Language is basically a cultural and social product. To understand it, we should start from the perspective
Language is basically a cultural and social product. To understand it, we should start from the perspective of culture and society. The cultural differences between English and Chinese have brought great obstacles to their semantic transformation, which is first manifested in the different values. Chinese culture is a monistic culture, emphasizing "social value theory". British culture is multicultural and advocates "personal value first". In addition to the differences in values, the cultural differences between English and Chinese are closely related to the geographical environment, social environment, climatic conditions and customs of the two peoples.
I. Cultural differences caused by geographical environment
Culture is regional, and the special geographical environment and climate characteristics often imprint the culture of this area. China and Britain, due to the different geographical environment, the great differences in climatic conditions also gave birth to relative foreign cultures.
Britain is an island country, located in the western hemisphere, the northern temperate zone and maritime climate, and the language created by its people is contaminated with this geographical feature. Idioms such as spending money like running water and making money like running water are among them. On the contrary, the ancestral home of the Chinese nation is in the Asian continent, and its culture is inevitably influenced by it. The above-mentioned "spending money like soil" is an example, as well as "face like soil", "face like soil" and "facing the loess and facing the sky".
As for the cultural differences caused by different climates, it is even more numerous. As far as "east wind" and "west wind" are concerned, there are great differences between the two cultures. Shelley's ode to the west wind * * * ode to the west wind * * is a hymn of spring. Charles Dickens said in david copperfield: "How many winters have I seen him standing in the snow with a black face!" This is also an excellent example. However, the "east wind" in Chinese has defeated the "west wind", which is a spring breeze and a warm messenger. "West wind" is autumn wind, which is called bleak autumn wind. Ma Zhiyuan's poem "A Thin Horse on an Ancient Road with a West Wind" and Maqu's "A Dream of Awakening Pear Flowers in a Drunk Hometown" also illustrate this point, and the artistic conception in his lyrics naturally confuses foreigners.
Second, the differences caused by people's customs and habits.
In some vocabulary phrases related to animals, the cultural differences between English and Chinese caused by customs are very obvious. British people like horses, and it is their custom to keep horses, ride horses and race horses. British culture is a typical "horse culture", so there are many sayings about horses in English, such as talk horse*** bragging * * *, get on one's high horse*** cocky * * *, and horses are neck and neck. However, China is a traditional agricultural country, and has accumulated a lot of Chinese "cow culture" in Niu Geng for generations. Cattle is a symbol of "hard-working, practical and willing to work", and "bow down and be a willing ox" is the embodiment of this complex. On the contrary, if you change English into Malay, the Chinese word "cow" will be translated into English and become "a willing horse".
Not only that, some words expressing colors in English and Chinese have also precipitated different cultures. "Red" has a strong color of praise in Chinese, and "big red and big purple" means success, wealth, happiness and auspiciousness. On the contrary, "red" often reminds westerners of bloodshed, war, terror, anger and danger, which has a strong derogatory meaning.
Since 1960s, with the scientization of western translation theories, China's translation studies have developed rapidly since the late 1980s. At the same time, under the influence of economic and cultural globalization, translation theory research and translation practice are developing vigorously.
In China, the target areas of translation are artificially divided into "non-literature" and "literature". "Non-literature" mainly refers to the general practical style, such as politics, economy, science and technology, finance, business, tourism, sports and so on. , the most important of which is "scientific translation"; "Literary translation" is a translation category and method that is juxtaposed with scientific translation. Subsequently, "non-literature" research and "literature" research came into being. Non-literary translation is regarded as a technical activity and has long been in a favorable position in translation activities. At the same time, we can't deny that literary translation studies occupy a dominant position in the field of translation studies and have always been the focus of attention.
Since 1980s, influenced by the wave of cultural studies, more and more attention has been paid to the historical and cultural studies of translation, and the differences between Chinese and western translation languages and cultural thinking are extremely prominent. Based on the sensitivity to context, mood and meaning, and the extensive use of various rhetorical devices, cultural factors in translation have been given more consideration.
Language is not only a tool for human beings to express and communicate their thoughts and feelings, but also a component and carrier of culture. Language can truly reflect the ecological region, political economy, material culture, religious beliefs and customs of a country and a nation. Different languages determine different ways of thinking, behavior and language expression of different nationalities. However, language individuality and * * * are both important. Humboldt once said: "Comparative language research is an accurate exploration of language differences." It can be said that the purpose of seeking differences is to achieve unity, and we must pay special attention to the spiritual and cultural essence contained in language forms, such as sounds, words and styles.
The essence of translation is to convert one language into another, and its purpose is to input all the information of the source language into the target language and achieve the maximum equivalent effect at the same time. English and Chinese belong to Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan languages respectively. The characteristics of different language families determine that their word formation and word meaning expression are very different. In order to accurately express the original content, various techniques should be used in the translation process.
Sometimes, in order to make the translation more in line with the expression habits and laws of Chinese, we must choose words, add words, subtract words and change parts of speech properly on the premise of being faithful to the original text, so as to make the translation smooth and natural. Of course, translation is not a simple transformation of language ontology, but has various relations with social culture. Every nation has its own social and cultural characteristics. Culture is a series of meanings, beliefs and values that unite people into a whole, and has its own specific time and space scope. Therefore, the positive and negative statements, sentence patterns and idioms of some texts should also take into account their own characteristics in translation.
In the culture and history of China, there are many brilliant achievements that foreign scholars yearn for. They think that China culture is profound, colorful and has a long history. Therefore, a way of thinking and language organization that attaches importance to parataxis and understanding is formed, which is different from the parataxis and rationality in western thinking differences. Chinese parataxis can only form a coherent text through the logical relationship between words and sentences, or through factors such as context, semantics and pragmatics, which is reflected in China's ancient literary works. However, when English combines words, sentences and idioms into a whole, the explicit cohesion of vocabulary and grammar is essential.
Habermas, the German ideological leader, advocated the theory of communicative action, and regarded understanding and communication as the highest goal of modern society. He believed that translation research should be a basic training of human communicative practice, and an effective connection between subject and object should be established from the perspective of others. This is necessary for communication under different cultural backgrounds or even the same background, which can change the one-way thinking mode in real life and establish a new cognitive model of subject and object.
The traditional thinking of China people pays attention to the unity of man and nature, and everything is ready. Therefore, the subject has a strong sense of participation, and the language expression shows that "people" are the subject. Westerners pay attention to the separation and distinction between subject and object because of rational analysis, so sometimes they take "people" as the subject, sometimes things as the subject, depending on the situation, but more often they take an objective view of things as the subject and analyze and describe them objectively and calmly, which leads to the differences in subject, theme or center of gravity between English and Chinese texts.
Fundamentally speaking, this is a manifestation of the thinking habit that China and the West emphasize synthesis and analysis respectively. China people like the spiral development model, first declare the importance of the theme, then repeatedly discuss and emphasize it, and finally return to the theme; Westerners like linear logical thinking, that is, express the central meaning first, then expand it, or deduce it layer by layer or enumerate it item by item, and the following sentences are naturally derived from the previous ones. In informative discourses containing time, place and events, the customary expression of China people is "when and where we will do something", while the expression of westerners is "event+place+time".
For example, people in China are used to saying: We will visit my aunt tomorrow morning and be at the gate of the yard at seven o'clock. The expression of westerners is: we will meet at the gate of the yard at 7 o'clock tomorrow so as to visit our aunt.
Translation is the translation of two different languages and characters, so it is always necessary to make a deep study of the language and characters of the translator and the target language to see the differences between Chinese and foreign languages. These differences are grammatical, rhetorical, customary and expressive.
For example, due to the structure of English sentences, there are many English sentence patterns, especially long sentences. Westerners are used to using long sentences with "overlapping bedstead" structure, so be careful when translating them.
In a sense, accurate and fluent expression in translation activities means that on the basis of understanding the original text, through in-depth logical analysis and reasoning, we constantly break through the mandatory category of the meaning or syntactic structure of the original text and reproduce the essence of the original text with standardized and fluent translation language. Because such translation is not a mechanical copy of the original text, it often requires creative labor, that is, language art. The art of expression is mainly embodied in understanding translation methods and properly handling the words, syntactic structure and narrative order of the original text. Foreignization and domestication caused by literal translation and free translation can not be ignored in translation practice. No translation is completely alienated or domesticated. If the two can complement each other in the process of translation, then unexpected results will be achieved.
Western aesthetics has a long history and many excellent academic traditions, especially in recent decades, which has developed rapidly and exerted more and more influence on translation studies. In literary translation, we can't ignore the comparative aesthetic value of works, don't stick to superficial structure and form, and don't pay attention to the quality of the translated language. Modern translation requires us to judge the aesthetic characteristics of translated products representing different cultural systems, even the different aesthetic theories and ways of thinking held by different countries and nationalities, in order to explore their aesthetic essence and laws.
The translation study of comparative literature can't be confined to the understanding and expression of some linguistic phenomena, and it doesn't participate in commenting on their advantages and disadvantages. Instead, we regard the translated literary works as a fait accompli, not only make a general value judgment, but also investigate and analyze the spread, influence, acceptance and spread of literature.
Studying literary translation and translation theory can expand new angles and methods, instead of simply evaluating the quality of translated works, we can appreciate, taste, compare and analyze various translated works from an aesthetic point of view, so that the aesthetic factors and values contained in literary works and their translated works can be vividly displayed, and readers can fully appreciate the aesthetic values of the original and translated works while studying literary translated works.
English-Chinese Translation Practice and Skills Translation is a practical knowledge, which needs long-term efforts to really learn. The formation of a translator's translation ability cannot rely solely on learning theoretical knowledge and strengthening skill training, but requires a solid bilingual foundation and a lot of translation practice.
No matter what translation, it is inevitable to have the purpose of communication. In the era of increasingly prosperous international cultural exchanges and the accelerated integration of China and other international fields, in order to make translation studies develop better, we must pay attention to the differences between Chinese and western languages and cultures, break the restrictions of regions, disciplines and schools of translation studies, form an interdisciplinary comprehensive and pluralistic complementary research pattern, strengthen exchanges in the field of translation studies, and cross different traditions and systems for two-way complementarity. Chinese and western translation theories learn from each other and penetrate each other, thus realizing the blending and penetration of Chinese and western translation studies.