The Application of Linguistics in Translation

1、the application of linguistics in translationabstract: from linguistic perspective, this paper, with the novel linguistic theories proposed by some authoritative linguists, concentrates more on the tentative combination between linguistics and translation than on the fruitless fuss over empty transl

2、ation techniques and theories, which are apt to fail to meet the requirements of the translation in new information era. therefore, a new approach in the light of linguistics will be elaborately discussed and reviewed in this paper. key words: translation; linguistics; applicationi. introduction as

3、far as the linguistic approaches are concerned, a considerable amount of insights dawn on us in translation since we can see their applications in practical translation. at present, in the circle of translators, regular discussion seminars on translation from linguistic perspectives have been keenly

4、 welcomed and enthusiastically hailed. they have been paving the road to translation which is characterized by faithfulness and smoothness. this paper, by all means, which is related to the ever new awareness of the ideas and conceptions dealing with translation through the availability and accessib

5、ility of fresh linguistic approaches, intends to dedicate to the concentration on linguistic accesses.ii. the application of linguistics in translation1. the pragmatic dimension of context1) illocutionary structurea text consists of a succession of speech acts, and in order to achieve equivalence in

6、 translation, the illocutionary force of each sentence needs to be dealt with in translation. indeed, it is true that much of the literature on speech acts relates to the analysis of individual sentences and that what happens when sentences are concatenated has been relatively neglected. yet, as fer

7、rara (1980) has shown, the interpretation of speech acts depends crucially on their position and status within sequences. put simply, the perceived status of an utterance such as,there are thirty people in herevaries according to cotext: on the one hand, as the first member of a pair which continues

8、:could you open the window, it has the status of a subordinate act in a sequence, aiming to achieve the subgoal of justification for the main goal in the speakers planhaving a window opened. on the other hand, as a reply to:how many people are in here?, its status would be that a compliance with con

9、ditions governing what are known as adjacent pairs in conversation(questions tend to be followed by answers, greetings by greetings, offers by acceptances or rejections, etc.). the interrelationship of speech acts within sequences leads to the notion of illocutionary structure (basil hatim and ian m

10、ason) of a text, determining its progression and supporting its coherence. in translation, one aims not at matching speech act for speech act but rather at achieving equivalence of illocutionary structure. taking the sentence it is cold here for example. in a certain situation, it can be an indirect

11、 speech act. imagine that a teacher enters the classroom on a cold morning. the windows are open. the meaning of what the teacher say can have a different indication.2) the interpretation of illocutionary force in translationit is challengeable for us to present the actual and definite meaning as th

12、e source text writer intends to convey. translation, particularly, in the process of identifying and affirming the accurate intention and purpose of the original, turns out to be indiscernible and unintelligible, resulting in unreadable and unacceptable renderings. the cases are mainly found in a co

13、nsiderable number of translated versions in relation to legal documents as well as science and technology literatures. why a large number of renderings are felt very much painstakingly unreadable and challengingly understandable. facing up to those difficulties, one, the professional translators in

14、particular, should try his hand to blaze a trail in the road leading to qualitive renderings which prove to be approachable in the light of linguistics. interpreting the illocutionary force of the source text is a good case in point. in a given text, a good amount of expressions should not be render

15、ed into the words against its original intentions. illocutionarily speaking, one should not turn the apparent meanings in its literal sense, nor should put it into rigid and rough words which are invariably in accordance with those of the original. to solve the problems, one, with the genuine faithf

16、ulness to the source text, is required to take more consideration into the information the writer intends to convey.2. text linguistic approach to translation text analysis, also termed discourse analysis and text analysis, plays a very important part in translation. in 1985, halliday, in the prefac

17、e of his book an introduction to functional grammar, proposed that his proposal of functional grammar was out of the purpose of providing a theoretical structure for text analysis. the structure is available to all texts written in english. one, in the process of translation, has to make sure whethe

18、r he should conform to literal translation or adhere to free translation. the former will achieve the equivalence of form by failing to live up to the communication values as the latter is bound to preserve the interaction function by giving up the literal meaning not relating to the context. as a m

19、atter of fact, it is hard to strike a balance between the former which will unavoidably turns out to be rigid, indiscernible and unintelligible and the latter which will prove to be smooth and understandable at the expense of socalled disloyalty and inaccurate.3. contextbased problems in translation

20、another primarily pragmatic aspect of translation has to do with context. it was shown earlier that the same utterance can have opposite interpretations, depending on the context in which it is processed. this means that the correct, that is, the speakerintended, interpretation of an utterance, is h

21、ighly contextdependent. the reason for this strong contextdependence lies in the inferential nature of human communication. against this background, it is easy to understand why a change of context can change the whole meaning of an utterance and why, therefore, quoting someone out of context can be

22、 rather serious matter.context, hereby, in translation from one language to the other, justifies the important part played by it. context consists of distinctive social cultures, habits and customs as well as locals. furthermore, context varies from country to country. to be more specific, its impor

23、tance is transferred to its influence on language characteristics. thereinafter, attention paid by translator to context raises our awareness and concern. malinowski referred to this as the context of situation. for instance, chinese culture, ranging from its social conventions to thinking patterns,

24、 distinguishes from those of its counterpartbritish. in the point of view of the chinese, the world is in the shape of square, while the english hold that the world is always changeable. it is manifested in the appearance of their different languages, regardless of the graphics and phonologies. as w

25、e all know, the chinese characters are invariably square in their shape as the english letters are found lengthily irregular in their appearances. as a result, our efforts exerted on translation are felt frustrated and our obstacles to translation are apparently hard to surmount. to elaborate, it is

26、 troublesome to seek out appropriate equivalence in english for chinese, the contextbased novels in particular. however hard may it seem to be, solutions are approachable in the light of context integration and analysis. in this fashion, it is required that we should take trouble to analyze the over

27、all text in unity instead of dealing with it fragmentally. this method which is based upon the context proves to be applicable and accessible. in other words, it is a approachable way in translation. nowadays, a large volume of renderings have been seen the success of the consideration taken into tr

28、anslation. so, here, we are distracted by the alternatives between free translation and literal translation. the former would be intelligible but convey no cultural insights. literal translation, on the other hand, superficially preserves the original but would be unintelligible to the target reader

29、s.4. presupposition in translation presupposition is a complex linguistic phenomenon. from the point of view of translation, taking the complexity of presupposition will help a translator obtain a better understanding of the source text through the grasping of the presuppositional information so tha

30、t different approaches can be taken based on different situations. presupposition is closely related to context as well as to the speaker in a given context. different peoples distinguish, out of the complexity of the presupposition, with their counterparts from the aspect of their distinctive think

31、ing patterns and world outlook. it, in this fashion, leads to the difference of language presentation. the chinese, for instance, presuppositionally speaking, hold that the information which is selfevident but the english think otherwiseit necessarily needs to be clearly demonstrated by further expl

32、anation. some words can be understood only under the readers understanding of the cultures and the context. when we are trying to render a chinese noun phrase into english, we necessarily need to put it in details in order to make the readers understand. the rendering of han dai, for instance, needs

33、 to be taken into consideration. it should be put like thishan dai, one of the dynasties in chinese history, dating back to two thousand years ago. in this way, the readers, for instance, the foreign readers in particular, can have an access to the knowledge of the ancient china. otherwise, they ten

34、d to have no idea of what it is all about han dai. nidas famous example (1969:4)of “white as snow” being translated as“ white as the feathers of ”whatever bird happens to be readily accessible in the target culture lies at the boundary between connotational presuppositions of “good/bad” etc. and the

35、 presuppositions associated with definite descriptions, which probably form the vast bulk of the problems a translator is called on to deal with, and which take the problem of presuppositional meaning across the border between lexicon and encyclopedia. therefore, enormous attention is required to be

36、 paid to and much emphasis is needed to be put on. on another hand, as far as the function of the context is concerned, we should take the contextual elements into consideration. we cannot tell the rendering of “tom broke the window.” in a sense, it, presuppositionally speaking, can be put into seve

37、ral kinds of renderings. the first one “it is tom who breaks the window”, which puts much stress on the actor. the second one “tom broke the window instead of throwing, smashing, and pounding.” which tremendously stresses the action style. the third one “tom broke the window but not the bowl, chair

38、and vase.” which lays plenty of emphasis on the action receiver. thereinafter, it accounts for the considerable importance of presupposition in translation. 5. the theme and rheme in translation the application of the theme and rheme, especially in keeping the text going on smoothly and inherently,

39、will help the translators a lot in analyzing the discourse (text). to be more specific, it is instrumental in telling the linguistic themes and rhemes. linguistically speaking, sentences fall into two parts-theme and rheme. the former is the starting point of the following contents, the non-linguist

40、ic subject to be described, and the foundation to the following words, and the latter is to narrate, describe and explain the former. a given text consists of the change and the transfer between the theme and rheme. in a word, it is termed thematic progression. in the process of translation, it helps a translator accurately and infallibly organizes the rendering for the sake of the understanding of the readers. then, the passage