-商人
中
式
英
语
< br>之
鉴
精品文档
Part One:
Unnecessary Words
All authorities on
the style of English prose agree that good writing
is concise. Careful
writers say what
they mean in as few words as possible.
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence
should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph
no unnecessary sentences, for the same
reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary
lines
and a machine no unnecessary
parts.
It follows that any
words which perform no useful function in the
sentence
—
that is , which
add nothing to the
meaning
—
should be edited
out.
Almost
every
text
that
has
been
translated
into
English
from
Chinese(
or
that
has
been
written
directly
in
English
by
a
native
speaker
of
Chinese)
contains
unnecessary
words.
Draft
translations are
commonly full of them, and even polished final
versions are seldom free of them.
Read
anything that has been published in English for
foreign readers
—
a magazine
article, a
news story, an
advertisement, a government
report
—
and you are likely to
find superfluous words.
Read even the
shortest of English
texts
—
the label on a food
product , a billboard on
Chang
’
an ,
the
company name on the front of a
building
—
and , if you are on
the alert to recognize them,
chances
are that you will find words that could and should
have been omitted. Unnecessary words
are the hallmark of
Chinglish.
Unnecessary words
can be any part of
speech
—
nouns, verbs,
adjectives, adverbs,
prepositions,
articles, and so on. In the following chapters we
shall consider the most important
types, starting with unnecessary nouns
and verbs, which often go hand in hand.
I .Unnecessary Nouns and
Verbs
Nouns
Most
unnecessary nouns in Chinglish appear not alone
but in short phrases, combined with
articles
and
prepositions.
When
you
eliminate
the
nouns
,
you
eliminate
the
articles
and
prepositions as well.
Many
of these nouns are easy to recognize. They are
plainly redundant because their sense
is already included or implied in some
other element of the sentence. Here are a few
examples (A)
with suggested revisions
(B)and comments in brackets.
加快经济改革步伐
A: to
accelerate the pace of economic reform
B: to accelerate economic reform
(To accelerate = to
increase the pace of )
农业获得大丰收
A: There
have been good harvests in agriculture.
B: There have been good
harvests.
[
“
Harvest
”
implies
agriculture: there are no harvests in
industry.]
城乡人民生活水平持续上升。
A:
Living standards for the people in both urban and
rural areas continued to rise.
B: Living standards in both urban and
rural areas continued to rise.
【
The notion of living
standards applies only to
people.
】
这些困难从本质上说是暂时的。
A
：
These
hardships are temporary in nature.
B: These hardships are
temporary.
收集于网络，如有侵权请联系管理员删除
精品文档
[Any
adjectives describes the
“
nature
”
or
“
character
”
of the noun
it modifies . To say that
hardships are
“
temporary in
nature
”
is like saying that
the Chinese flag is red in
color
”
or that
pandas are few
in
number.”
]
我国未来的经济
发展在很大程度上有赖于
……
A
：
The development
of our economy in the future will, to a large
extent, depend on
…
B: The development of our economy will,
to a large extent, depend
on
…
[ The future
tense of the verb(will depend) is sufficient to
express futurity.]
我们应采取一系列措施来保证
……
A: we should adopt a series of measures
to ensure that
…
.
B: we should adopt measures to ensure
that
…
.
[Here the plural form of
“
measures
”
covers
the sense of a
“
series
”
]
Other
unnecessary nouns(or gerunds) may be less easy to
identify. Nevertheless, a little
thought will reveal that they add
nothing to the meaning of the sentence. When they
are deleted,
the sense is not
diminished, only clarified. Some
examples:
在实现农业机械化和电气化后
……
A
：
following the
realization of mechanization and electrification
of agriculture
B
：
following the
of mechanization and electrification of
agriculture
必须加强国防建设。
A:
It is essential to strengthen the building of
national defense.
B: It is
essential to strengthen national
defense.
这些构成了努力实现过渡时期的伟大任务的重要条件。
A: These constitute important
conditions in striving for the fulfillment of the
general task
in the transitional
period.
B: These are
important conditions for fulfilling the general
task in the transition period.
当时，东北的形势仍然是敌强我弱。
A: At that time the situation in
northeast China was still one where the enemy was
stronger
than the people's forces
.
B: At that time the enemy
was still stronger than the people's forces in
northeast China.
[
other unnecessary elements after it
(in this instance,
解决问题的关键在于削减开支。
A: The key to the solution lies in the curtailment
of expenditure.
B: The
solution is to curtail ( or. cut back on)
expenditure.
[
often leads to further unnecessary
complications (here,
党内民主是已详细讨论过的问题。
A: Inner-Party democracy is a subject that has
been discussed in detail.
B:
Inner-Party democracy has been discussed in
detail.
Category nouns
There is one type of noun that deserves
special mention, because it is the commonest
unnecessary word in Chinglish. This is
the general noun that serves only to introduce a
specific
noun( or gerund) to
follow
: “
a serious mistake
in the work of
planning.
计划工作中的错误。
收集于网络，如有侵权请联系管理员删除