第三章 直译与意译

第三章直译与意译

LiteralTranslationandFreeTranslation

Theso-calledliteraltranslation,generallyspeaking,means“nottoaltertheoriginalwordsandsentences”;strictlyspeaking,itstrives“tokeepthesentimentsandstyleoftheoriginal”.Ittakessentencesasitsbasicunitsandtakesthewholetextintoconsiderationatthesametimeinthecourseoftranslation.Furthermore,itstrivestoreproduceboththeideologicalcontentandthestyleoftheoriginalworksandretainsasmuchaspossiblethefiguresofspeech.Forexample,theconceptof“death”maybeexpressedasfollows:breatheone’slast（断气）,gotoone’seternalrest（安息），thelongsleep（长眠）,passaway（去世），seeGod（见上帝）,seeMarx（见马克思），seeone’sancestors（见祖先）,gowest(归西)，gotoheaven（进天国），kickthebucket（蹬腿儿了）…etc.Actually,quitealotofsuccessfulliteraltranslationshavebeenadoptedasidiomaticChineseexpressions.Forexample,crocodiletears（鳄鱼的眼泪）,bearmedtotheteeth（武装到牙齿），chainreaction（连锁反应）,gentlemen’sagreement（君子协定），andsoon.Similarly,someChinesewordsandexpressionsmayalsofindtheirEnglishcounterpartsthroughliteraltranslation.Forexample,“三教九流”(thethreereligionsandthenineschoolsofthought),“四书五经”（theFourBooksandtheFiveClassics）,“纸老虎”(papertiger),“一国两制”（onecountry,twosystems）,andsoon.Freetranslationisanalternativeapproachwhichisusedmainlytoconveythemeaningandspiritoftheoriginalwithouttryingtoreproduceitssentencepatternsorfiguresofspeech.Thisapproachismostfrequ