英语本科毕业论文-On English-Chinese Cultural Differences and Translation Strategies.doc

on english-chinese cultural differences and translation strategiesiintroductionafter the end of the cold war, the world situation has changed greatly. economic globalization, technological information and culture diversity are increasing rapidly. the world is like a village. the countries in the world connect with, depend on and cooperate with each other closely. social development will combine the whole world together more closely. both developed and developing countries and even the least developed countries can not put themselves out of the historical trend. they must try their best to use their advantages to ensure their own development. economic globalization must promote global cultural exchange. there are so many kinds of languages in the world. and it is often very hard for people in one country to understand the language used by people in another country. language is the carrier of culture and part of the culture. because languages can reflect a nations culture, language symbols provides a rich expression means for a nation. language has been keeping synchronous development with culture throughout the whole process of human cultures coming into being and their subsequent development. “some scientists consider it the keystone of culture. without language, they maintain, culture would be impossible.” (邓炎昌, 刘润清 31). on the other hand, “language is the primary means by which a culture transmits its beliefs, values and a means of thinking” (戴炜栋 158). “language is a part of culture. differences on the language usage will expose features of the social culture in terms of the substances, customs and other activities”(lyons 30). edward, taylor, british cultural anthropologist in one book of primitive culture (1871), regarded culture as a concept to propose for the first time, and described it as: “each complicated culture, includes knowledge, belief, art, moral, law and custom as ability and habit in the society”. it is obvious that coverage of culture phenomenon of a nationality is a part of culture. cultural difference between english and chinese idioms can be shown in the following several aspects. but in different fields, the degrees of translation difficulties are different. for example, poetry can almost not be translated accurately, because of either the form or the phonology of the poetry plays a very important part in its meaning. cultural differences play a great role in translation. in this paper, firstly it gives the definition of translation. then the paper explores the four main cultural differences between english and chinese, the geographical and cultural environment, religion, history and customs. basing on these four aspects of the cultural differences, then puts forward several translation strategies, aiming to make translation play a better role of bridge of cultural exchanges. meanwhile the paper presents many examples to explain and interpret how deal with these differences. facing these cultural differences, the strategies which we use are the major concerns of this paper. in the conclusion part, it is pointed out that to deal with culture differences accurately, a translator should adopt flexible translation strategy according to different conditions. he or she must respect both the foreign culture and his or her own culture in order to make the projection achieve the purpose of cross-cultural communication, and finally raises its expectation of further study in this field.ii. definition of translation as this paper will focus on several translation strategies, first of all, we should know what translation is. translation theorists have formulated various definitions of translation, but up to now, no consensus has been reached upon a unified satisfactory definition. here two are definitions.the first definition maintains that any interpretation is translation. translation thus defined includes intra-lingual rewording, inter-lingual translation and inter- semiotic translation (nida 69). it is not difficult to see that this definition place so vast a scope of study under “translation” that unified principles and common features of the concept of translation are hard to find .this view is accepted and supported by few scholars.the second definition maintains that translation is an activity that progresses in either oral or written form between two distinct languages-the source language and the target language. most translators supported this view, including roger bell, peter newmark and eugene nida and so on. roger bell has quoted a definition from dubois (148): “translation is the expression in one language (or target language) of what has been expressed in another (source language), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences”. to sum up, translation is the interpreting of the meaning of a text and the subsequent production of an equivalent text, likewise called a translation, that communicates the same message in another language. the text to be translated is called the source text, and the language that it is to be translated into is called the target language; the final product is sometimes called the “target text.”zhu guangqian (132) said in terms of translation: “the most difficult to understand and translate in foreign literature is the first associate meaning.” since the translation will involve two different languages, and the two languages are distinctly different, how should we handle this conversion between the two languages? this will inevitably involve various factors, of course, including the factor of cultural differences which this essay studies.iii. main culture differences between english and chineseeach country differs from another country in many aspects, including the cultural differences, the paper will focus on the research of the four major differences between english and chinese culture.a. differences in geographical and cultural environment to a certain extent, different geographical environment affects the mode of production in different choices. westerners originated in the nomad, so they have a deep feeling of horse in english. therefore, there is a tremendous number of idioms about horse, such as a will horse (hardworking people), a dead horse (to plough the air), ride on the high horse (overbearing), etc. since the ancient times china has been a large agricultural nation, a large part of idioms is about agriculture, such as many hands make light work, haste makes waste, to follow the vine to get the melon , etc. being an agricultural country, china is influenced by the geographical environment, so cattle is the main farming methods here. therefore there are a lot of chinese words about cattle.the generation of language is closely related with peoples labor and life. britain is an island country, navigation once led the whole world in history. so in english, there are many idioms about the ship and the water; but in chinese, to the corresponding, there are not identical idioms, such as” to rest on ones oars “(to rest a while temporarily), to keep ones head above water (to struggle to survive), all at sea (at a loss), etc. because people in china live in the asian mainland for a long time, people cannot live without land instead of water or ship in britain. for example, how to express the act of wasting money, in english it is likely to say “spend money like water”, but in chinese, it is “挥金如土” (robibett and liu chun-jo 97).china is against the mountain in the west, to the sea in the east, so in the geographical environment people regard east wind as “gifts”, but “west wind chills”. in chinese cultural atmosphere, “east wind” is “the spring wind”, and summer is often linked with intense heat, for example, “summer is like fire”, and “scorching sun” is often used to describe the sun in the summer. britain is located in the western hemisphere, in the north temperate zone, has a marine climate. in britain, east wind, from northern europe, refers to the cold wind, bringing british people unpleasant feelings. because britain has the atlantic to the west, so in spring, cool agreeable wind blows slowly from the sea, just as east wind brings blooms in china. in contrast, the west wind reports that the spring is coming. as we all know, the british famous poet shelleys ode to the west wind is a poetry that eulogizes the beauty of spring. summer in british is the sweet and delightful season, which often appears with “cute” and “moderate”, “good” and so on. in one of his sonnets, shakespeare compares his lover to a summers day, “shall i compare thee to a summers day?/thou art more lovely and more temperate”. b. differences in religion beliefsmost europeans believe in christian. they hold the faith that god created everything in the world, and god can decide what is going to happen in the world according to the will of god. so they have the sayings of: “god helps those who help themselves”, “go to hell”. but buddhism was introduced into china more than a thousand years ago. people believed in the lord buddha in china, and we believe that only the “laotianye” or called” lord buddha” can dispose, instead of god. since “god” is a concept of deep dense color, if we do not understand this religious background, when translating, merely with the pursuit of cultural equivalent blindly, sometimes we will create a culture loss. and religious idioms also massively exit in both english and chinese languages. thus, the cultural differences, caused by different religious beliefs, in the process of translation should not be ignored. the profound chinese culture has a long history. confucianism, taoism and buddhism, are chinas three major religions. in the traditional culture of our country, we have the emperor of heaven in taoism, “the king of hell “in buddhism, and the king of the sea in the myth. among the there religions, the buddhism has the greatest influence on chinese culture. there are many idioms about buddhism such as“ 苦中作乐”、“五体投地”、“现身说法”、“天花乱坠 ”. these concepts do not exist in western peoples hearts. especially the image of dragon. in china, dragon is a mythical monster, usually represented as a large reptile with wings and claws, breathing out fire and smoke. it represents divine, nobility, lucky, auspicious, propitious, favorite and so on. it is the symbol of our national spirit. therefore, in ancient times, the emperor was called “zhen long tian zi”, and his sons called “long zi long sun” .there are words about dragon such as dragon bed. but in the western countries, dragon, a brutish and ugly symbol, is often linked with evil. so in chinese, we say: “wang zi cheng long”, which should be translated into “to hope that ones son will become an excellent person” in english. we should not use dragon for the chinese character sweet and delightful “long”. “ 亚洲四小龙” should be translated into four asian tigers. if referring to color, we are fond of red and yellow but sick of black and white, for we believe in deity and influenced by buddhism, taoism. as chinese people link red with honorable, on traditional wedding, they use red xizi, red candles, red hejaab, which will not only bring a festival atmosphere, but also is a symbol of a well-off life after their wedding. so when we translate chinese character “red”, we should choose festival word. for example:开门红 get off to a good start满堂红success in every fieldbut in the west, so far, the couples commonly hold their wedding in the church. the bride always wears white wedding gown, symbolizing holy and beautiful. an funeral also should be hosted by a priest, on which all the participants should dress in black clothes or wear black veil , expressing their sorrow and despair to the dead. for example: a white day吉日 black sheep害群之马c. differences in history every country has its own history, different from any other country in the world to some extent. and the differences between china and britain are wide and distinctive. there are a large number of expressions about history in both languages. the historical cultural difference refers to the culture formed by the special history development process and the culture accumulated by the social heritage. every nation and country develops differently, so the historical culture deposited from the long history definitely differs from each other. in both chinese and english languages there are many idioms formed by the historical literary idioms. these idioms, although simple in structure, carry on far-reaching significance. they are hard to understand and translate only from the literal meaning. every language has colorful proverbs and idioms. that is accumulated by the people of the ethnic groups in the long-term use of languge. they possess strong individuality and local color; they are also the most different part of the translation. in translating idioms and proverbs, it is a must to understand their implication and connotation. it needs translators to be flexible to combine the literal translation and free translation skills. in languages, people embellish their speech or writing with references to characters or events from their history, legends, literatures, religions, etc. in english, “to move heaven and earth” can not mean “翻天覆地，惊天动地”, “to talk horses” dose not refer to “谈论马”, rather than “牛” in chinese. for instance, in the sentence, “john can be relied on; he eats no fish and plays the games” (约翰为人可靠，他既忠诚又正直)，there are two idioms “to eat no fish” and “to play the games”. if the translator has no idea about them, then the sentence can be ridiculously translated as “他一向不吃鱼而且经常玩游戏”. the same reasoning applies to allusion in chinese. in chinese, “你这人真阿q”or “她是个林黛玉式的人物”conveys so much information that hardly any further explanation is needed. but such allusions are not always easy to understand, and without understanding, there can be little appreciation. if one has never read lu xuns the true story of ah q, he would be at a loss to understand the remark about ah q. and knowing the plot of a dream of red mansions little is difficult to appreciate the reference to “林黛玉”，the heroine of the story. many english allusions involve events or characters from bible and greek and roman mythology, such as “achilles heel (唯一致命弱点)” 、meet ones waterloo (一败涂地)、penelopes web （永远完不成的工作）、a pandoras box （translated directly into “潘多拉的盒子”，but we translate it into “无穷的灾难” （chinnery 65-67）. another primary source is the works of english literature, especially from shakespeare. many lines character from his plays are cited commonly in everyday english. as calling a person “猪八戒” in chinese means he is similar in many ways to that crude, pleasure-seeking, often erratic but sometimes lovable pig in the novel pilgrimage to the west, so alluding to a person as a romeo implies a handsome young man, passionate, dashing ( from shakespeares romeo and juliet). in translating these, resulting and interpretation may be combined.d. differences in customs custom differences between english and chinese are in many aspects. the most typical one is no more than on the attitude toward dog. the dog is a kind of petty and low animal in chinese. the idiom related to dog contains purposes of demoting mostly in chinese: “狐朋狗党”(a pack of rogues)，“狼心狗肺” (rapacious as a wolf and savage as a cur), etc. the number of pet dog increases greatly in the last few years. the position of the dog seems to change to some extent, but the derogatory sense image of the dog stays in the speech culture of chinese deeply. in the western english country, the dog is considered to be mankinds most loyal friend. except a part, which is affected by other language, includes derogatory sense in english, the majority has no derogatory sense. among english expressions, we often compare peoples action to the figure of dog, for instance, you are a lucky dog (你是一个幸运儿), every dog has his day (凡人皆有自得日)，old dog will not learn new tricks (老人学不了新东西) and so on. we described “病得厉害” as “sick as a dog”, “累极了” is dog-tired. contrary to this, chinese like cat very much. we compare “gluttonous cat” with people who are greedy, often including the composition of kiss. but in western culture, cat is figured “the women who have ulterior motives” (陈安定 36).although chinese and english nationalities live in the some objective environment, due to different customs, they stick to ones own view to objective things. it gives the language of those things a different meaning. such as: bamboo is used to describe upright people in chinese. but in english, it has not any symbol meaning. this kind of plant is not an indigenous plant of britain, but the thing from abroad. the views to flower of chinese are different from those of englishman, but flower of english has no meaning referred to in chinese. and for example: “pine” is a most common tree is china and it symbolizes a faithful, noble character and sterling integrity, which could be shown in chen yis poem. pine in english does not have any associate meaning. some of vocabularies in english that have their associate meaning, but there are no corresponding vocabulary among chinese. in terms of daffodil; it is only a kind of flower in chinese, but it is a happy symbol in english.iv. translation strategies against these differencesas the paper states, there are so many differences between english and chinese. about the standard of translation, china and foreign countries translators have put forward different opinions. from yan fus “faithfulness, expressiveness, elegance”, zhang pejis “faithfulness and expressiveness”, until u.s.a. famous theoretician of translation nidas “functional equivalence” or “dynamic equivalence”, we can find out what they have proposed complement one another and perfect constantly in their opinions. though each emphasis to some extent is different, the main idea focuses on expressing the meanings of th