论增减法在英汉-汉英翻译中的作用

1、南京邮电大学毕 业 论 文题 目专 业英语学生姓名班级学号指导教师指导单位英语系 日期：201 年 3 月 15 日至 201 年 6 月 18日南京邮电大学2012届本科毕业生论文AcknowledgementsI would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude to those who supported me during this study and the whole university life.Deep gratitude is owed to my supervisor, Mr. Yu

2、an Zhoumin, who has spent much of his precious time in offering valuable advice and guidance in my writing. Had he not devoted his painstaking efforts to reading patiently each draft and making critical comments, the completion of this thesis would have been impossible. I am also indebted to all the

3、 teachers in School of Foreign Languages who have taught me and whose inspiring lectures have had an undoubted influence on me. I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the authors whose words I have cited or quoted and whose researches are used as my references.Last, my thanks would go to m

4、y family members, especially my mother, for their love and great confidence in me all through these years. I also owe my sincere gratitude to my best friends Tian Yuanqu and Song Qingqin, who always gave me their support and helped me work out my problems during the difficult time in both my study a

5、nd personal life during the past four years.AbstractWith the development of China, the cross-cultural communication is more and more familiar. Translation plays an important role in international area for improving the communication of countries. Chinese and English have great differences reflected

6、in languages, philosophical traditions and even thinking modes. Owing to those differences, it brings some obstacles to both C-E and E-C translation. During translation, it is necessary to adopt some necessary techniques such as addition and omission to satisfy functional equivalence. Through compar

7、ison of Chinese and English from the aspects of essence difference, philosophical traditions and thinking modes, the author deals with the application of addition and omission to C-E and E-C translation respectively. There are various types of addition. In C-E translation, this thesis focuses on add

8、ition of grammatical words and cultural background, while in E-C translation, addition because of grammar and semantic meanings are analyzed. Omission also has different types. In C-E translation, the author describes two types: omission because of avoiding repetition and omission because of grammat

9、ical requirement. In E-C translation, omission of grammatical words and omission of redundant part are frequently used to achieve the effect of succinctness.The study is an analysis of addition and omission, which can bring about some positive effects to the academic writings of different translatio

10、n techniques. And it can guide some translators in their translation.Key Words: translation; differences; addition; omission 摘 要随着中国的不断发展，跨文化交流越来越频繁，而翻译在各国的交流中充当着非常重要的角色。汉语和英语在本质特征、哲学传统甚至思维方式上都有着很大的不同。正因为这些不同，在英汉互译的过程中出现了种种困难，因此采用一些翻译技巧是非常有必要的，例如增词法和减词法。通过对汉语和英语在本质特征、哲学传统以及思维方式方面的对比，本文主要围绕着增词法和减词法在英

11、汉互译中的应用而展开。增词法有很多类型。在汉英翻译中，本文主要分析了增加语法词汇以及文化背景两种类型。而在英汉翻译中，由于语法及语义的增词是很常见的。减词法也有着很多类型。在汉英翻译中，本文聚焦于两种类型：由于重复及语法需要的减词。在英汉翻译中，语法词汇及冗长部分的删减也有利于达到简介的效果。本文致力于分析增词法和减词法的应用，希望可以给不同翻译技巧的学术写作起到积极的影响，同时也能在翻译过程中知道译者。关键词：翻译；区别；增词法；减词法ContentsAcknowledgements. Abstract (English).Abstract (Chinese).Contents.Chapte

12、r 1 Introduction11.1 Object of the Thesis11.2 Significance of the Thesis11.2 Structure of the Thesis2Chapter 2 Comparison between Chinese and English32.1 Essence Difference of Chinese and English32.2 Difference in Philosophical Tradition42.3 Difference in Thinking Modes5Chapter 3 Addition of Words i

13、n C-E and E-C Translation73.1 Addition of Words in C-E translation73.1.1 Addition of Grammatical Words73.1.2 Addition of Cultural Background Information93.2 Addition of Words in E-C Translation103.2.1 Addition Because of Grammar103.2.2 Addition Because of Semantic Meaning11Chapter 4 Omission of Word

14、s in C-E and E-C Translation134.1 Omission of Words in C-E Translation134.1.1 Omission Because of Avoiding Repetition134.1.2 Omission Because of Grammatical Requirement144.2 Omission of Words in E-C Translation164.2.1 Omission of Grammatical Words164.2.2 Omission of Redundant Part17Chapter 5 Conclus

15、ion18Bibliography1915The Application of Addition and Omission to Chinese-English and English-Chinese TranslationChapter 1 IntroductionWith the development of globalization, the international communication becomes more and more familiar. The connection between China and other countries is closer, so

16、translation has a direct influence on many aspects, such as business and politics. However, Chinese and English are two complete different languages, so only by using effective techniques can each party understand each other well. In this part, the author tries to analyze the object, significance an

17、d structure of this thesis.1.1 Object of the ThesisAs it is known, Chinese and English are two completely different languages. In Chinese, clauses and sentences are placed without coordinating connections, while in English, they are combined with one another syntactically; Chinese is topic-prominent

18、 whereas English focuses on the “subject” in a sentence; Chinese sentences are usually active and passive voice is used commonly in English; Chinese uses more repetition than English. There are also many other differences between the two languages. It even leads to the differences of philosophical t

19、raditions and thinking modes. Just because of these differences, translation between the two languages is very difficult and some techniques such as addition and omission have to be used in order to ensure the success. This thesis aims to analyze the application of addition and omission to translati

20、on by comparing Chinese and English from the aspects of essence difference, philosophical traditions and thinking modes. 1.2 Significance of the ThesisStarted from the 1950s, the international academic translation field has received great achievements, but it has neglected the research of translatio

21、n history and subject methodology. In order to promote the real progress of translation, description and analysis from various perspectives are needed. This thesis tries to analyze the application of addition and omission by using the method of comparison. It has significance to the future study to

22、some extent.On one hand, it may be beneficial to ones academic writing and show the differences of Chinese and English comprehensively. On the other hand, it is helpful to ones practical translation by analyzing the technique of addition and omission. 1.2 Structure of the ThesisBased on the comparis

23、on of the essence, the philosophical traditions and thinking modes of Chinese and English, this thesis aims to show the application of addition and omission to the translation. It is divided into six chapters. The first chapter is the introduction containing the object, significance and structure of

24、 this thesis. The second chapter is the comparison of the two languages, the philosophical traditions and thinking modes. The third chapter analyzes the features and structural differences of formal styles. The fourth chapter focuses on the application of addition and omission in Chinese-English and

25、 English-Chinese translation. The fifth chapter describes the theoretical significances and practical significances of addition and omission. The last chapter is the conclusion, which summarizes the previous study.Chapter 2 Comparison between Chinese and EnglishThrough contrast and comparison betwee

26、n Chinese and English, readers can have a better understanding towards the differences and connections. Knowing these differences and connections can help translators do better during the process of translation. In this part, it will list some differences between Chinese and English in the essence,

27、philosophical traditions and thinking modes. All of them affect on the success of translation.2.1 Essence Difference of Chinese and EnglishChinese and English are two languages which have lots of differences. In linguistic typology, languages can be divided into various types such as analytic langua

28、ge, agglutinative language, inflectional language and synthetic language. The essential difference between Chinese and English is that the previous one is the typical analytic language, while the later one is a kind of synthetic-analytic language.According to the Random House College Dictionary, the

29、 analytic language is “characterized by a relatively frequent use of function words, auxiliary verbs, and changes in word order to express syntactic relations, rather than of inflected forms.” (Jess, 1975: 107) Chinese is a typical analytic language, which makes great use of word order and function

30、words to show the grammatical relationships. In modern Chinese, if some words such as “学习”, “政治”, “危险” are seen separately, it is hard to judge their lexical categories. For example, in the two phrases“政治学习” and “学习政治”, the previous “学习” is a noun, while the later one is a verb. Thus, word order can

31、 be treated as one of the most important methods to reflect grammatical relationships. In Websters Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, the syntactic language is “characterized by frequent and systematic use of inflected forms to express grammatical relationships.” (1983: 326) Modern English is changed

32、from old English, thus it remains some features of syntactic language, for example, the grammatical categories are identified separately in English; finite verb is the core of a sentence; and so on. At the same time, English still has features of analytic language, such as its inflected forms are no

33、t as complex as the typical syntactic languages. Besides, in English, the word order is relatively fixed and there are also many function words. Therefore, English is one kind of syntactic-analytic language.The essential difference between English and Chinese is that they belong into different langu

34、age types. Because of this difference, English and Chinese present distinct features. It even leads to differences of philosophical traditions and thinking modes, which can be treated as the most important factors affecting the translation.2.2 Difference in Philosophical Tradition Philosophy is defi

35、ned as “the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind and language.” (Grayling, 1998: 1) From the definition, it is easy to see that philosophy contains lots of things. As the carrier of culture, language shows various philosop

36、hical traditions. In other words, these philosophical traditions make a great difference in the use, the constitution and the translation of languages.The philosophical concept of “Mans Unity with Heaven” is deeply rooted in Chinese traditional culture. Ancient Chinese philosophers always advocated

37、the oneness, that is, the objective world and the subjective world are contained in a unity. Therefore, Chinese people preserve an image integrated with the nature, and regard human beings as just another form of the physical world, not in opposition to it. Under such circumstance, Chinese people ge

38、t used to treating the universe as a unity and understand a thing as a whole although it is made up of many parts. They put emphasis on the integrity and unity of the nature and the human society, that is to say, they emphasize the general relation of the integral concepts and the universal connecti

39、on of objects, regarding man, nature, individual and society as an inalienable, mutual and influential organic whole, and using dialectic means to understand the harmony of the diversification and the unity of the opposites. In western philosophy, analytical thinking is highly respected. Westerners

40、tend to understand a thing on the basis of all its parts being analyzed. Their analytical thinking makes them analyze one thing from the part to the whole, emphasize individual independence and divide the unified world into two parts, such as material and spirit, man and nature, content and form. Th

41、ey respectively study these various parts from the whole. The division between man and the nature and the bias against the wilderness has been a long tradition in their culture. Due to the influence of traditional culture, westerners are well developed in cognition and analytical thinking.Because of

42、 different philosophical tradition, Chinese and English present distinct features. In Chinese, clauses and sentences are composed without coordinating connectives. In other words, Chinese emphasizes parataxis. Parataxis is “the arranging of clauses one after the other without connectives showing the

43、 relation between them.” (Lian, 1993: 48) However, clauses and sentences are coordinated with one another syntactically in English. In other words, English stresses hypotaxis which means “the dependent or subordinate construction or relationship of clauses with connectives.” (Lian, 48) Parataxis and

44、 hypotaxis are two different organizational characteristics and have their profound philosophical traditions. For example:Chinese: 真是太荒唐了！English: Its utterly absurd.In Chinese, the above sentence is with no subject, while if it is translated to English, the subject has to be added. Because of parat

45、axis, Chinese does not center on a predicate and its subject can be omitted, while, because of hypotaxis, the subject is an indispensable part in English. There are five basic sentence structures: SV, SVC, SVO, SVOO, and SVOC. It can be concluded that English is subject-prominent. In conclusion, Chi

46、nese people focus on the perceptual experiences, whereas Western people believe in a reasonable world. The different philosophical tradition leads to various expressions in Chinese and English.2.3 Difference in Thinking ModesTo some degree, thinking mode is connected with the culture and philosophic

47、al tradition. Existing different natural and social environments, languages reflects specific thinking modes respectively. Translation includes not only language activities, but also thinking modes.Traditionally, Chinese people treat man as the center of the universe. Since the ancient time, Chinese

48、 language has been of human centered in essence, in which humanities spirit is highly valued. It gives birth to the formation of subjective thinking mode. In addition, Chinese think that knowing self is equal to knowing the nature or the law of universe. They believe man looks at the world from the

49、perspective of themselves, so they observe, analyze, and study objective things with human being as the center. In contrast to Chinese culture, Western people pay more attention to the objects and items. They regard the nature as the cognitive object and think that only by knowing the nature can man

50、 grasp, probe into and conquer the nature. Thus, they gradually form the objective thinking mode. The different thinking modes are reflected in the two languages. Chinese sentences often center on themes, but the actor is human. On contrary, English often uses impersonal sentences and passive voice.

51、 The subject is always the objective and abstract nouns to highlight its objective and impartiality.Chinese tend to be indirect and they always use rhetorical devices such as metaphor, analogy to develop their opinions. Then they may go back to the topic or intentionally refer to the history or some

52、thing else to conceal the theme. Therefore, Chinese are regarded to have circular thinking which is characterized by circumlocution, in other words, it is not starting opinions directly or frankly. In contrast to Chinese people, Western people are used to talking the topic at the beginning so as to

53、attract the attention of listeners or readers, so their thinking is linear thinking which is characterized by speaking of ones opinions directly and without reservation. Thinking mode is the bridge of communication on language and culture. Different nations have different thinking modes. For Chinese

54、, they form a kind of subjective and circular thinking modes. In contrast, Western people cultivate objective and linear thinking mode. The different thinking modes increase the difficulty of translation and communication. Chapter 3 Addition of Words in C-E and E-C TranslationFamous translator Eugen

55、e Albert Nida once said that: “Translation is translating meaning.” (1982: 1) Because of various differences between Chinese and English, the translation needs to make some adjustments in the source language in order to convey the right information. Addition is one of the most common skills used in

56、translation, which means supplying necessary words in translation on the basis of accurate comprehension of the source text. A translator cant add any meaning or to subtract any meaning from the source text, but it does not mean that supplying necessary words is forbidden. On the contrary, addition

57、is an effective technique to remain the “faithful representation”. In this chapter, the author will deal with addition as technique of adjustment in C-E and E-C translation respectively. According to previous studies, Chinese and English own different features, philosophical traditions and reflect d

58、istinct thinking modes. Therefore, addition used in C-E translation and E-C translation have some differences to some extent.3.1 Addition of Words in C-E translationMany types of addition may be incorporated into a translation. In C-E translation, addition of grammatical words and cultural background can be included.3.1.1 Addition of Grammatical Words According to previous chapters, Chinese is a typical analytic language and