2013级《英汉互译》讲义定稿

Hunan Normal University

英汉互译

顿官刚编

2015年9月

Contents

1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 2 E-C translation ..................................................................................................... 5 3 Analysing the sentence structure ........................................................................ 7 4 Rewriting in E-C translation .............................................................................. 8 5 Transliteration .................................................................................................... 10 6 C-E translation ................................................................................................... 12 7 The serial verbal construction .......................................................................... 15 8 The translation of noun phrases ....................................................................... 17 9 Pronoun ............................................................................................................... 19 10 Inversion ............................................................................................................. 22 11 Literal and liberal translation ........................................................................... 24 12 The rural bounty ................................................................................................ 26 13 Kinship and alienation ....................................................................................... 27 14 Children and family ........................................................................................... 28 15 Help from within ................................................................................................ 29 16 How should one read a book? ........................................................................... 30 17 Born to win ......................................................................................................... 31 18 What is happiness? ............................................................................................ 32 19 A planetary emergency ...................................................................................... 33 20 Submarine collision ............................................................................................ 34 21 儒林外史 ............................................................................................................. 35

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1 Introduction

1.1 What is translation?

1) the process of translating (to translate; the activity rather than the tangible object)

2) the product of the process of translating (i.e. the translated text)

3) the abstract concept which encompasses both the process of translating and the product of that process

1.2 What does translating aim at?

Translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source-language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style. (Eugene A. Nida &Charles R. Taber)

1.3 What is a good translation?

1) The merit of the original work is so completely transfused into another language that it can be as distinctly apprehended and strongly felt by a native of the country to which that language belongs as it is by those who speak the language of the original work. (Alexander Fraser Tytler)

2) The best translation does not sound like a translation. (Eugene A. Nida & Charles R. Taber)

3) The translation bears no trace of rigidity and awkwardness arising from discrepancies in linguistic habits. (钱钟书)

1.4 What are the principles of translation? 1) Tytler

(a)The translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work.

(b) The style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of the original.

(C) The translation should have all the ease of original composition. 2) Yan Fu (严复): faithfulness; expressiveness; elegance 3) Liu Zhongde (刘重德): faithfulness; expressiveness; closeness 4) Generally acknowledged principles:

(a) faithfulness: be faithful to the content and style of the source language without any addition, deletion or distortion;

(b) smoothness: the language of the version must be clear, distinct, flowing and idiomatic.

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1.5 Is translation possible?

Anything that can be said in one language can be said in another, unless the form is an essential element of the message. (Eugene A. Nida &Charles R. Taber)

1) Theoretically, what is said in one language is conveyable in any existing language.

2) If the form in which a message is expressed carries a high semantic import, there is a very distinct limitation in reproducing this type of ―meaning‖. 3) Sacrifice certain formal niceties for the sake of the content.

1.6 Qualifications for a good translator

1) A perfect knowledge of the languages involved

2) A competent acquaintance with the subject of which the original treats

1.7 Stages of translation

1) Analysis

a) identify the grammatical structure of every sentence; b) establish part of speech of every word;

c) determine the meanings of the words and combinations of words according

to the context.

2) Reverbalization

a) Accomplish the difficult union of ease with fidelity;

b) ―He [The translator] must adopt the very soul of his author, which must

speak through his own organs.‖ (Alexander Fraser Tytler)

c) A translator writes, as he supposes his author would have done, had he lived

in our age, and in our country. (John Dryden)

1.8 English and Chinese in comparison 1) Pronouns 2) Static vs. dynamic 3) Passive vs. active 4) General vs. specific

5) Head focus vs. end focus 6) Effect-cause vs. cause-effect

7) Long sentence vs. short sentence

8) Subject-prominence vs. topic-prominence 9) Hypotaxis vs. parataxis

10) Inflectional vs. non-inflectional 11) Punctuation

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Notes:

汉语是由方块字构成的语言，表达上有其固有特征，这主要包括： 1) 少用代词，常常省略代词或用名词替代代词； 2) 惯于用动态表达英语中的静态；

3) 主动语态使用频率多于被动语态的使用频率； 4) 多用具体概念表达英语的抽象概念；

5）习惯用后中心的方式来表达英语信息的前中心特征； 6）多短句、流水句，结构零散；

7）表达连贯思想时，主要以话题为中心，常常省略或频繁变换句子主语； 8）句子内部及句际间的衔接主要依靠逻辑关系来实现，不像英语那样主要依靠连接词；

10）没有型态变化，主要依靠词汇手段表达英语的各种型态变化； 11）标点不及英语系统、规律。

1.9 Translation Practice

1) It is 5 years since he smoked.

2) He is well paid that is well satisfied.

3) A good horse is a good horse until it has run away once.

4) There is only one solution to these threats from without.

5) Universities are where the wisdom we cannot afford to lose is preserved from generation to generation.

6) The implications for Britain and the west of the rise of China are debated intensely today. Yet we can find a similarly intense version of this debate over a century ago.

7) Responding to mounting pressure to speak out on climate change, UN chief Ban Ki-moon has said it represents as big a threat to mankind as war and vowed to raise the issue at a summit of rich nations in June.

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8) Anthropology is a field-study oriented discipline which makes extensive use of the comparative method in analysis. The emphasis on data gathered first-hand, combined with a cross-cultural perspective brought to the analysis of cultures past and present, makes this study a unique and distinctly important social science.

9) 地球绕轴自转，导致昼夜交替。

10) 我国实行促进就业的长期战略和政策。

11) 他走向赛道，场上观众报以热烈的掌声。

12) 她怕碰一鼻子灰，话到嘴边，又吞了下去。

13) 书籍到了我的手里，我的习惯是先看序文，次看目录。

14) 发展经济的根本目的是提高全国人民的生活水平和质量。

15) 他疲惫不堪，天气也越来越热，于是打定主意休息一下。

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2 E-C translation

2.1 Processes of E-C translation

1) Comprehension

(a) determine the word meaning; (b) analyse the sentence structure. 2) Reproduction (a) rewrite the original;

(b) rephrase the rewritings in Chinese; (c) make the rephrasings expressive.

2. 2 Determining the word meaning 1) What is a new word?

(a) a word you have never seen / a new word with a new meaning (生词生义); (b) a word you have ever seen but whose meaning is specific in a passage / a familiar word with a new meaning (熟词新义).

2) Strategies of selecting the word meaning

(a) determine word meaning according to co-text and context (利用上下文和语境

确定词义);

(b) No sentence, no word; and no text, no sentence (词不离句，句不离篇).

Remember: I don’t know any word; and there is no word that I don’t know. (没有单词我认识，没有单词我不认识)

2.3 Practice

Determine the meaning of each underlined part in the following passages.

(a) Whatever else one says about translation after the letter and translation after the sense, translation faithful and free, and the other oppositions currently bandied about — all these, including those that claim to be different methods, must finally be referred back to the two named above, even if, in terms of accuracy and error, virtue and vice, the use of different methods will make a difference in our understanding of what is faithful and true to the sense, or of what is too literal or too free.

translation after the letter and translation after the sense:

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bandied:

those: two: (b) ―The best part of every man’s education,‖ said Walter Scott, ―is that which he gives to himself.‖ Benjamin Brodie delighted to remember this saying, and he used to congratulate himself on the fact that professionally he was self-taught. But this is necessarily the case with all men who have acquired distinction in letters, science, or art. The education received at school or college is but a beginning, and is valuable mainly inasmuch as it trains the mind and habituates it to continuous application and study. That which is put into us by others is always far less ours than that which we acquire by our own diligent and persevering effort. Knowledge conquered by labour becomes a possession — a property entirely our own. A greater vividness and permanency of impression is secured; and facts thus acquired become registered in the mind in a way that mere imparted information can never effect. This kind of self-culture also calls forth power and cultivates strength. The solution of one problem helps the mastery of another; and thus knowledge is carried into faculty. Our own active effort is the essential thing.

that:

inasmuch as: That which is put into us: conquered: registered:

imparted information: self-culture: faculty:

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3 Analysing the sentence structure

3.1 Elements of an English Sentence

1) S (subject): a noun phrase functioning as one of the main components of a clause, being the element about which the rest of the clause is predicated

2) P (predicate): the part of a sentence containing a verb and stating something about the subject

3) O (object): a noun phrase governed by an active transitive verb or by a preposition 4) C (complement): one or more words, phrases, or clauses governed by a verb (or by a nominalization or a predicative adjective) that complete the meaning of the predicate.

5) A (adverbial): a word or phrase (typically a prepositional phrase) functioning as a major clause constituent and typically expressing place (eg. in the garden), time (eg. in May), or manner (eg. in a strange way) ?

Look at the following example:

Over the last 1-2 weeks, the heavy frost has slowly turned the leaves of the maples entirely red. A S P O C

3. 2 Analyse the structure of each of the following sentences in terms of SVOAC. 1) Today, when we speak, we don’t say what the language in which we speak says, but instead, by conventionally using, as if joking, what our words say for themselves, we say, in the manner of our language, what we want to say.

2) The shores of fortune, as Foster says, are covered with the stranded wrecks of men of brilliant ability, but who have wanted courage, faith, and decision, and have therefore perished in sight of more resolute but less capable adventurers, who succeeded in making port.

3) He that imagines an assembly filled with his merit, panting with expectation and hushed with attention easily terrifies himself with the dread of disappointing them and strains his imagination in pursuit of something that may vindicate the veracity of fame and show that his reputation was not gained by chance.

4) For if everything in two languages corresponded exactly, one to one — word to word, concept to concept, inflection to inflection, connective to connective, and all corresponding elements with the same extension and relationships, so that the two languages were different only to the ear — then all artistic and scholarly translation aimed at conveying the contents of a written or spoken text would be mechanical, and it would be said that, except for the impact of phonetics and intonation, every translation placed the foreign and the native reader in precisely the same relation to the original author and work.

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Judy Pearsall et al, The New Oxford English-Chinese Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2007.

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4 Rewriting in E-C translation

4.1 Methods of rewriting

1) Rewrite in Chinese thinking;

2) Rewriting on the basis of the deep structure(s) of the original; 3) Analyse the sentence structure by using the ―SVOAC‖ pattern; 4) Find out the verb(s) and possible verb(s). Study the example in the following chart.

“Heaven helps those who help themselves” is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. Existing Translations: 1）“天帮助那些帮助自己的人”是一句尝试很好的话，浓缩在一个小的指南针里广泛的人类经验的结果。 2）“天帮助那些帮助自己的人”是一句尝试很好的话，把广泛的人类经验的结果浓缩在一个小的范围里。 3）“自助者，天助之。”这是句至理名言，已被众多的人类实践所证实。——于卉芹，李忠军 Rewrite and translate: Step One: Rewrite the original (a) ―Heaven helps those who help themselves.‖ (b) It is a maxim which is tried well. (c) In a small compass, it embodies the results of vast human experience. → the compass is small; → it embodies the results of experience vast human experience; Step Two: Rephrase the rewritings in Chinese “天帮助那些帮助自己的人。”这是一句试起来很灵验的话，它在一个小小的范围里浓缩了人类的广泛经验。 Step Three: Make the rephrasings expressive “我助己，天助我。”这箴言，屡试不爽， 寥寥数语，道尽人生之真谛。

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How to make your translation expressive 1) Accomplish the difficult union of ease with fidelity. (Alexander Fraser Tytler) 2) He [The translator] must adopt the very soul of his author, which must speak through his own organs. (Alexander Fraser Tytler) 3) A translator writes, as he supposes his author would have done, had he lived in our age, and in our country. (John Dryden)

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