英语论文.doc

cultural factors in english translationmen rongclass 2, grade 2007, school of foreign languages and literature, chongqing normal universityabstract: language is the bridge or the tie of communication, it let people or countries understand and communicate with each other. words are the most active factors in a language. they can reflect social changes, and have very strong national colors and personality of different cultures. therefore, on the one hand, translator should reflect the original cultural background and cultural colors as faithfully as possible; on the other hand, translator should also pay full attention to the readers acceptability. however, english translation is not very easy if you want to achieve “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance”. because of many factors influence english translation, and cultural factor is one of them. this paper will discuss the influence of cultural factors to english translation. seven parts of cultural factors will be given to discuss it, such as, geographical environment, social and historical differences, religious differences, and values and aesthetic sense.keywords: language; culture; context 1 introduction language is the carrier of culture; it is also an important part of culture and reflects a countrys politics, economy, culture, religious belief, manners and customs and so on. words, meanwhile, are also the most active factor in language, the most sensitive reflection of the change of social life and social thought, and the most important part to reflect cultural personality. the so-called words include words, phrases, frequently used phrasal verbs, idioms, collocation and idiomatic expressions. each language has special “blood” relationship with particular national history, while words are produced in specially historical, geographic and humanistic environment. so, words are the refraction and presentation of cultural factors, such as national historical traditions, social customs, cognitive features and aesthetic habit. therefore, words are imbued with culture information of all the nations; they incorporate cultural landscape of all the nations; they reflect the ethnic groups of humanistic psychology; they represent cultural background of different language; and they have bright and distinctive national characteristics. british linguistjohn lyons (john,1977)incisively pointed out that particular social language is a part of social culture, the differences of each language in words will reflect social things and customs of this language used and activities of important cultural characteristics. so, the translation of words requires translator to widely and accurately understands other countries idea, belief, custom and value standard. at the same time they should faithful convey their cultural value and soul, truly coming to intercultural communication.2 cultural contextsan important factor in the translation of words cultural context belongs to the category of non-linguistic context. this concept was first proposed by the british astronomer malinowski (1923). it studies the usage and functions of language and refers to specific social norms and customs of a speech community. it is mainly divided into the material culture and spiritual culture. in recent years, with the deepening and development of pragmatics, the scope of culture context gets further expanding. samovar (1998) thought cultural context includes knowledge of the storage, experiences, value, behavior, attitude, religious beliefs, time concept, spatial relationship and discipline, and other aspects. claire kramsche (1998) further explains the concept of a cultural context that cultural context includes the storage of knowledge, experience, values, behaviors, attitudes, religious beliefs, the concept of time, spatial relations, and many other aspects of subject areas. on the one hand, cultural commonality of super region ensures the readers who read the translation, from the perspective of the ethnic culture, also to obtain the similar feeling with the readers who read the original text. on the other hand, because of every nation have different cultural characters, it difficult to seek measures for different opinions; and different cultural concept will form collisions and conflicts. for the foreign culture, what people can easily understand and accept is the surface structure of foreign culture, namely “hard culture” section. the connotation of another culture is reproduced again by one kind of linguistic culture. that will inevitably reflect the characters of the two languages and cultures. the function of translation is to transplant the text of the original linguistic culture into another linguistic culture. therefore, cultural context plays a considerable role. many factors produce profound effect for the parasitological translation in cultural environment.2.1 the relations of geographical environment and parasitological translation.geographical culture refers to the culture formed in the geographical environment. because of the different living space of all ethnic group, the difference of natural environment influents that ethnic groups have different opinions about the same things or the same phenomenon. the specific geographical culture gives the specific meaning of parasitological. such as the chinese idiom“an eye dont know mountain tai（有眼不识泰山）”. mountain tai locates in shandong province, the ancient people revered taishan to describe respect person or some important valuable things. there are also such english idioms, for example,” all roads lead to rome”.whats more, in the chinese culture, east wind is warm, and it is like the wind in spring. and only it is in the northwest is the wind cold. however, britain locates in the western hemisphere, and it has maritime climate, so the west wind gives people the smell of spring. “how many winter days have i seen him, standing in the snow and east wind.” and, the summer in britain is not very hot but warm, like the spring in china and gives people a beautiful and lovely feeling. so shakespeare compared his lover to the summer in his sonnets, “shall i compare thee to a summers day? thou art lovelier and more temperate.” therefore, due to the difference of geographical environment, the point and the ways of observing things and reflecting society are different. 2.2 social and historical differences and parasitological translation.historical culture is the culture formed in the process of specific historical development and the precipitation of social heritage. different nation has different historical development, and different nation has different social phenomenon. so every nation has their special words about people and things that reflect the bright color of their historical culture. such as, the english sentence “to meet ones waterloo” originates in the nineteenth century when napoleon bonaparte met his waterloo as british and prussian troops defeated the french belgium. the chinese sentence “defeated city wheat” refers to the affair that the ancient famous general, guan yu, was defeated to retreat city wheat in the three kingdoms period. although the two sentences originated from different historical affairs, they have the same metaphor and both refer to the disastrous defeat. also the sentence “talk of the devil and he will appear” is a good example for it. but, some people are wrong when he uses it, if he or she doesnt know the meaning. so, when we translate these sentences, we must look up many books and learn much historical culture for the purpose of making sure the translation have much more cultural individuality. 2.3 the difference of human feeling and custom with parasitological translation. language comes from life. every word reflects the feeling what people have and the things what people done, so the custom and the ways of the world influence the language expression system.for example, in chinese, number “eight” and number “six” are now the most popular number, but most people do not like the number “four”. that is just for the pronunciations of those numbers. so people often use “eight” and “six”, which cater for people to become rich, but not “four. however, in english, people dont think the number “eight” has the lucky meaning, but they like the number “seven”, dont like the number “thirteen”.2.4 religious differences and parasitological translation. religion takes much more influence on peoples life; the special religion has the special language. chinese and western religious beliefs are different; and it is also influence the english-chinese translation. in the west, christian religious culture mainly deeply affect peoples language expression. people think god can produce everything. when the christian arise, european continent is in the fractious state, and only when god beyond all secular power in the secular monarchy can he soothe people “haggard”. hence christian arises at the historic moment; peoples language is also deeply marked by national religious color. so, these sentences come out, such as:(1) “god help those who help themselves”(2) “man proposes, god dispose”however, in the buddhist-oriented culture, chinese traditional religion, “god” has become a god, who controls every thing in the world. so we can see some sentences, such as:(1) “offer a present to a guest with other peoples things”(2) “make afford at the last moment”and if we want to translate the idiom“一个和尚跳水吃，两个和尚抬水吃，三个和尚没水吃” into english , we must reach the “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance”. because of english-speaking countries are new to the concept of “monk”, and they are less known for some allusions about monk. therefore, it is difficult to understand and translate. so, we can use the ready-made idiom in english “one boys boy; two boys are half a boy; three boys are no boy.”whats more, the sentence “being a teacher is being present at the creation, when the clay begins to breathe”, if we translate word for word, we will get”老师一直在创造中，犹如泥土开始呼吸”，and we know it is wrong. because of christians who believe that god created man and man from the dust and to the dust. therefore, in english, the “creation” is connected with “god”, and the dust or clay is often interpreted as “man is created by god”. thus between chinese and western culture, different religious beliefs permeated in their own language expression.2.5 the difference of myths and legends and classical works.myths and legends of different peoples and classical works created many idioms and allusions, which reflect the ethnic flavor, social state. hence the national language is full of fun, vitality and unique expression. in english, the sentences “think with the wise, but talk with the vulgar.”(与智者同思，与俗子同语) from ancient greek adage. “swan song” came from a western legend. when swan died, it sang a wonderful song that has been used to mean “the final work of poet, musicians and others”. and the sentence “so our grapes”(酸葡萄) from aesops fables has been compared to inferior things. also, there are these kind sentences in chinese. for example:(1) “everything all lines, only owe east wind” (2) “be driven to revolt”(3) “lord she loves dragons”if we are not familiar with the historical background and cultural background of idiom, its true meaning will run off when we translate. and it is also impossible to correctly understand and translate the content. in the process of translation, a case often appears. the translator can correctly analyze the phenomenon and logical relations of the original language, but he cant thoroughly understand some objective things about original language; especially some special events, historical background, allusion or term .so that the translation does not come out or the translation lose the original intention. thus, it affected the quality and reliability of translation. for example: john can be relied on. he eats no fish and plays the game. this sentence can be translated as：约翰为人诚实，不吃鱼而且经常玩游戏。actually, this is a kind of mistranslation, because it dose not translate the cultural connotation of this sentence; also it is not correctly communicated information. the phrase “to eat no fish” comes from an allusion. in elizabethans, christians refused to obey the custom that anti-government of the roman catholic eats fish on friday in order to express loyalty to the government. so, the phrase “to eat no fish” refers to the meaning of loyal, and the phrase “to play the game” has the same meaning with “to play fair”(遵守规矩). therefore, this sentence can be translated as :约翰为人可靠，他既忠诚又守规矩。those examples demonstrate that the produced words in the national rich cultural heritage include rich national cultural meaning, which constitute the special expressions of each ethnic language. it is also can not be substituted by other language cultures. in the process of translation, we should respect various nationalities culture characteristics and personality.2.6 the differences of values and aesthetic sense. the different cultures lead to the different values and aesthetic sense, and lead that people has different or even diametrically opposed views and opinions for the same thing. in terms of values, the opinion of individual and collectivity is different. the supremacy of personal values is the character of western culture, especially in america; people have strong personal struggle consciousness and sense of competition. some words refer to personal spirit, personal power and personal will in english. for example:(1) “where there is a will, there is a way”(2) “everyman is the architects of his own fortune”(3) “you have to blow your own horn” compare to the western “ocean nation”, the chinese “farming nation” highly respect community values and the spirit without myself. and for the collective honor, group concepts have strong sense of belonging. for example, “no single line, one tree does not make a forest”(单丝不成线，独木不成林),“selfless”(大公无私), “be the first to feel concern about state affairs and the last to enjoy yourself”(先天下之忧而忧，后天下之乐而乐). collectivism make chinese personality introverted, reserved, and reluctant to conscious, so we get those idioms, “tall trees catch much wind”(树大招风); “men are afraid of becoming famous, pigs are afraid of strong”(人怕出名猪怕壮)。thus, different cultures lead to different values. if it is reflected in the language, that is, some words are acceptable or popular in a cultural context; while it is difficult to accept and even annoy in another cultural context. for example, in chinese, one people was accused his practice and ideas is individualism, this man argued”你认为我是个人主义吗?”, some people may translate the sentence as “do you mean that i am an individualist?” however, this translation is inappropriate. in traditional chinese culture, “individualism” is “all proceed from the individual to place personal interests above the collective interests”, and it is a derogatory word. in western countries, people pay much attention to the development of personality and realize individualism as a positive performance, and it has complimentary meaning. if this translation refers to western cultural values, reader will misunderstand it. therefore, “individualist” should to “self-seeker(追逐私利者)”. in aesthetic orientation, chinese traditional festive like red decoration, while the west mostly like white; chinese” black tea” translated as “black tea”. cultural differences between chinese and english determine the expression and meaning of word. in the process of translation, the translator should take full account of the national culture and personality contained in the original words. and he should fully learn the unique culture meaning, try the best to combine with the original cultural background and keep the original style, form and artistic characteristics.2.7. difference in imagery and associative meaning. metaphor makes the language vivid. thus, for the english and chinese, there are lots of metaphorical terms. due to the differences of social customs, cultural traditions, different ways of working, so the significance of metaphor and association are also differences. the most type is the attitude for dog. as we all know, american and british people like dogs, depending on the dog as a friend, lover, they think dog is mans best friend. therefore, the behavior of people can be described by dogs image. such as:(1) “you are a lucky dog”(2)”every dog has his day”but, for chinese, on the one hand, dog is the housekeeping animal. and it is useful but not cute. on the other hand, dog is humble animal, it often let people think the disgusting things. so, in chinese, most words containing with dog are the derogatory words. for example:(1)“狗东西（that cur!）”，(2)“狗娘养的（son of dogs）”，(3)“狗腿子”（hench man）. in recent years, although the number of pet dogs greatly increased and the dogs status seems to have changed, the derogatory image of dog was deeply remain in chinese linguistic culture. whats more, “dragon” in english counties gives the different association and also has the special meaning. in the west, they think dragon is a symbol of evil and it is a horrible animal. therefore it should be eliminated. in the earliest literary works “beowulf”, the last adventure of the hero fight with a dragon that represents evil force. however, in the chinese culture, dragon is the symbol of chinese nation; it represents a magnificent national spirit. chinese people always regard it as power, strength, an