-
Written Translation III
Why we need translation theory?
人山人海
A sea of
faces
Rose
玫瑰、月季、蔷薇
农业是国民经济的基础
Agriculture
农林牧副渔
Farming, forestry, animal husbandry,
sidelines and fishery
庐山初识
,<
/p>
匆匆五十年矣
Two score and ten years have elapsed
since our acquaintance at Mt. Lushan.
Chapter 1
Sociosemiotic Approach to Translation
1. Basic principles of semiotics
Saussure
initiated
the
study
of
sign
systems,
which
he
named
―semiology‖,
and
prophesied
its
existence
in
advance. He declared: ―A science that
studies the life of
signs within
society is conceivable; it would be part of
social psychology; I shall call it
semiology. Semiology would show what constitutes
signs, what laws govern them.
Since the
science does not yet exist, no one can say what it
would be; but it has a right to exitence, a place
staked
out in advance.
Signified (concept
所指
)
Signifier (
sound image
能指）
Peirce has given general definition of
a sign: A sign, or a reprentamen, is something
which stands to somebody,
for something
in some respect or capacity.
Icon (based on identity or likeness,
e.g. road signs); index (based on
contiguity
临近
or
causality
；
e.g. Smoke as a
sign of fire); symbol (a merely
conventional link: e.g. words)
Sign
Object
Interpretant
Semantic
triangle
Linguistic meaning is built on
the relationship of the sign with each other in
the same system
Referential meaning is
built on the relationship of the sign with its
referent
Pragmatic meaning is built on
the relationship of the sign and its interpretant
2. Sociosemiotic Approach to
Translation
Social semiotics is
primarily concerned with human semiosis as an
inherently social phenomenon in its sources,
functions, contexts, and effects. It is
also concerned with the social meanings
constructed through the full range of
semiotic
forms,
through
semiotic
texts
and
semiotic
practices,
in
all
kinds
of
human
society
at
all
periods
of
human history.
Halliday’s model of social
semiotics
Professor Chen’s
model of Sociosemiotic Approach to
Translation
My model of
Sociosemiotic Approach to Translation
Chapter 2
General statement of translation
1. nature of translation
Nida out of the date
薄薄的夜
喇叭
2. translation
process
Preparation; working; checking
母亲拧着纺车把他拉扯大，真是要星星不给月亮。
这件事给邻居们知道，岂不是笑歪了嘴？
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His mother had brought him up by doing
spinning and had given him whatever he wanted.
When neighbors heard of the matter,
they’d laugh their heads off?
The good mother says not: will
you
？
But gives.
3. Translation standard
Faithfulness, expressiveness and
elegance
Similarity in spirit
Sublimation
Tytler
Correspondence in meaning
and similarity in function
4.
translator’s traits
Chapter 3
Lexical Translation
A
lexeme
is
an
abstract unit of morphological analysis
in linguistics,
that
roughly
corresponds
to
a
set
of words that
are
different
forms
of
the
same
word.
For
example,
in
the
English
language,
run,
runs,
ran
and
running are forms of the same lexeme,
conventionally written as RUN.
一、
Lexical comparison between
Chinese and English
对于中国学生最有用的帮助是让他认识汉语和英语的差别。
吕叔湘
1. Writing system
(1)
Chinese Writing System
Ideographic
表意
①
Pi
ctograms
象形：
A
pictogram
or
picture
is a stylised
drawing of the thing it refers to. Only
600
Chinese characters out
of 50 000,
are pictograms. They are
generally the oldest characters, since a lot of
them have been discovered engraved on
turtle shells (1500-1100 before
christ).
指事
(Symbols )
②
Symbo
ls
指事：
Symbols
, also known as
indicatives
express an
abstract idea by means of an arbitrary sign or by
modifying an
existing pictogram. Very
often, dots or lines are added to a pictogram to
indicate what part or action is intended.
For instance, to represent the idea of
―root‖, a horizontal line is a
dded at
the bottom of a tree to suggest the idea of
roots.(
本）
③
Ideogram
会意：
An
ideogram
, also
called
associative
compounds
or
meaning-meaning
comes from
the combination of two or
more
meaningful components to create a new character
with a new meaning.
④
Phono-
semantic
形声：
Phono-semantic
characters,
also known as
sound-meaning
,
or
picto-phonograms
are
characters composed of
two components:
one component indicates the
meaning
,
the other indicates its
pronunciation
.
More than
90 %
of
Chinese characters are
Phono-
semantic
characters. These characters
appeared very early in
the development
of Chinese writing, because of the difficulty of
using pictorial forms to represent abstract
notions
and similar objects (for
examples donkey versus horse).
Examples
of Phono-semantic charactersCharacterphonetic
componentsemantic
component
媽
(mother,
m
ā
)
馬
(m
ǎ
)
女
(Woman)
菜
(vegetable,
c
à
i)
采
(c
ǎ
i)
艹
(grass)
沐
(to bath,
m
ù
)
木
(m
ù
)
氵
(water)
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(2) Chinese and English
Syllables
Number of Chinese syllables:
432 no difference of tones; 1376 with difference
of tones
Number of English syllables:
about 10000
(3) English Writing System
The sound writing system or alphabetic
writing system
has dominated most of
the world language. Since most
European
alphabets such as Spanish, German, French,
English, etc. derived from the Lain alphabet, only
minor
adjustments were needed to cope
with individual characteristics of a particular
language. The immense power of
the
sound
writing
system
is
its
productivity.
There
are
more
than
600,000
entries
in
Webster’s
Third
New
International Dictionary. ( Chinese
characters: about 50000 )
(4) Syllabic
structures in English
(C)
(C) (C)
V
(C) (C) (C) (C)
I V key CV ski CCV spree CCCV seek CVC
Speak CCVC scram CCCVC
striped CCCVCC an VC ant VCC
ants VCCC pant CVCC pants
CVCCC splints CCCVCCC stamp CCVCC
strengths CCCVCCCC
2. morphemes
A
morpheme
is
the
smallest
linguistic
unit
that
carries
grammatical
or
semantic
meaning.
It
cannot
be
further
divided into smaller
units.
A free morpheme is one that may
constitute a word (free form) by itself, such as
―bed‖, ―tree‖, ―sing‖,
―dance‖.
A
bound
morpheme
is
one
that
may
appear
with
at
least
one
other
morpheme,
such
as
―
-
s‖
in
dogs,
―al‖
in
―national‖, ―dis ―in
―disclose‖, and so on.
Chinese morphemes
English
morphemes
1. free morpheme
1.
free morpheme
Eg.
room, dog, bottle
Eg.
药
——
药材
(
medicine)
2.
Bound morpheme
——
服药
2.
half-free morpheme
Eg. Prefix
Re-, dis-, en-,
im-
Eg.
丰
——
丰收
(harvest)
Suffix
——
丰富
(abundant)
3.
non-free morpheme.
-able, -tion,
-less, -er
Eg.
老
——
老师
(teacher)
——
老鹰
(eagle)
3. Word formation
Sound-
changing(
音变法
)
Red
uplication(
重叠法
)
Conversion(
转移法
)
Abbreviation(
简略法
)
Affixation(
缀合法
)
Compounding(
合成法
)
(1) Sound-changing
①
< br>Chinese
：
—
changing the
initial of a Chinese syllable (homographs)
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e.g.
重（
zh
ò
ng
）
重
(ch
ó
ng)
弹
(t
á
n)
弹
(d
à
n)
—
changing the final of a
Chinese syllable
e.g.
还
(hu
á
n)
还
(h
á
i)
和
(h
?
)
和
(h
ú
o)
—
changing the pitch
e.g.
少
(sh
ǎ
o)
少
(sh
à
o)
为
(w
?
i)
为
(w
?
i)
②
English
：
< br>
—
changing the consonant
of a word
e.g. close /klous/
a.
亲密的
close /klouz/
v.
关闭
house /haus/
n.
房屋
house /hauz/
v.
留宿
—
changing the vowel of a
word
e.g. doom /du:m/
n.
毁灭
deem /di:m/
v.
认为
food /fu:d/
n.
食品
feed /fi:d/
n.
喂
—
changing the position of
stress
e.g. present
/
’
preznt/
a.
现在的
present
/pri
’
zent/ v.
介绍
sound-changing
not only changes the meaning, but also part of
speech
(2) Reduplication
Chi
nese
—
superposition
English
–
AA, AAB, BAA, AABC, BCAA……
e.g. ping pong,
walkie-talkie, ha-ha
Reduplication can
greatly enrich Chinese vocabulary and perfect the
expressive function and beauty of Chinese.
(3) Conversion
to change the
word class and make a new word.
—
converting nouns into verbs
e.g.
①
Please take
a seat.
It can seat
1000 people.
②这把锄是新的。
那块地已经锄过两遍了。
—
converting
adjectives into verbs
e.g.
①
You can happy your friends,
malice or fool your enemy, or fall an axe on his
neck.
He
was very happy to hear that.
②请画条直线。
他这个人就是直来直去的。
—
converting verbs into
nouns.
e.g.
①
You
are not allowed to leave the room.
He took leave of her with a heavy
heart.
②他很会背书。他打球的时候伤到背了。
—
converting adjectives into
nouns.
e.g.
①
We
are waiting for the final decision.
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The basketball finals are
fantastic.
②我喜欢吃苦瓜。他不怕苦和累。
—
converting nouns or verbs
into adjectives
e.g.
①我讨厌这个人。他这人真讨厌。
②他舍己救人的精神让人感动。
你穿夹克衫显得很精神。
World
report; science fiction
(4)
Abbreviation
to shorten the original
words or paraphrases to make it precise and
practical without changing their meanings.
CPC=Communist Party of China
共产主义青年团
=
共青团
(5) Affixation
The process by which words
are formed by adding affixes to a root is called
affixation.
—
Prefix
non-;
in-; de-;un-; ab; counter-; anti-; dis-; im-;
multi
；非；反；无；不
—
Suffix
-less;
-able; -ful; -ed; -ee; -ist;
手；家；子；儿
Bound
morphemes, namely prefix and suffix, make English
words more abundant than Chinese.
(6)
Compounding
Compounding is a process of
word-formation by which two or more independent
words are put together to make
one
word.
Greenhouse;
They face
a damned-if-they-do, damned-if-
they-
don’t choice.
二、
Relationship
of Chinese and English Words
1.
Correspondence
相符
紫玉山庄
法人实体
打白条
Fake
correspondence
盐水
salt
water
学英语歌
to
study
English
songs
简单地说
simply
speaking
一层厚厚的黄土
a
layer
of
thick
loess dust
穷山恶水
poor mountain and bad water
强硬政策
strong
policy
学习知识
to
learn knowledge
好票
good tickets
Purple Jade
Villa; legal entity; to pay sb. IOUs
Salt solution
To
learn English songs
A thick layer of
To put it simply
To acquire knowledge
Tough
policies
Poverty-stricken places
Good seats
2. inclusion
包孕
华侨
Overseas Chinese
汽车
automobile=motorcar
（
a more formal word for
car
）
胡子
Beaver;
moustache; whiskers; beard
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酒，汤
，学者，
rose
等
3. intersection
交叉
骑马，骑自行车，骑墙，骑马人，骑墙派
To ride a horse; to ride a bike; to sit
on the fence; horse rider; fence-sitters
粮油票，请买票，售票处，售票口，普通客票，行李票，剪票员，查票员
Grain (food) and edible oil coupons;
All fares, please!; booking office; wicket; check;
ordinary ticket; puncher;
ticket
examiner;
4. zero
空缺
Zero of
designative meaning
指称意义空缺
三八式干部；三八红旗手；三八
抓周；八行书
Zero of
linguistic meaning
言内意义空缺
在家养病反把这病养家了
我姓李，十八子的李。
Zero
of pragmatic meaning
语用意义空缺
工农兵
peasant
教师休息室
Teachers only
鸡年是我的本命年。
I was born in the
Year of the Rooster.
She is a cat.
她是个包藏祸心的女人。
白象牌电池
white
elephant
兰翎牌香脂
Peacock Tail
厚朴
magnolia officinalis (Hope)
三、
Translation of words
1. Polysemy
一词多义
就：他就着油灯读信。
He read the letter
by the oil lamp.
花生仁儿就酒挺合适。
I
t
’
s nice to have peanuts to
go with the wine.
我就不信我学不会这项技术。
I just
don
’
t believe this technique
is beyond me.
那人就是他的哥哥。
That
very man is his elder brother.
你就是送给我，我也不要。
Even if you give
it to me as a gift, I won
’
t
accept it.
2. Synonymy
同义词
.
税：税率；关税；免税商店
；进
/
出口税；印花税；遗产税
Tariff rates; custom duties; duty-free
shops; import/export duties; stamp duties
美：鲍小姐秀色可餐
,
Miss
Pao’s beauty is such a feast to the
eye,
偷，窃：孔乙己便涨红了脸，额头的青筋条条绽出，
争辩道，
“窃书不能算偷??窃书！??
.
读书人的事，
能算偷么？”
At
that
Kong Yiji
would
flush,
the
veins
on his
forehead
standing
out
as
he
protested,
―Taking
books can’t
be
counted as steali
ng…Taking
books…for a scholar…can’t be counted as
stealing.‖
3.
Color
色彩
语体色彩与感情色彩
咒语：文明是三孙子。
Gentility be
hanged!
狗气杀
绍兴方言
The dog-
teaser
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