保定学院毕业论文示例.doc

保定学院 本科生毕业论文 设计 题目 浅析对比语言学对英汉翻译的浅析对比语言学对英汉翻译的 指导作用指导作用 系 部 外 语 系 学科门类 文 学 专 业 英 语 学 号 090214110 姓 名 纪 小 雨 指导教师 苑 新 法 2013 年 05 月 08 日 A BRIEF STUDY ON ENGLISH CHINESE TRANSLATION IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF CONTRASTIVE LINGUISTICS A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts Written by Ji Xiaoyu Supervised by Yuan Xinfa Foreign Languages Department Baoding University May 8 2013 保定学院 2013 届毕业论文 设计 i 浅析对比语言学对英汉翻译的指导作用 摘 要 对比语言学是语言学的一个分支 其任务是对两种或两种以上的语言进行共时研 究 描述它们之间的异同 特别是不同之处 并将此类研究用于其他领域 由此可见 与对比语言学联系最紧密的学科当属翻译 因此 本文将以对比语言学的视角 进行 语内对比 从语法 篇章和语用方面研究英汉两种语言的不同之处 突出其对英汉翻 译实践的指导作用 关键词 对比语言学 翻译 英汉异同 A Brief Study on English Chinese Translation in the Perspective of Contrastive Linguistics ii A Brief Study on English Chinese Translation in the Perspective of Contrastive Linguistics Abstract Contrastive linguistics which mainly concerns the differences between two languages is a branch of linguistics Therefore it is obvious that translation is a sister subject of contrastive linguistics In this thesis the differences between English and Chinese will be discussed in the perspective of interlingual study namely grammatical textual and pragmatical ways And finally and most importantly English Chinese translation will be discussed in the perspective of contrastive linguistics Key Words contrastive linguistics translation difference between English and Chinese 保定学院 2013 届毕业论文 设计 iii Contents 1 Introduction 1 1 1 Definition of contrastive linguistics 1 1 2 History and development 2 1 3 Classification of contrastive linguistics 3 1 3 1 Theoretical contrastive linguistics 3 1 3 2 Applied contrastive linguistics 3 1 3 3 Micro contrastive and macro contrastive linguistics 4 2 Lexical contrastive analysis and English Chinese translation 4 2 1 Lexical morphology in contrastive analysis 4 2 2 Lexical sematics in contrastive analysis 5 3 Grammatical contrastive analysis and English Chinese translation 6 3 1 Contrastive analysis of inflectional morphology in English Chinese translation 7 3 1 1 Aspect 7 3 1 2 Case 8 3 2 Syntactic contrastive analysis in English Chinese translation 9 4 Textual contrastive analysis in English Chinese translation 10 4 1 Semantic cohension 10 4 1 1 Reference 11 4 1 2 Substitution 13 4 1 3 Ellipsis 16 4 1 4 Conjuction 17 4 2 Structural cohension 17 4 2 1 Classification of structural cohension 17 4 2 2 Cohension and coherence 18 5 Pragmatic contrastive analysis in English Chinese translation 19 5 1 Performative and perlocutionary acts 19 5 2 Pragmatic connotations 19 6 Conclusion 20 Bibliography 21 Acknowledgements 22 保定学院 2013 届毕业论文 设计 1 1 Introduction 1 1 Definition of contrastive linguistics People learn and research things by comparison Therefore comparison is also a basic researching method of linguistic study Making analysis on certain linguistic phenomenon is the role of linguistic study likewise when making explanations on linguistic phenomena comparing is essential Xu Yulong has made a diagram about the definition of contrastive linguistics Quadrant I stands for the synchronic comparison within one language This comparison mainly concerns lingual differences such as phonetic grammatical or lexical variations during a certain period of a certain language Quadrant II stands for the diachronic comparison within one language Through this kind of comparison people are able to learn the history of the language and will find out the evolution track of the language Take English for instance its evolution is divided into four stages Old English Middle English Early Modern English and Modern English During this evolution English gradually becomes an analytical language instead of a synthetic language A diachronic comparison is usually seen in the study of the history of the language for example the origin of words Quadrant III stands for the diachronic comparison between different languages This comparison is often used in the researches on rebuilding or classifying the proto language of relative languages Hence the first branch of modern linguistics comparative linguistics or historical linguistics Quadrant IVstands for synchronic comparison of different languages This comparison aims at a stable comparison so as to find out the differences in form and structure between different languages Diachronic comparison between languages can be divided into three categories the first is to find out similarities and the second is to find out differences in all languages around the world therefore a language pool is needed in this two kinds of comparison researches However the third is usually conducted between two languages instead of all languages in the world Linguists focus on both similar structures and different discourses of the two or more languages which is known as the body of contrastive linguistics Therefore contrastive linguistics is defined as follow contrastive linguistics is a branch of linguistics which studies two or more languages synchronically with the aim of discovering their differences and similarities especially the former and applying these findings to related areas of I IIIIV A Brief Study on English Chinese Translation in the Perspective of Contrastive Linguistics 2 study Contrastive linguistics is also known as contrastive analysis or contrastive studies and these three names are interchangeable 1 2 History and development Comparison between languages which is in accordance with language researches have long existed As a branch of modern linguistics contrastive linguistics originated in the U S and Europe Traditional U S contrastive linguistics took off during WWII when on one hand immigrants rushed into U S they were eager to learn English and on the other hand soldiers in the U S army needed to acquire some knowledge on the language in the country they fought In this circumstance thus the urgent need to learn foreign languages gave rise to the problem of how to teach a foreign language in a most effective and economical way The best solution is absolutely contrastive analysis According to Fries The most efficient teaching materials are those based on a scientific description of the language to be learned carefully compared with a parallel description of the native language of the learner This theory is based on stimulus response theory or S R theory which describes as the formation of associations between stimuli and responses Meanwhile Structuralism Description Linguistics which was newly blooming in the U S then provided contrastive linguistics with a solid foundation hence the development of contrastive linguistics However in Europe contrastive linguistics went quite a different way During 1950s and 1960s various schools were keen on contrastive analysis which mainly were comparisons between English and German French Polish Romanian Finnish or Danish Transformational Generative Grammar was most frequently used More than 1 000 theses on contrastive linguistics were launched during 1965 1975 according to Sajaavara not beyond or exceeding It has the same meaning as away from Likewise within in the following sentence is used similarly The hotel is within a mile of the downtown area 酒店离市中心只有一英里远 Therefore the sentence mentioned above should be translated properly as 就在离瀑布脚下湿润黝黑的岩石仅一百五十尺的地方 周围水花四溅 响声震耳欲 聋 游客可以在此面对面地欣赏这一大自然的奇景 3 Grammatical contrastive analysis and English Chinese translation Grammatical contrastive analysis is linked to lexical contrastive analysis because the same grammatical meanings may be conveyed by means of either lexical devices or grammatical devices For example both modern English and Chinese are analytic in structure compared to other Indo European languages like German or Russian however modern English is quite different from Chinese for many of its grammatical meanings or functions are realized through inflections Tense voice and aspect are most obvious And the difference is illustrated in the following passage Few follow the advice of Isabellla Beeton the guru of British cooks in the 19th century who decreed in an early edition of her book that a good meal if enjoyed and digested gives the support necessary for the morning s work 保定学院 2013 届毕业论文 设计 7 In Chinese however it is 十九世纪英国的烹饪大师伊莎贝拉 比顿蹭在其著作的一个早期版本中说过 受 用一顿美餐 能使整个上午工作精力充沛 这番高见 现在是很少有人领教了 In this example the meaning of tense is expressed grammatically in English but lexically in Chinese If the words 曾 过 现在 is not added in Chinese the source language would not be appropriately expressed or even lost in target language 3 1 Contrastive analysis of inflectional morphology in English Chinese translation The American linguist Hockett proposes three theoretical models for grammatical analysis namely Item and process IP Item and arrangement IA and word and paradigm WP And formal contrastive of morphological variations can be carried out by using any appropriate one of these three models In the English language there are eight inflectional morphemes Two are related to nouns to indicate the plural number and possessive case e g trees Mary s four to verbs to mark the third person singular the past tense the present particle and the past particle e g hear hears heard and two to adjectives to show the comparative and superlative degrees e g fast faster fastest As is seen from above the function of inflectional morphemes is not to transmit referential meaning but to convey grammatical information Therefore contrastive analysis on inflectional morphology is largely associated with contrasting the morphological devices different languages employ to express grammatical meanings And these devices are known as grammatical categories When it comes to non inflectional languages lexical devices will be used to convey grammatical meanings Familiar grammatical categories or contrasts include aspect case gender mood number person tense and voice 3 1 1 Aspect Aspect deals with how the event described by a verb is viewed for instance in progress habitual repeated momentary etc A typical formal contrast is made between the perfect perfective and the imperfect imperfective e g He drinks as a habit and He is drinking now Chinese has a developed aspect system It distinguishes the perfective aspect from the progressive aspect 1 他理发去了 He s gone to have his hair cut 2 他上星期理的发 A Brief Study on English Chinese Translation in the Perspective of Contrastive Linguistics 8 He had his hair cut last week 3 去理发吧 理了就凉快了 Go and have your hair cut you ll feel cool after that 4 他正理着发 He is having his hair cut 5 我进去的时候他在理着头发呢 He was having his hair cut when I went in Sentence 1 is present perfective aspect that shows that something has an effect on the present situation 2 is past perfective aspect that shows something that happened in the past 3 is future perfective aspect that shows the speaker s presumption 4 is present progressive that shows something is happening now at the moment 5 is past progressive aspect which expresses something was happening at a moment in the past All these aspects have their counterparts in Chinese Take another example Be V ing in English and 正 正在 in Chinese both propose the Activity and Accomplishment However present progressive in English can describe any time or point during the progress while Activity in Chinese can only describe a continuous motion e g He was again seeing Megan s face This can only be translated as 他又回忆起梅根的脸来 instead of 他又回忆着梅根的脸 Be Ving can be used in Achievement to describe repeating motions while in Chinese adverbs must be added to express the same meaning e g Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all turning into little cakes as they lay on the floor Translation1 爱丽丝有点惊异地发现 那些小石子落在地板上以后 都变成了小饼 Translation2 爱丽丝有点惊异地发现 那些小石子落在地板上以后 都一个一个变成 了小饼 3 1 2 Case Case shows the function of a noun or noun phrase in a sentence Typical formal contrast in European languages are the nominative the accusative the dative the genitive the vocative and the ablative In English the form of a noun or noun phrase may change by inflection to mark the different functions or cases the same as pronouns Since the notion of case is a universal one other devices also exist in Chinese to mark the grammatical category namely word order and prepositions Moreover according to Xu nouns with prepositional and inflectional suffix are also included Grammatical subjects and objects are relatively easier to identify in English than in Chinese 保定学院 2013 届毕业论文 设计 9 For example 1 我吃肉 鱼不吃 I eat meat but not the fish 2 我们下午就动身 We shall set off this very afternoon 3 他在学校工作 He works at a school In 1 鱼 and 肉 cannot be the subject of the verb 吃 since they are regarded as the topic of the sentence and pragmatically marked Likewise 下午 and 学校 are not the subject of 动 身 and 工作 3 2 Syntactic contrastive analysis in English Chinese translation Syntax is the way in which words are arranged to show relationships of meaning within or sometimes between sentences Therefore in the respect of syntax attention must be paid to the difference in sentence structure For example in the following sentence 从杭州坐旅游车向西南方向走大约两个小时左右可以到达一个叫做瑶琳的旅游胜地 While in English the sentence is expressed as follow There is a tourist attraction called Yulin which you can reach in about two hours by going southwest by tourist bus from Hangzhou Moreover as Chinese is a topic oriented language dual subject is often seen in Chinese A frequently quoted sentence is 他肚子大 腿又短 真难看 In this sentence 他 is the subject of the sentence while in English he is the only subject To express other information prepositions should be added Therefore the sentence should be translated as He looks rather ugly with a big belly and short legs When a translator comes across such sentences as Halliday put grammatical metaphor this structure can be used For example He has a harsh voice 1 他有一个刺耳的嗓子 2 他声音刺耳 Obviously the second is a better translation Likewise when translating Chinese into English grammatical metaphor can be employed For example 这本书的封面很漂亮 1 The cover of the book is pretty A Brief Study on English Chinese Translation in the Perspective of Contrastive Linguistics 10 2 The book has a beautiful cover Besides the difference in sentence structure at times they may look the same however what they try to convey is anything but same The three following sentences are taken as examples 1 The researchers reckon that the bosses themselves are as much to blame as anybody for this state of affairs 2 There are many Americans who were as disgusted as anybody by the activities of their own Government 3 These were battle tested veterans with long ties to Reagan and even longer ones to the Republican Party men who understood presidential politics as well as any in the country Many would translate as as into 和 一样 However the expression is a dynamic comparison rather than a stable comparison Here the expression is translated as the same meaning as the most Therefore the first sentence should be translated as 研究人员认为 老板们本身就首先应该对这种情况负责 4 Textual contrastive analysis in English Chinese translation A text is a piece of spoken or written language In text difference must be made clear in text structure The chapters we have discussed is micro linguistic or code linguistic contrastive analysis In this chapter and next chapter macro linguistic contrastive analysis will be studied Traditional concern of linguistics has been the abstract formal system called langue A sentence can be analyzed or decontextualization in two ways either by being removed from the company of the sentences that precede or follow it in a text or by being separated off from the real world situation in which it is used However in the past two decades focus has been shifted to the study of parole An increasing interest arose in analyzing the way sentences work in sequence to produce coherent stretches of language From then on approaches of language study have a common concern they stress the need to see the language as a dynamic social interactive phenomenon between speaker and listener or writer and reader Meaning is conveyed not only by single sentences but by more complex exchanges in which the participants beliefs and expectations the knowledge they share about each other and about the world the situation in which they interact play a crucial part Crystal 1987 116 4 1 Semantic cohesion Semantic cohesion is the kind of cohesion realized through the semantic connections 保定学院 2013 届毕业论文 设计 11 between various forms in a text Halliday and Hasan 1976 identify five major devices namely reference substitution ellipsis conjunction and lexical relationships or lexical cohesion Semantic cohesion is sometimes largely achieved through discourse makers which is acted by conjunctions and adverbs Therefore a proper understanding of these discourse makers is exceedingly important In this passage for example During all these tests Vera was blindfold and indeed except when blindfold she lacked the ability to perceive things with her skin Indeed means positive however according to the context the text after indeed is completely different from what was said before So indeed here should be translated as 说来 也怪 4 1 1 Reference Reference is a semantic relationship through which one item in a sentence can explain another In the following sentence 1 Tom likes ice cream and he always has an appetite for it In this sentence the exact meaning of the pronouns he and it can only be defined by their referent the item the word refers If we want to make a clear semantic explanation on the two pronouns we have to find the corresponding words in the context Contextually he refers to Tom and it refers to ice cream This semantic relationship is also frequently witnessed in Chinese 2 我和白求恩同志只见过一面 后来他给我来过许多信 可是因为忙 仅回过他一 封信 还不知他收到没有 The three 他 all refer to Bethune making the sentence a complete one In the use of language phoricity is often seen in communications And in the process of understanding a context some need to find out the referent within the context while others seeks