Translation of English Idioms into Chinese

English idioms, as the quintessence of the English language, are vivid, terse and comprehensive expressions refined and sanctified through long time use by the native speakers. The nicety understanding and translation of idioms is the important part in translating. In the thesis, though the discussion of the correspondence between English and Chinese idioms, I summarize some methods of translating English idioms into Chinese.     

On Chinese Translation Methods of English Pun

English pun is the humorous of a word to suggest different meanings or applications or of words having the same or nearly the same sound but different meanings. Due to the great discrepancy between English and Chinese in terms of pronunciation, form, sentence structure and ways of expression, the translation of pun into Chinese has been generally thought as untranslatable. Hence, the translator faces great challenges in its Chinese translation. However, puns are not necessarily untranslatable. Six methods are usually employed in English puns’ translation into Chinese.     

Strategies for Translating Chinese Idioms Concerning Food

The development or the spread of any kind of language depends on a certain cultural background.As a part of Chinese culture,idioms are full of Chinese custom,Chinese culture and Chinese thinking style of Chinese people.How do we translate them into English when we encounter such special Chinese expressions,which always appear in the Chinese daily life? It is hard to fix one or two strategies when we translate.During the process of translating Chinese idioms,we may adopt some main translation strategies such as literal translation,free translation,addition and borrowing.     

A Brief Analysis of the Translation of Tang Poem

As is known to all,Tang Poem(TP) reflects the humanities,the place and the people,the political and cultural life of the Tang dynasty.TP must be translated cautiously and detail.Poetry translation may be considered a rivalry between two languages(or even between two cultures) which vies to express the original idea best.That is to say,it is most important to grasp the cultural background in that period before one can study the translation of TP from a cultural perspective.Culture will not fade as time goes by and will not vanish as the world changes.How do TP be translated into English by application of linguistic context analysis? Firstly,the translator should have a thorough understanding of the content and background,and accordingly use various techniques of translation,e.g.Literal translation,free translation,transliteration,etc;furthermore,the style of the original must be given serious consideration.Linguistic context analysis includes phonetic context analysis,syntax context analysis and syntactic context analysis.As for the syntax,as far as syntax is concerned,there are many differences between Chinese and English.Mr.Wang Li points out:"western language is rules-oriented,but Chinese is man-oriented"(Shen Xiaolong.1990:141).As for the syntax,he says:"structure of TP is close-knit and flaws less,which is inflexible,but western grammar isn’t." this theses attempts to analysis how does an English version of a TP embody the style of the original poetic work by using proper syntactical form.     

Literal or Free Translation in English-Chinese Film Translation-A Case Study of Pride and Prejudice

As a method of bridging language and culture, translation has played a significant part in connecting the ideas of people all over the world and accelerating the communication in politics, economy, culture, education, science and technology. China has increased cultural exchanges with many other countries, and a great number of foreign films have flooded into our country. Thus, how to appropriately translate the foreign films becomes an urgent issue. In the process of translating English films to Chinese ones, the translator should use a method to attend to the content of the movie itself, especially recreational artistic features, as well as tremendous differences between English language and Chinese language culture. This paper attempts to compare the different film versions of Pride and Prejudice (edition 1995), and analyzes the examples of literal translation and free translation in order to reveal the difficulty of which translation method to choose in film translation. Thus, based on the comparison, we could get a tentative result that which kind of film version is more accepted by most audiences so that we can provide the film translators some new train of thought.     

Translation of the Culture-loaded Words

The culture-loaded words are a special vocabulary of all kinds of language.And its translation has been one of the most difficult problems in the academic field.When culture-loaded words are being translated from the source language into the target language,the translator should have a clear knowledge of the differences in understanding the same culture-loaded word of both the source language reader and the target language reader.This paper deals with strategies for optimizing the translation of culture-loaded words,especially translating Chinese culture-loaded words into English.Alienation translation favors communicating the characteristics and connotation of Chinese and English culture.     

A Study on Translating English Metaphors into Chinese

The translation of metaphors has been receiving more and more attention.For the differences between Chinese,which is regarded as a contextual language,and English,this paper makes a general introduction of metaphor,and the principle and criteria of translating English metaphors into Chinese.     

Translation of EST-A Constructivist Perspective

In light of the main characteristics of EST texts, this paper uses the constructivism translatology to guide the translation of EST into Chinese. Regarding EST translation as a communication in the field of science and technology, the author adopts the three constructivism translation criteria to evaluate the translation, and draws to the conclusion that constructivist the three constructivist translation criteria could guide effectively the translation of EST.     

A Contrastive Study of Word Order in Chinese and English

The present paper attempts to make a contrastive study on Chinese and English word order with a view of identifying the discrepancies and propose its significance to mutual translation.As to the research methodology,qualitative analysis and com parative analysis are adopted when the similarities and differences of the word order of English and Chinese are explained.It can be concluded that Chinese and English word order differs at the phrase level and sentence level:in terms of the discrepancies in phrase structure,they are mainly manifested in adverbial and attributive phrases;as to the discrepancies in sentence structure,they are reflected in simple,complex and special sentences.     

The Infinitive Functioning As Adverbial

The infinitive is a kind of non-finite forms of the verb. It has partly the character of a verb, partly that of a noun and also that of an adjective and adverb. It shows its verbal character by its capacity of taking the ordinary verb-modifiers, objects and adverbial adjuncts, exhibiting, at least in part, the distinctions of tense and voice. It shows its substantival character by its capacity of filling the same functions in a sentence as an ordinary noun. It can act in the function of adverbial as well as attribute, subject, object, predicative, apposition and so on. In this article, we will only discuss the question about the infinitive used as adverbial.     

The Translation of Brand Names

China’s entry into the WTO and the consequent liberalization of commerce and distribution have dramatically increased competition on the Chinese market. To face the new challenge, both domestic and foreign companies need to build their brand names and reinforce links with their clients in that brand names are an important part of the products in advertisement, the first thing about a product the potential buyers remember is perhaps its brand name. This article tries to survey on the translation of the brand names of the export products by domestic companies from two aspects: the principles and the methods.     

Chinese Learners’ Pragmatic Failure in Communication with English Native Speakers

Chinese Learners’ pragmatic failure can be divided into pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure.Pragmalinguistic failure stems from inappropriate pragmalinguistic transfer and teaching-induced errors.Sociopragmatic failure is mainly caused by cross-cultural differences in the assessment of such socio-cultural variables as size of imposition and social distance,and also by the deviation from rules of speaking.Inappropriate teaching materials are also an important cause of Chinese learners’ sociopragmatic failure.     

Norms in the Translation of Chinese Film Titles

A film title is an essential part of a film.Compared with the translation of book titles and news headings,film title translation has been received far less attention,especially the rendering of Chinese film titles into English versions.Therefore,the thesis aims to study Chinese film title translation in the framework of norm theory and investigate the strategies adopted by translators.     

The Translation of the Fuzzy Numerals in A Dream of Red Mansions

In this thesis,we will discuss the translation of the fuzzy language in A Dream of Red Mansions from Chinese into English according to Yang Xian-Yi's translation.The paper focuses on discussing the translation different kinds of fuzzy numerals,which can be rendered into round numerals,and the other two are numerals in juxtaposition and numerals in idioms.     

A Comparative Study on English and Chinese Puns

Pun is a usual figure of speech in English and Chinese.Pun,as a common rhetoric,can enrich language expressions,enforce the effect of language.In everyday life,in communication and literature works is widely used.Puns in English and Chinese have much in common in the formation,ways of expressions,functions.However,as languages and culture differ,there are some differences between them.The translation between English and Chinese puns is considered most challenging in the field of translation.This thesis tries to talk about some practical translation methods of puns.     

Problems in C-E Translation of Company Profiles from the Perspective of Linguistic and Cultural Differences Between Chinese and English and Counter Measures

Company profile, as an important propaganda media, plays a crucial role in the growth of Chinese companies and their expansion into the international market. By making comparison between Chinese company profiles and English company profiles in diction, syntax features, passage features, thought patterns and culture, and analyzing C-E translation errors in the company profiles, the writer expect to offer targeted measures to improve the C-E company profiles of Chinese enterprises. To improve the C- E translation of Chinese enterprises, translators need to focus on the following things: the absorbing of source language text, enough communication with people from different cultures and comparative study of Chinese and English.     

Translation of Lexical Stylistic Devices from English to Chinese in Commercial Advertisements

With rapid development of China,a growing number of foreign products are entering the Chinese market.An excellent translation of a product’s advertisement from English to Chinese undoubtedly contributes to its successful promotion in the Chinese market.Although the translation practice contains multiple difficulties,the translation of lexical stylistic devices is a big challenge for translators.It is not simply because lexical stylistic devices are diverse and various in form,but also because most devices involve linguistic and cultural differences between English and Chinese.This thesis analyzed a number of current English to Chinese translations of the devices in commercial advertisements,which mainly come from two translation scholars’works and official websites of world-known brands.By analyzing the selected data,seven translation strategies are found to be the major translation strategies in this respect,namely literal translation,free translation,flexible translation,extended translation,adaptation translation,compensation translation and amplification translation strategies.Moreover,a number of linguistic and cultural issues which need to be considered by translators are also illustrated here.     

Transformation: Establishment of Chinese-American Identity

In Pangs of Love by David Wong Louie, the identity of Chinese immigrants in America is as fluid and unstable as the perfume Musk 838. The Chinese-born mom harbors deep love for China. Though living in America for forty years, she is still persisting in the Chinese tradition while her American-born sons, on the contrary, are trying to integrate into American life, seemingly ignoring the Chinese origin. By looking at the ideological difference under the Chinese and American historical context, this paper aims to reveal that translating the past, old, what’s Chinese into something meaningful to the present, the new and the reality makes it possible that the first-generation integrates into American culture and the second-generation understands Chinese tradition. It illuminates the ways for possible transformation and demonstrates the possibility to establish a Chinese-American identity to transcend the pangs for embracing each other.     

Universal Semantics in Translation

What and how we translate are questions often argued about. No matter what kind of answers one may give, priority in translation should be granted to meaning, especially those meanings that exist in all concerned languages. This research defines them as universal sememes, and the study of them as universal semantics, of which applications are also briefly looked into.     

Study on C-E Translation of Advertisements Based on Relevance Theory

The main errors in translating Chinese advertisements into English are pragmatic failures in which target-language readers fail to find the optimal relevance between the target text and source text.The translation strategies proposed under the guidance of Relevance Theory can effectively help translators find out optimal relevance in the process of translating Chinese advertisements into English to avoid pragmatic failures.