiguous in C. Besides, the connotative meanings of the two expressions in A, 麻衣and红鞋, are not brought into appearance in B not to say in C. “给年轻人守灵”can not be spotted in original A. What are the reasons? The first is a cultural one. According to the old Chinese convention, in this kind of wedding, the living one, usually a female, had to wear the jute clothes mourning the would-be husband who was dead and red shoes expressing her status as a bride. Comparing B with A, one can see that the cultural images are lost in the first round of alteration due to the absence of similar images in the other culture. The second reason is a historical one. This kind of mourning and wedding ritual disappeared after the foundation of a new China and is strange even to the young Chinese, who may misunderstand it and give a wrong interpretation and the on-going wrong translation. Thus we can see that in translation verbal element is not the only point one should pay attention to, sometimes the factors outside may be more important. Thus the study of translation from a linguistic aspect is inevitable. In the west of the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the development of different linguistic branches, the western translation theorists such as Catford, Nida and Newmark extended their sight from the inner language phenomenon to the outer world, that is, to the contextual factors to seek a most accurate equivalence in translation. Regrettably, their studies are mostly concerned with the inter-European languages translation, which are sometimes not directly very applicable to Chinese translation. What about the Chinese situation? Early in 1930s the Chinese famous linguist Cheng Wang Dao mentioned the six “how elements” in linguistics. When the west modern linguistic study was spread to China in 1980s, some Chinese scholars began to realize the necessity of combining translation study with linguistics. Now the Chinese pay more and more attention to cultural and pragmatic phenomena by shifting away from the traditional method emphasizing on language phenomena. However, it is still insufficient, for they occupy only a small part and most of them concentrate on culture-loaded words that are just one part of the cultural factors. Of the 849 pieces of articles surveyed by the author from the past six years Chinese Academic Journals, there are altogether no more than ten dealing directly with context. Besides they all seem too general in just giving a general explanation of the influence of context on meaning and some examples in one way or another. The author of the article tries to explain the influence of contextual elements on translation in a more detailed way on the base of the previous achievement. Now that the inter-linguistic context has already been studied at large, this article will leave it out and just explain the contextual influences on translation from the social aspects. Chapter One ContextTranslation is the activity of replacing all the messages embodied in the source language expressions by the target language, more importantly on the meaning level. Nevertheless, the grasping of meaning usually depends on the context as John Lyons says, “The context is such that all but one of the possible interpretations are irrelevant or relatively possible” John Lyons: P397 semantic Volume 2. That is to say, John Lyons thinks that context may be the only factor to decide whether the readers interpretation of the original meaning is appropriate or not. From experience, one can also see that the meaning of a definite expression may be subject to various interpretations in different contexts. Thus, to begin with, the author would like to make a general study on context.1. Notion. Context, as a linguistic conception, is still a controversial and verifying problem. It originally came from the Latin “contextus” meaning “a joining together”. Later it was extended to mean “the whole structure of a connected passage regarded in its bearing upon any of the parts which constitute it: the parts which immediately precede or follow any particular passage or text and determine its meaning.” from The Oxford English Dictionary, volume ,P902 It is Malinowski who for the first time felt that context “must burst the bonds of mere linguistics and be carried over into the analysis of the general conditions under which a language is spoken.” from The Meaning of Meaning P306After him, the conception is being broadened continually by different scholars. Now it has been extended to include all the factors inside or outside linguistic field that influence ones choice of expressions and the subsequent understandings.2. HistoryThe appearance of medieval lists of “hard words” shows that early in ancient Greek and Rome people began realizing the strong relationship between the language used in a particular situation and certain features of the situation. Aristotle had talked of context, however, the fact that language is closely associated with its environment (the context) had been universally neglected until the early 20th century when its predecessor Malinowski first explained it in the supplement of The Meaning of Meaning. Malinowski utilized his own experience in the south Pacific as examples to explain that “it is impossible to translate words of a primitive language or of one widely different from our own, without giving a detailed account of the culture of its users.” from The Meaning of Meaning P309 In the conception of “context of situation”, Malinowski expresses his opinion: “A statement, spoken in real life, is never detached from the situation in which it has been uttered utterance and situation are bound up inextricably with each other and the context situation is indispensable for the understanding of the words.” from The Meaning of Meaning P307 It was Malinowskis idea that provided an inspiration and a basis for Firth who inherited it and further developed it to include all the influential factors and classified them into linguistic context, cultural context and situational context. Firths theory is still of great influence today.Both Firths and Malinowskis theories gained little acceptance during their own life. Another great contributor to the theory of context is Halliday, one of Firths pupils, who claims to inherit and accomplish his teachers (Firth) unfinished career and puts forth “the field of discourse”, “the tenor of discourse” and “the mode of discourse” as the three componential parts of contexts. Although they three have disparities, one point is definite: they all emphasize the importance of the contextual aspects of language in choosing linguistic forms and understanding the messages conveyed. The linguistic world owes much to them for they have started a completely new angle to study language. During the long time before them, linguists had limited their study to the internal characteristics of isolated linguistic units and concentrated on grammatical research, while overlooking the actual use of language in social reality. It is they who have oriented many learners to study meaning in a new direction.After them, in the 1960s with the rise of functional linguistics and pragmatics, there appeared a zest of widely spread contextual studies to which many linguists devoted their studies and hard work. Many scholars majoring in other relative subjects such as Fishman, Hymes, Geogrey and so on, all showed a deep interest in contextual study and expressed opinions from their own perspectives. Even Chomsky, who had refused to consider contextual elements in his early study of language, at last stressed the context in his discussion of metaphor. In recent years, context becomes an important focus of the present linguistic world. Inevitably, context studies are as variable as the scholars, so are their classifications. Of the three arbitrators, Firths classification is the most influential whose compact still exists today whether in the west or in China. Halliday, Angus McIntosh and Peter Strevens once pointed out together that Firths theory was most efficient in application. The various classifications now are more or less based on his, such as the classification of it into linguistic and non-linguistic context (Hymes SPEAKing Model, 1973); direct and indirect context (by Zhou Fangzhu); social versus interpersonal context (Beatriz R. Lavandera) and so on. Thus context appears to be a multi-aspect phenomenon. Articles and works concerning it come out like the spring mushrooms. Two of the books, The Collection of Essays on Context and Rethinking Context deserve our special attention. The first is a collection of essays by scholars from China, Japan, and America who are inspired by the contextual predecessors theory on context to explain their own opinions on it. It gives a detailed discussion on all sides of context. The second written by a group of western scholars came out first in 1990s, 30 years after the first rise of contextual zest in linguistic field. It is in a way a summary of the forgoing 30 years of study and also starts new angles of studying context. It emphasizes the dynamic feature of context.Nowadays, context is invoked not only to account for aspects of meaning that fall outside the scope of pure semantics ( Levesion, 1983) but also to explain other correlating language phenomena especially contextual role in avoiding and even producing misunderstanding. Some works on the relation of rhetorical devices and context also come out such as Irony in Context and Metaphor and Context. Besides, contextual studies are carried in different approaches. Some scholars are now stressing on the cognitive study of context and the dynamic study of context. 3. Meaning and contextFrom the first half of the 20th century, some scholars began to realize the problems of mere linguistic studies and to discover the subjection of meaning to the environment. So some of them shifted their energy to the fundamental aspects of the way in which human beings construct, interpret and use a language instead of the concentration on the isolated word meaning for “Each word when used in a new context is a new word”. from Modes of meaning, Essays and Studies, London, 1951,P118 The word “meaning” has been baffling the linguistic world very much in how to define it as “meaning is variable and is realized at different levels of languages.” from Linguistics: A Course Book by Hu Zhuanglin p143 As mentioned above, apart from its various referential meanings, a word may still hold some extensive meanings termed as associative meaning by Leech. In a big dictionary one word may be given several or even dozens of meanings all of which form a semantic domain for the word. A very interesting example is the English word “monitor”, independent of the context, the word “monitor” enjoys great oscillation, in addition to its common meanings “班长” in Chinese，it can also refer to “监听器，监视器” in police field, “调音员，监听员” in broadcasting,低舷、铁甲仓in shipment, “水枪、消防枪” in military science巨蜥、大壁虎in biology and气楼、天窗in building ,“,显示器”in computer. From these nouns it is extended to refer to the actions of “调节、控” “检音、检索”、“检查、检验” and so on. Hence the particular usage must be carefully distinguished in relation to the context. Thus the librarian says: You must first monitor the number of the book.你首先必须检索一下书刊号。This explains clearly that the same utterance is subject to various interpretations when embedded within different natural activities. It is this feature of flexibility that complicates the translating process. As the Chinese translator Huang Long says: “Multiple meaning, polysemy, is a major issue in translation.” from On Translation by Huang Long p130 What makes it more complex is that in frequent cases, a specific situation may bestow on a word or utterance certain occasionally temporary meaning distinct from any other meaning it has un