Chinese 747
Advanced Chinese
Translation Practice
Class Time: 9-11 am Wednesday
Classroom: 207-302
Teacher: Dr. Yan Ding (Lydia)
E-mail: [email protected]
Recap of Week 8
• Functionalism and Skopos
– Translation Error
• Translation Strategy and Practice
– Translation strategies expressed by mathematic
formula
Week 9
• Translation Problems
• Translation Strategies
• Contract Translation
• Mini translation project practice:
• Team work, mini-presentation and guided
discussion
• John can be relied on. He eats no fish and
plays the game.
摆脱罗马教廷，王权“完胜”教权
• 如果说今天威廉的婚姻仅仅是王室成员的“家事”或者上流社会社
交仪式的话，历史上的皇室婚姻曾深刻改变了这个国家的进程。变
革发生在16世纪由亨利八世继任国王的都铎王朝。以世俗眼光概
括，无非是风流成性的“天子”执意与西班牙公主凯瑟琳离婚的要
求遭到英格兰天主教势力的反对，亨利八世一怒之下与罗马教廷
彻底决裂，自立门户，1534年通过《至尊法案》，宣布英国教会不
再受制于罗马教廷。国王为教会最高首脑，有权任命神职人员和规
定教义。
• 至此，英国国教（The Church of England），也称圣公会完全独
立，至伊丽莎白一世在位时，禁止向教皇交付一切款项，不准向教
皇上诉，天主教遭到残酷打压，牧师和信徒数量锐减。有趣的细节
是，在她促使国会通过的官方教义《三十九信条》中，英国国教摈弃
了天主教在每周五只吃鱼、不吃肉的斋戒传统，许多百姓为划清界
限提出“星期五不吃鱼”， “eat no fish”被视为拥护政府，甚至成
了“诚实可信”的同义词。
Translation Problems
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Lexical-semantic problems
Grammatical problems
Syntactical problems
Rhetorical problems
Pragmatic problems
Cultural issues
Lexical-semantic problems
• terminology alternatives, neologisms,
semantic gaps, contextual synonyms and
antonyms
• semantic contiguity (a consistency procedure
which works by identifying semantic features
common to two or more terms) and lexical
networks.
• Can be resolved by consulting dictionaries,
glossaries, terminology banks and experts
• Idiom and Expressions
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If Sam kicks the bucket, her children will be rich.
take the bull by the horns
bury the hatchet
to burn one’s bridges
put a political cat among the pigeons
• Compound words
– Bookworm, butterfly, deadline
• Two-word verbs
– look up, close up, fill out, shut up, bring up, break
down and break in
Collocation
a. This butter is rancid (*sour, *rotten, *stale).
b. This cream is sour (*rancid, *rotten, *stale).
c. They took (*made) a walk.
d. They made (*took) an attempt.
e. They had (*made, *took) a talk.
f. He is a heavy smoker.
• Polysemic words
– Scale the fish completely before weighing it on the
scale.
– Is economics an arts subject or a science subject?
– All income is subject to tax.
– There are many non-native pupils in the class.
– Pupils' size changes according to the brightness of
light.
Grammatical Problems
• The conquest of your impatience will acquire
you his trust.
• 温绍贤。2011年。 《英汉对比语法与翻译》。Everflow
Publication. Hong Kong
Syntactic Problems
– In order for the structure to achieve the size and
strength necessary to meet its purpose, architecture
employs methods of support that, because they are
based on physical laws, have changed little since
people first discovered them—even while building
materials have changed dramatically.
– Cleaning fluids can be dangerous.
– Connect the printer to a word processor package
with a Postscript interface.
– Put the paper in the printer. Then switch it on.
Rhetorical Problems
• the identification and recreation of figures of
thought (comparison, metaphor, metonymy,
synecdoche, oxymoron, paradox, etc.) and
diction.
Characteristics of effective writing in English for an Examples of some contrasting characteristics in the
Anglo-American academic audience
Chinese culture/language
Writing is viewed as a tool to accomplish a task (that
is, to express a point or present an argument)
Writing is viewed as a way of engaging the emotions
through beautiful language.
Focus on clarity, directness, and getting to the point Focus on the language’s richness or the ability to repeat
ideas in a variety of ways; digression is seen as a way of
linking the subject under discussion to other issues to
show a wider range of knowledge
Direct, explicit statement of main idea(s)
No direct statement of main idea(s), with readers
expected to infer the writer’s main point
The writer is responsible for including explicit signals – Explicit signals are not necessary; the writer shows
such as transitions – to show logical links between
respect for the reader’s intelligence to make inferences
ideas and make connections clear
Information is expected to be highly specific
Information is expected to be highly philosophical
Specific evidence (facts, statistics, examples) are used Traditional wisdom and authority are used to support
to support arguments
arguments
Heavy use of deductive reasoning (movement from
the general to the specific)
Heavy use of inductive reasoning (movement from the
specific to the general)
Emphasis on the individuality and originality of ideas Emphasis on traditional wisdom and shared cultural
Pragmatic Problems
• Irony, Sarcasm
– That movie was so interesting. [but it actually
wasn't]
– I ordered a USB cable on Taobao and got nail polish
as a gift. That makes sense. [it really doesn't make
any sense]
– Yeah, right, I really wanna eat that slimy pasta from
4 days ago (here "Yeah, right" also takes part). [i
don't want to eat old pasta]
• the translation of a marketing text
Iphone Slogans
• “Apple reinvents the phone." and “This is only the
beginning.“ – 2007
• "The first phone to beat the iPhone.", or "The iPhone
you have been waiting for.“ – 2008
• "The fastest, most powerful Iphone yet.” – 2009
• "This changes everything. Again.” – 2010
• “The most amazing iphone yet.” – 2011
• "The biggest thing to happen to iPhone since iPhone.“ –
2012
• “Forward thinking.” – 2013
• “For the colourful.” – 2014
• “Bigger than bigger.” – 2015
• “This is 7.” – 2016
Cultural Issues in Translation
金圣华 – Reasons for translation errors
• 对号入座
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–
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We must live a good life
我们必须活一个好的生命。
He is an old friend of the family
他是个家庭老朋友。
Thus Joseph and Mary went to Bethleham, home of
joseph’s ancestors.
– 于是约瑟和玛利亚就上伯利恒去，是约瑟祖宗的家乡。
抽象名词
• In the first half of 1989, there were two births
in the family
• 1989年上半年，家庭中有两个诞生。
• Her prayers were all for Jean, for his safety
and his return.
• 她所求的都与约翰有关，为了他的平安和回归。
字义褒贬
• Women constitute 51 percent of the population, and the
evidence suggests that they are overrepresented among
the mentally ill.
• 女性构成人口百分之五十一。证据表明，他们在精神病者中为表表
者。
• The technique of enforced disappearance is by no
means new. Repressive governments have always been
tempted to get rid of trouble-some opponents, and have
often succeeded in doing so.
• 绑架的行径毫无新意，高压政府通常都采用这种方式来排除异己，
并且又能得偿所愿。
文化差异
• She is a woman with an air of ambition.
• 她是个极有野心的女人。
• I am pleased that my achievement in this field
has already been recognized.
• 我很高兴自己在这方面的成就已获得一致公认。
• After a career with the Bank of more than
three dozen years, I naturally have a very
strong attachment to an organization which I
have had the privilege to lead for nearly ten
years and which is second-to-none in its
present strength and its future potential. It
was consequently a matter of great
satisfaction to me that your Board agreed to
Mr. X as my successor. Mr. X has been both a
friend and close lieutenant over many years
and I have every confidence he will be an
outstanding leader of an outstanding bank.
误用成语
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•
•
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He had a quiet face
他其貌不扬。
Mary is quite pleased with her own work
玛丽对自己的作品感到沾沾自喜。
地方特色
• Marie went straight to the living-room, and
began to lay the supper things on the table.
• 玛丽一径走进饭厅，便开始在桌上摆放碗筷。
• There are one café and one luxurious
restaurant on the Eiffle Tower.
• 巴黎铁塔上有一家豪华酒楼、一间饼铺。
Contract Translation
• 合同语言的特点
Conclusion
• Translation Problems
• Contract Translation