英译汉的实例分析看英汉思维方式差异

1、Abstract Due to different cultures, English and Chinese people have formed their own modes of thought, which influence their living ways greatly, especially their own languages.  Mode of thought is a very complicated abstract conception connected closely to philosophy.  In this paper I wil

2、l mainly concern on English individualism and Chinese entirety, because their difference is the most distinct one existing in modes of thought.  English people prefer individualism, which leads them to subordinate the recognized objects into small parts.  While Chinese people like entirety

3、, they prefer to take the world as a whole.  Thinking patterns have been clearly reflected on languages, as a result of which English is hypotactic and Chinese is paratactic.  This paper centers on the differences of hypotactic and paratactic characteristics in languages and their forming

4、reasonsmodes of thought.  English people prefers to make good use of the hypotactic markers to link the sentence components, while Chinese usually try to understand the world by their own intuition.  In this paper the differences are explained through English-Chinese translation and the st

5、atistics are also given to prove them.  Key Words comparison; mode of thought; languages; English; Chinese从英译汉的实例分析看英汉思维方式差异摘 要 根源于不同的文化渊源,英汉两族人民形成了他们各自的思维模式。这种思维模式的差异深深地影响了他们的各种生活方式, 尤其体现在语言上。思维模式是一个非常复杂抽象的概念,与哲学密切相关。在这篇论文中我将主要阐释英民族的个体性思维和汉民族的整体性思维,因为它们之间的差异是思维模式中最突出的一面。英民族偏爱个体性思维,这使他们在认识世界时惯于

6、将认知对象划分为小个体。然而,汉民族偏爱整体性思维,将世界看成一个整体。语言深刻地反映了思维模式的这种差异,因此就形成了英语的形合特征和汉语的意合特征。这篇论文侧重阐述语言中的形合和意合特征以及它们各种的形成原因-思维模式。英语民族的人民惯于利用形合标志连接句子成分,而汉民族却常常应用自身的直觉来体会世界。这篇论文将通过英译汉的翻译和统计数据来证实此观点。关 键 词 英汉思维；对比；语言；英语；汉语1. IntroductionThe famous Whorf hypothesis thinks that languages have determining effects on modes

7、of thought, which is formed relatively to languages and different languages will bring on different thinking patterns.1p35  Liu Miqing(刘宓庆) holds the opinion that modes of thought has controlled over languages 2p35, and languages are the concrete manifestation of modes of thought.  In my o

8、pinion, modes of thought decide the use of languages, and the reasons how languages are influenced by modes of thought should be examined from their relationship.Modes of thought and languages influence and reflect each other closely.  “Thinking patterns, thought characteristics and thinking st

9、yles are the philosophical mechanism of language production.  Language actually attaches closely to the thought that is the profound mechanism.”3 p166   Thinking patterns are the deep-rooted mechanism of the forming and developing of languages, and on the other hand languages help to

10、promote the forming and developing of modes of thought.   Language is the carrier of thinking and abstraction of reality, and mode of thought is the conscious activity in which people's minds reflect and realize the objective reality.4p36  The differences between thinking patterns

11、 are the main reasons that result in the differences of language forms, so I think the study of the features, the transition and the relationship of languages should be started with the study of modes of thought which connect closely with the cultures and the languages.  English-Chinese modes o

12、f thought have their own characteristics in thinking core, thinking pattern, cognition habits and thinking principles.  As a tool for communication the basic attribute of English and Chinese are the same, so there are many similarities during the description and thinking with the two languages.

13、  But because of the influence of their own cultures, there are many differences between the two languages, and based on different comparison foundation there are many different kinds of results.In this paper English-Chinese translation will be given and analyzed in details in order to understa

14、nd the differences of the modes of thought between English and Chinese through their language manifestations.  Statistics will be given to explain the differences of English and Chinese, which is the foundation for my analyzing of the differences of their own thinking patterns.  As we know

15、, there are many differences between the two languages, such as hypotaxis and parataxis, passive and active, static and dynamic, imperson and person.  But in this passage, I will only mainly discuss from one point which is hypotaxis and parataxis.  As Nida states in his book that study fro

16、m linguistics, the most important different characteristic between Chinese and English is the difference of parataxis and hypotaxis.5P13  LiuMiqing holds the opinion that hypotaxis and parataxis are the “unique characteristic” for English and Chinese.6P13   The comparison of the diffe

17、rence will be described through statistical description and the deep-rooted reasons of thinking patterns will also be given to explain the forming of the language difference.2. The example of the English to Chinese translation2.1 English originalWe know that clean energy technologies have great appe

18、al to the developing world beyond the value we in the developed world attach to their capacity to limit climate change.  Africa, for example, barely accounts for 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions.  Its not surprising then that our partners on this continent are more concerned with the

19、development potential of sustainable energy.  The price volatility of Africas hydrocarbon imports has played havoc with each states economy over recent decades and stymied progress.   REEEP (Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership)s support for proven renewable technologies

20、, such as solar water heating and co-generation -which of course rely on local products which dont need to be imported-will greatly increase the reliability of Africas energy supply, and thereby help spur development.The creating of a more even distribution of energy supply will, in turn, fuel new e

21、mployment and commercial opportunities, particularly in rural areas.  Renewable sources then will help to address the social inequality across the globe that we see in the currently marked and unacceptable difference between rich and poor nations in terms of access to and use of energy supplies

22、. 7P2692.2 The Chinese translation清洁性能源技术因为能够缓解气候变化而受到我们发达国家的青睐。同样，这种技术对发展中国家也有巨大的吸引力，但其价值却不止于此。例如，非洲的温室效应排放量勉强占世界总量的1%。因此，我们在本大陆的伙伴更加关注可持续性能源的发展潜能也就不足为奇了。最近几十年来非洲烃进口价格的不稳定性已经给各国经济造成了巨大破坏并妨碍了发展。再生性能源与能源效率合作组织（PEEEP）对已证实的再生性能源技术的资助，如太阳能热水器和热电联产技术当然，这只依赖本地产品，不必进口将大大增加非洲能源供应的可靠性，从而促进发展。   反过来

23、，建立更均衡的能源供应可以提供新的就业和商业机会，尤其是在农村地区。在能源供应的选择与使用方面，我们看到富国与贫国之间存在着今人难以接受的显著差距，再生性能源将有助于消除这种全球性的社会不公。8P274-2753. The main aspect of the differences -hypotaxis and parataxis  Resulted from different thinking patterns there are so many different characteristics between English and Chinese. 

24、The complete study of the language characteristics surely will require many effects and time, so based on my own limited knowledge, I will only try to explain the characteristics of hypotaxis and parataxis and their forming results.In my own opinion the characteristics of hypotaxis and parataxis are

25、 the most important differences, and the analysis of them can let us better understand the two languages and their own modes of thought.3.1 The definitions of the two concepts    The differences of hypotaxis and parataxis should be examined based on the theory, and next I will first g

26、ive a description of their concepts and combine them to the English-Chinese translation analyzing some sentences in details.3.1.1 The definition of hypotaxis     The so called hypotaxis refers to the case that the component parts of a sentence are joined together by using definit

27、e connectives, such as preposition, relative pronouns, conjunction, affixes, etc.9P353.1.2 The definition of parataxisParataxis means that the component parts of the sentence are placed in a definite order to indicate their relationship without any connectives in between.  So, the syntactic str

28、ucture appears to be somewhat loose, but rather concise and expressive. 10P363.2 Example  (1) English original: We know that clean energy technologies have great appeal to the developing world beyond the value we in the developed world attach to their capacity to limit climate change. 

29、0;   Chinese version: 清洁性能源技术因为能够缓解气候变化而受到我们发达国家的青睐。同样，这种技术对发展中国家也有巨大的吸引力，但其价值却不止于此。3.3 The analysis based on this exampleIn this example the words in the italics are the markers of hypotaxis.   From the sentences we can see that there are nine hypotactic markers in the English v

30、ersion, while in its Chinese version only five markers.  The connective “that”is the marker of objective clause to show that the clause after “that” is what “We know”, but in its Chinese version the phrase “We know that” is not translated literally.   In English the phrase “We know th

31、at” is the hypotactic marker to show that what stated later is the common knowledge for us, and what the author want to say should be marked in the language forms.  While in Chinese the phrase is not needed to be translated because Chinese is a kind of paratactic language and it places the emph

32、asis on logical procedure, function and meaning.  In Chinese sense overweigh structure, so the readers can understand the meanings by themselves.Also there are four propositions in the English original version, which show the relationship between the phrases before and after these propositions.

33、   While in Chinese version there are only one proposition, which is “ 对”.    What is more, the “-ing” and “-ed” are also the hypotactic markers, which show the different degree of the states making the relationship between the components very clear, while in Chinese there i

34、s not any this kind of affixes to show their relationship.3.4 The description of the two concepts in more detailsJia Dejiang (贾德江) states in his book of English- Chinese comparative study and translation that the cohesive ties including three kinds, which are: relative words and conjunctions, prepos

35、itions and other means to show the changing of the language forms. 10p78And next I will give a simple classification to the hypotactic markers in order to better analyze the translation.3.4.1 The relative words and conjunction wordsThe relative words including relative pronoun, relative adverb, conn

36、ective pronoun and connective adverb such as: who, whom, whose, that, which, what, when, where, why, how etc.  They are used to connect principal subjective clause and attributive clause, subjective clause, objective clause and predicative clause.The conjunction words include coordinative and s

37、ubordinate conjunction such as: and, or, but, while, as, since, until, sothat, unless, lest etc. which are used to connect words, phrases, and clause.  When we are writing English sentences, these conjunction words are commonly used and cannot be neglected.  But in Chinese these words are

38、seldom used. 11 p102 (2) Example two:English original: Its not surprising then that our partners on this continent are more concerned with the development potential of sustainable energy.  Chinese version: 因此，我们在本大陆的伙伴更加关注可持续性能源的发展潜能也就不足为奇了。The English version belongs to the “It + be” sentence

39、structure.   According to the Cardiff Grammar by Huang Guowen(黄国文)and Fawcett, this kind of sentence structure is called “enhanced theme construction”.12 p27According to what is stated by Peng Xuanwei (彭宣维), there are three kinds of enhanced theme construction.  “there are three kinds

40、 of enhanced theme construction, which are experiential, evaluative and existential”.  “ the so called experiential is the cleft sentences，which is called predicated themes by Halliday” 13p27So according to the theory above I think the phrase “It is” is not the thematic build-up.  

41、60; Besides “it” is also a typical hypotactic marker in English, which stands for subjective clause.  In English such kind of sentences is commonly used for their special functions.   Such structure can avoid presenting all the important massage at the beginning of the passage, and it

42、 takes the function to make the sentence better understood.The conjunction word “then” after “not surprising” is the second hypotactic marker in the sentence, which means “so” in the sentence.  It is rightly translated to “ 因此 ” to show the close relationship between this sentence and the follo

43、wing ones.  In Chinese the word“ 因此 ” is used to be the first word in the sentence ,which clearly predicate its relationship with the content above.The word“that” is the third hypotactic marker that follows.   “not surprising” is the identified, so the word “that” clearly marks that t

44、he content after it will be the object that the identifier refers to.   As for the Chinese version though it is a kind of paratactic language, there are also many hypotactic markers in the first paragraph.  I think the reason is that the passage selected is scientific exposition inste

45、ad of essay.  We know that in scientific exposition the logic is required strictly, for the authors should clearly state the relationship between the details.        Below I will select a short sentence from an essay to show the paratactic characteristics of C

46、hinese.(3) For example:                                              &

47、#160;      Chinese original: 不必说碧绿的菜畦，光滑的石井栏，高大的皂荚树，紫红的桑葚English version:I need not speak of the green vegetable plots, the slippery stone coping round the well, the tall honey locust trees, or the purple mulberries.14p154From the comparison between the Chinese sentence and

48、its translation, we can also see the features of parataxis and hypotaxis.  In Chinese, there are no conjunctions, and phases are connected by meanings.For its English translation, with the use of hypotaxis, subject structures are decided to be the center of sentence pattern, so “I”, the subject

49、, is added.  So we may see from the example that for Chinese parallel structures their paratactic meaning can be translated into hypotactic connection according to the English habits.From the comparison above we may see that English and Chinese form different sentence structures.  When mak

50、ing sentences, Chinese people prefer the method of taxis, while western people prefer construction method.   In English sentences, many conjunction words are used to link sentence components around the subject and predicate, so we may see the sentences are expended from the core words.

51、0;  From this we may see that Chinese is a paratactic language that contains many implied meanings between the lines.  Only in simple sentences can the author express abundant meanings with artistic conceptions.3.4.2 PrepositionThe preposition includes simple ones such as: with, in, of etc

52、. and the compound ones such as: inside, onto, upon, within etc. and phrasal preposition such as: according to, along with and apart from etc.  According to the statistic by G. Curme there are about 286 prepositions in English totally.  Preposition is the most active word class in English

53、language, which is the main means to connect the words, phrases and clauses. 15102R.Bander has pointed out that “Over ninety percent of preposition usage involves these nine preposit-16102 The number of preposition in this translation is as followings: the first paragraph  the second parag

54、raphNO. in English                20                  12NO. in Chinese           

55、0;    4                   4So from the table above we may see that there are totally 32 prepositions in English to show the slight relationships, which are more than that in Chinese.But in the Ch

56、inese version there are only 8 prepositions, most of which are transferred from verbs.    Gao Mingkai(高名凯) once pointed out that the Chinese people dont like to use too many empty words without basic meanings, and they just dispose of the things and meanings in order to lead the reade

57、rs to understand the connections between them.  Most of the Chinese prepositions are “borrowed” from verbs, and strictly speaking, for the so- called European- oriented preposition indeed most of them are not the truly preposition. 17 p18   As a matter of fact Chinese prepositions are

58、 influenced by western languages and seem to have the characteristic of proposition.   In Chinese some propositions are originally verbs such as “ 在”、“向”、“进”、“到”、“沿”、“拿 ” etc.  These propositions are always omitted especially in spoken language.     (4) For example

59、:English original:Renewable sources then will help to address the social inequality across the globe that we see in the currently marked and unacceptable difference between rich and poor nations in terms of access to and use of energy supplies.Chinese version:在能源供应的选择与使用方面，我们看到富国与贫国之间存在着今人难以接受的显著差距，

60、再生性能源将有助于消除这种全球性的社会不公。   In the English original the prepositions are :to, across, in, between, in, of, to and of one by one, while for the Chinese version there are only three prepositions, which are 在 方面, 与之间, 于.   Prepositions - the hypotactic markers which are more commonly u

61、sed in English can be clearly seen from this comparison example. But this doesnt mean that the Chinese people speak without logical reasons, for without the proposition we can also understand the meaning implied in them.   In the Chinese version without any conjunctions and many prepositio

62、ns the author only simply connects three phrases without any hypotactic mark between them, but we can also fully understand what the author wants to express, for the reason that Chinese is a kind of paratactic language.3.4.3 Other connective means The third classification of so-called other connecti

63、ve means refers to morphological changing forms, such as the morphological changing forms of affix, gender, number, style, tense, voice, comparative form and personal pronoun. etc. 18104(5) For example:English original:The price volatility of Africas hydrocarbon imports has played havoc with each states economy