英译汉需注意的

The Comparison between English and the Countermeasures in the Translation from English to ChineseIntroductionEnglish and Chinese belong to two different language families: English, the Indo-European family and Chinese, the Sino-Tibetan family. The two languages also have different cultural backgrounds: Western and Chinese. Translation is an interlingual and intercultural transfer and multi-dimensional contrastive studies of the two languages and cultures are therefore essential. As it is difficult to list all differences between English and Chinese, we would like to focus on ten aspects which count in English-Chinese translation.1. Synthetic vs. Analytic (综合语与分析语)A synthetic language is characterized by frequent and systematic use of inflected forms to express grammatical relationships. Modern English has become analytic but still frequently uses some hereditary inflections from Old English (a synthetic language). It is therefore a synthetic-analytic language. An analytic language is marked by a relatively frequent use of function words, auxiliary verbs, and changes in word order to express syntactic relations, rather than of inflected forms. Chinese is a typical analytic language.Examples:(1) Having been given such a good chance, how could she let it slip away? （既然）人家给了她这样一个好机会。她怎么能轻易放过？(2) A pair of black eyes might have done some execution had they been placed in a smoother face. 一对乌溜溜的眼睛如果长在再细净些的面庞上，就足以迷人的了。(3) They are students of our school. / They are the students of our school. 他们是本校的部分同学。/ 他们是本校的全体同学。When we build English sentences, we employ inflection, word order and the use of function words as the three grammatical devices. First, English is the inflectional one. In English, nouns, pronouns, and verbs are inflected. And the grammatical meaning as parts of number, person, tence, voice and so on, can be expressed by the use of inflected forms with or without the help of function words and word order. But in Chinese, the above grammatical meanings are mostly implied in contexts or between the lines, though often with the help of word order and function (or other) words. Look at the first example, the subject “she” was given a chance passively, so we use the passive in the clause. Second, word order in English is not as rigid as in Chinese.English may make full use of inflections and function words to make its word order flexible, while Chinese, with the help of function words, arranges its word order according to certain rules of temporal or logical sequences. The second example sentence, we use hypothetical inversion, which is a kind of inversion. Inversion implies a necessary change of word order to conform to the good usage in the target language. Third, English function words include the articles, prepositions, auxiliary verbs, coordinators and subordinators, while Chinese is rich in particles, which can be classified into aspect particles, structural particles and emotional particles. In the third example, its meaning can be change just with an article. Fourth, English is an intonation language while Chinese is a tone language. Chinese is the predominance of disyllables and quad syllables over monosyllables and disyllables.2. Rigid vs. Supple (刚性与柔性)English sentence structure is composed of noun phrase and verb phrase. The subject must agree with the predicate verb in person and number, etc. This rigid S-V concord (主谓协调一致) forms the kernel of a sentence, with the predicate verb controlling other main members. So English is the rigid one. However, Chinese is the supple one, which is relatively free from the government of S-V concord and formal markers. Examples:(1) 累得我站不起来了。Im so exhausted that I cant stand up.(2) 我介绍他加入协会。I recommended him for membership of the association.English subject-predicate structure appears rigid as a result of certain grammatical bonds, including the patternization and the principles of grammatical and notional concord. However, the subject-predicate structure in Chinese is usually varied, flexible, and therefore complicated and supple. The first example is a non-subject sentence in Chinese. 3. Hypotactic vs. Paratactic (形合与意合)English sentence building is featured by hypotaxis. Hypotaxis is the dependent or subordinate construction or relationship of clauses with connectives. On the contrary, Chinese sentence building is featured by parataxis. Parataxis is the arranging of clauses one after the other without connectives showing the relation between them. We can use Omission(省略法) and Condensation(缩译法) to translate. (1) All was cleared up some time later when news came from a distant place that an earthquake was felt the very day the little copper ball fell.过了一些时候，从远方传来了消息；在小铜球坠落的当天，确实发生了地震。这一切终于得到了澄清。(2) 不到黄河心不死。Until all is over, ambition never dies.(3) 不进则退。He who does not advance falls backward. / Move forward, or youll fall behind.English more often resorts to overt cohesion, frequently using various cohesive ties such as relatives, connectives, prepositions, and some others. By contrast, Chinese more frequently relies on covert coherence and context, focusing on temporal or logical sequences. Chinese more often resorts to word order, contracted sentences, four-character expressions, and some grammatical or rhetorical devices such as repetiton, antithesis, and parallelism. When we translate English to Chinese, we can use the omission and condensation to make it better.4. complex vs. Simplex (繁复与简短)English sentences are often complex. English sentence-building is characterized by an “architecture style” with extensive use of longer or subordinate structures, while Chinese, a “chronicle style” with frequent use of shorter or composite structures. Chinese sentences are often simplex.Examples:(1) In the doorway lay at least twelve umbrellas of all sizes and colors.门口放着一推雨伞，少说也有十二把，五颜六色，大小不一。(2) 因为距离远，又缺乏交通工具，在农村社会是与外界隔绝的。这种隔绝状态， 由于通讯工具不足，就变得更加严重了。The isolation of the rufal world bacause of distance and the lack of tranaport facilities simplex sentences is often employed in translation. English has comparatively longer and more complicated sentences than Chinese with plenty of subordinate clauses and phrases. On the other hand, Chinese is marked by its coordination, loose or minor sentence, contrated sentence, elliptical sentence, run-on sentences, and composite sentence. As a result of the above difference, the division of English complex sentences into Chinese simplex sentences is often employed in translation.5. Impersonal vs. Personal (物称与人称)Formal written English often goes with an impersonal style. Some of the common features of impersonal language are passives, sentences beginning with introductor it, and abstract nouns as subjects. Chinese, by contrast, prefers to use a personal style, which is featured by much more actives or actives in form but passives in sense, personal subjects, or subjectless and subject-omitted sentences when the subject is self-evident, unknown or implied in the context.Examples:(1) A current search of the files indicates that the letter is no longer in this Bureaus possession.我们最近查找了卷宗，发现本局并无此信。(2) Alarm began to take entire possession of him.他开始变得惊恐万状。Through the examples, we know that the conversion of English impersonal subjects into Chinese personal subjects and English passives into Chinese actives is often employed in translation.6. Passive vs. Active(被动与主动)Passive of various forms are frequently used in English mainly due to the following reasons. First, when the agent of an action is self-evident or unknown or it is unnecessary or impossible to mention the agent. Second, syntactic factors: for cohesion, balance, end focus, end weight, etc. Third, rhetorical factors: for variation, etc. Fourth, stylistic factors.By contrast, active forms, including those in passive sense(notional passives), are often used in Chinese. First, the Chinese passive form marked by “被” is traditionally felt to be an “inflictive voice”, mainly expressing things unpleasan