英语专业毕业论文关于中英亲属关系的翻译

1、chapter oneintroductionit is usually agreed that translation is not only a language transfer, but also a culture transfer. it is necessary for translators to know how to translate kinship terms. they have to understand what kinship means in interpersonal relationship when they translate a piece of w

2、ork and which type of kinship culture the background community falls into. their understanding of such kinship culture is quite conductive to the comprehension of the whole work. so this paper focuses on the differences between english and chinese akinship terms and the strategies for translating ki

3、nship terms since kinship terms, as part of language, are usually culturally-loaded. and owing to the deep influence of chinese and english cultures, translation of kinship terms, especially from chinese to english, is of great importance to cultural translation. with a brief assessment made on the

4、translation of the kinship terms, the paper aims to reveal the significance of a proper translation of the kinship terms in bridging the gap between chinese culture and english culture.chapter twoprevious studies on english and chinese kinship termsthe way we address people is a matter of great impo

5、rtance in most cultures. the addressing terms are the terms used to show the relationships between people or to distinguish their identity, social status and career. the appellation applied in the feudal society can distinguish the elder from the younger, the worshipped from the humble, the intimate

6、 from the distant and the trueborn from the baseborn. it can make all the ties among all the people with blood links clear-cut and systematic. its a necessary means to maintain the feudal patriarchal clan system and the hierarchical system. (li)in longman dictionary of contemporary english, the addr

7、essing terms are defined as “the correct titles or expressions of politeness to be used to someone in speech orwriting” (11). that means that the address terms can be meant for titles, but can also be applied to show ones politeness in communication. however, this definition does not include persona

8、l names and pronouns.at present, in nearly every book expounding translation and culture, we can find many papes devoted to the translaition of appellations, but most of them compare appellations between sl and tl superficially and translate them at the lexical level. few have gone deeper and more c

9、omprehensive in exploring the cultural root and the dynamic process in the translation of appellations. for example, que yin in her article “approaches of cultural tanslation from the cmparison of chinese and english kinship terms” argues that foreignization should be the principle for translating k

10、inship terms while 姓名 in his arcle “文章名“ holds that domestication should be adopted as the principle. however, whether foreignization or domestication should be applied depends on the context in which the kinship term appears and also on the purpose of the translation itself. in fact, foreignization

11、 and domestication are inseparable and conplementary in translation and they should be employed flexibley.chapter threeenglish and chinese kinship terms 3.1 an overview of english and chinese kinship termsboth english and chinese language have their own kinship terminology system, a set of terms use

12、d to refer to kin. kinship is the most basic principle of organizing individuals into social groups, roles, and categories. some form of organization based on parentage and marriage is present in both societies. although in modern industrial communities, family structures have been weakened by the d

13、ominance of the market economy and the provision of state organized social serviced. in english and chinese societies, the nuclear family household is still the fundamental institution responsible for rearing children and organizing consumption, persisting from generation to generation as a “social

14、fact”. people in such relationship system link to each other through variations on biological themes. they both emphasizes the role-governed nature of kin relationships as well as the greater authority of the older relative.whatever the languages are, kinship systems all make use of such factors as

15、sex, age, generation, blood and marriage in their society. this has led to similarities in kinship systems chinese culture and western culture share. we can find a number of equivalent kinship terms in english and in chinese. that is to say, a few basic kinship terms share the same semantic constant

16、s in these two languages. in both english and chinese kinship system, kinship terms distinguish between sexes, e.g., the difference between a brother and a sister, and between generations, e.g., the difference between a child and a parent. moreover, both the two kinship systems distinguish between r

17、elatives by blood and marriage. for example, father and father-in-law differ in that father-in-low is an affine, i.e., a relative by marriage. in the two languages, consanguineous relation is defined as biological and symbolized by blood. they both agree that “blood is thicker than water”, which emp

18、hasizes the kinship relations created by blood rather than marriage. 3.2 differences between english and chinese kinship termsbetween english and chinese languange, only a few basic relations such as father and mother, husband and wife, son and daughter, bear the same semantic contents that can be e

19、xpressed in similar kinship terms. most of the chinese terms have no equivalents in the english language. the differences between english and chinese kinship systems seem great. from the tables in last part, we can conclude that english and chinese kinship systems differ in two major aspects: relati

20、ve age within the same generation in a horizontal relationship and consanguineal vs affinal relations in both horizontal and vertical relationships. i will go into details to illustrate the differences and find out the deep cause the differences come out.3.2.1 difference in paternal and maternal rel

21、ationschinese kinship is agnatic, emphasizing patrilineality, while english one is not.for english people, the same kinship term is emploted to address relations of the same sex and within the same sex and within the same generation whether it is a paternal relation or a meternal relaton. thus grand

22、father is for both fathers father and mothers father. fathers brother and mothers brother are both uncles.on the contrary, the chinese language considers the differences between paternal and maternal relations seriously. the differences mean a lot to chinese people and determine the real relationshi

23、ps, near or distant, inside or outside, between relatives. therefore in chinese, there are different terms for ones paternal and maternal relations. paternal grandfather and grandmother are calles “zu fu (祖父)” and “zu mu (祖母)” respectively, while maternal grandfather and grandmother are called “wai

24、zu fu (外祖父)”and “wai zu mu (外祖母)” respectively. “wai (外)” in chinese literally means “outside” or “distant”, which suggests that this vertical relationship between generations is not only related purely by blood, but certain external factors such as marriage. the same is true with the terms for gran

25、dchildren. sons son and daughter are called “sun zi (孙子)”and “sun nv (孙女)”, while daughter son and daugter should be called with the word wai, i.e., “wai sun (外孙)” and “wai sun nv (外孙女)”, which implies the married daughter, is an outsider of the family and her chileren are outsiders, too. usually, m

26、aternal relations are less powerful and not so close as paternal relations in chinese family structure.in english kinship system, age is not a criterion in distinguishing personal relationships or grouping kinship terms. within the same generation, a certain term may cover different relationships re

27、gardless of age. it is quite common in english to say, “she is my sister,” whether she is older or younger than “i”. only when necessary does one say, “she is my elder or younger sister” to emphasize the relative age.unlike the english language, age in chinese language is a very important factor in

28、the orangization of zhe kinship system. specific terms are used to address different relations in accordance with their different ages. a typical example is the kinship terms “bo fu (伯父)” and “shu fu (叔父)”. the former is used to address ones fathers elder brother, while the latter is for ones father

29、s younger brother. chinese people can never get confused about their kinship relations with the other member. for example, if ones father has more than one elder and younger brothers, then he can call them with ordinal numbers prefixing to these terms, respectively, “first bo fu (大伯父), second bo fu

30、(二伯父), or first shu shu (大叔叔), second shu shu (二叔叔)”, etc.3.2.2 difference in terms of sexgenerally, speaking of dimension of sex, engish kinship system does have the strict distinction. however, there is an exception. “cousin” was taken to mean a collateral relation more distant than a brother or s

31、ister, which leaves scope for the word referring to just about anyone who is not a sibling or in the direct blood line. in english, cousin, carrying no semantic meaning of sex, blood or marrisge, covers as many as sixteen relations. thus, it is not clear from the word itself to discem whether ones c

32、ousin is a male or a female, or whether he/she is a paternal or maternal relation, or a consanguineal or affinal one. it can be applied to both males anf females. aimilarly, in old english, the word “niece” was not always so precise in meaning; back in the 1500s it referred to any female relative ou

33、tside the immediate family. it could have been used to refer to a grandaughter.but in chinese cousins fall into two categories and have different labels: with consanguineal relation we have the label of “tang (堂)”, while with affinal relation we have the label of “biao (表)”, which literally means “o

34、utside”, too. in chinese, cousin may apply to eight relations“(加拼音) 堂兄, 堂弟, 堂姐, 堂妹, 表兄, 表弟, 表姐, 表妹”, i. e., fathers brothers/ sisters son, fathers brothers/sisters daughter, mathers brothers/sisters son, mothers brothers/sisters daughter. in these relationships, items like paternal and maternal, blo

35、od and marriage, age, sex, etc. are all involved in. likewise, “biao (表)” relations are less powerful and so close as “tang (堂)” relations.3.2.3 difference in terms of categorizationa distinctive example is the kinship term “uncle”. according to ullmann, the english word “uncle” “comes via french fr

36、om the latin avunculus, which meant only one kind of uncle, namely, the mothers brother, whereas the fathers brother was called patruus”. since the latter word fell into discse, the descendants of avunculus have come to stand for both kinds of uncle, so that the range of the latin term has been doub

37、led”(228). now, the english kinship word “uncle” refers to all parents siblings, ignoring paternal or maternal, consanguineal and affinal relations.in chinese language, the term “uncle” can be used to designate at least five relations “bo fu (伯父), shu fu (叔父), jiu fu (舅父), gu fu (姑父), yi fu (姨夫)”, b

38、oth consanguineal and affinal,-fathers elder or younger brother, mothers elder or younger brother, fathers sisters husband and mothers sisters huaband.chapter four translation of kinship termsthe kinship terms between chinese and english are difficult to find the corresponding words. however, to und

39、erstand the meaning of numerous structured kinship terms, and improve the better translation quality of translation, it is necessary to investigate the translation of kinship terms.4.1 principle of translation: domestication and foreignizationthe term translation strategy is often used synonymously

40、with translation principle, translation method or translation technique. the treatment of specific translation problems, for example how to deal with figures of speech or ambiguity, how to translate proper names, or how to overcome lexical gaps, are discussed under the heading of translation strateg

41、ies.translation, as transferring of different languages, has much to do with culture, as in language there are indispensably involved cultural factors or implications; hence the way of dealing with those cultural factors and implications turns out to be very important in translation. communication b

42、etween languages is inherently an exchange between different cultures, and thus translation of languages is inevitably related to the transfer of different cultures. different cultures also have something in common due to the universality of all human thinking and behaviors in some respects, which p

43、rovides the basis for and guarantees the possibility of communication between different peoples. however, the sameness is not absolute. and there is nothing in the world that is completely different from anything else. that is, difference lies in the sameness and sameness lies in the difference. the

44、y are complementary to each other. so in language translation or cultural exchange, we should try to reproduce those similar cultural factors and only faithfully introduce those different or strange elements as they are in every adequate and intelligible way. the farmer is termed as “domestication”

45、while the latter is so-called “foreignization”.domestication and foreignization are two different yet functionally related translation strategies. they can be expressed in other terms, like adaptation and alienation, or naturalization and exoticization. in this thesis, the author prefers to use the

46、terms of domestication and foreignization.the two terms were formally put forward by laurence venuti, aiming at explaining two kinds of translation strategies, in the translators invisibility in 1995. venuti claimed that he traced the root of the terms back to friedrich schleiermachers famous notion

47、 about translation. (19-20) schleiermacher, a german theologian and philosopher, said in a lecture in 1813 on the different methods of translation that “there are only two. either the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as possible, and moves the reader towards him; or he leaves the reade

48、r in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author towards him”. here, he didnt clearly mention the two strategies. according to venuti, “domestication means bringing the foreign culture closely to the reader in the target culture, making the text recognizable and familiar. on the other hand, for

49、eignization means taking the reader over to the foreign culture, and making him or her as the difference.” (15)mark shuttleworth and moria cowie defined domestication and foreignization in the following way: “domesticating translation is aterm used by venuti to describe the translation strategy in w

50、hich a transparent, fluent style is adapted in order to minimize the strangeness of the foreign text for tl readers”, while “foreignizing translation is a term by venuti to designate the type of translation in which a target text is produced which deliberately breaks target conventions by retaining

51、something of the foreignness ofthe original” .(页码)domestication is terget-culture oriented or target-language oriented, while foreignizafion is source-culture oriented or source-language oriented.4.2 translation of kinship terms4.2.1 translation of the common kinship termsbecause of the emphasis of

52、the han nation laid on patriarchal clan system, there is a complicated kinship system with more specific terms related to personal relationships in an extended family. therefore, iff we want an accurate english translation of chinese kinship terms, the translation may not contain only a single word

53、but a phrase sometimes as shown in the following table which gives the corresponding expressions of kinship terms in english and chinese. english appellationchinese appellationactual appellationgrandfatherzu fu (祖父)wai zu fu (外祖父)fathers father（paternal grandfather）mothers father（maternal grandfathe

54、r）grandmotherzu mu（祖母）wai zu mu (外祖母)fathers mother（paternal grandmothermothers mother（maternal grandmother）unclebo fu (伯父), shu fu (叔父), gu fu (姑父)jiu fu (舅父), yi fu (姨父)fathers elder brother, fathers younger brother, husband of fathers sister, mothers brother; husband of mothers sisterauntbo mu (伯

55、母); shen shen (婶婶); gu ma (姑妈), gu gu (姑姑)jiu ma (舅妈), yi ma(姨妈) wife of fathers elder brother; wife of fathers younger brother; fathers elder sister; fathers younger sister wife of mothers brother; mothers sisterbrotherxiong (兄), di (弟)elder brother; younger brothersisterjie (姐), mei(妹)elder sister

56、; younger sistercousintang xiong di (堂兄弟),tang jie mei (堂姐妹) biao xiong di (表兄弟)biao jie mei (表姐妹)son of fathers brother; daughter of fathers brother son of fathers sister/ mothers brother/sister;daughter of fathers sister/ mothers brother/sisterthe table does not summarize all of kinship terms, but

57、 from these we can see that unspecified kinship terms in english can be translated into specific terms on the condition that the relationship is clearly identified in the context, while the specific kinship terms can be rendered into non-specific ones in english and sometimes clear explanation of th

58、e specific relationship may be offered with additional explanation if necessary. but in direct speech, the additional explanation should always be left out. 4.2.2 translation of the kinship terms concerning husband and wifein chinese, there are quite a few appellations for husband and wife. the wife may address her husband differently in different times and on different occasions. for example, in ancient times the husband was usually referred to by his wife as “guan ren (官人)”, “fu xu（夫婿）”, “fu jun（夫君）”, and “xiang gong（相公）” . however, in