试论英语文学著作难句汉译法研究,英语文学论文

Chapter 1 Introduction

Among all translations of different types of writing, the literary translation, so tospeak, has the highest degree of difficulty. A qualified literary translator needs not onlythe solid basic skill of bilingualism, but also the acquirement and flexible applicationof general knowledge of translation techniques. In the process of translating literaryworks, translators have often agonized over how to deal with different kinds ofdifficult sentences. A difficult sentence often has complex structure and vaguesemantic meaning, so it is difficult to find a corresponding translation havingconsistent style, faithful semantic meaning and is also up to the standard of the targetlanguage. Sometimes when it comes to difficult sentences, people would think of longsentences immediately. That’s right, long sentences with complex structures areannoying and daunting, but some sentences with only simple words or structures leavetranslators with nowhere to start.Therefore, the translation of difficult sentences is a big problem which needsfurther serious discussion in the research of translation, especially in the research oftranslation techniques. The author has accumulated some experience after she finishedtranslating several chapters of Olive Kitteridge, written by Elizabeth Strout. Closelycombined with the translation experience, this research will have a discussion of somecertain difficult sentences in the text mentioned above. The author will also sum upsome useful and operational translation techniques when dealing with difficult Englishsentences from her own experience. This thesis firstly classifies and analyzes thedifficult sentences appearing in the text, then summarizes language features ofdifferent kinds of difficult sentences, and finally comes up with different translationtechniques with pertinence according to the different features and testifies the rational,practical applicability, operability and repeatability of those translation techniquesthrough rich examples picked up from the text. Thus the perceptual knowledge acquired from the author’s translation practice goes up to the rational knowledge oftranslation techniques.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review

Loads of textbooks and academic works about “how to translate” and “how totranslate well” have been published in recent years. And almost every work would talkabout how to translate difficult sentences. The discussions about translating difficultsentences are involved in all respects, but at the moment the main research angle hasfocused on the analysis of the structure of difficult sentences. For example, WangLinxia (2009) once put forward that we should first figure out the grammar structure ofa sentence, and second find out the central content of the whole sentence and meaningsof every layer, then analyze the mutual logical relations between the layers and finallytranslate the source text correctly in accordance with the features and means ofexpression of Chinese. The form of the translation does not need to be bound by that ofthe source text.Another example is from Zhou Jianjun (2004), who come up with the “Six Steps”and the “Six Approaches” to solve the problem of translating long and difficult Englishsentences into Chinese. The “Six Steps” consists of abstracting the main structure ofsubject-verb-object, analyzing words and phrases, differentiating the principal and thesubordinate, smoothing out levels, adjusting collocation and polishing words andphrases. The first four steps are called “the stage of comprehending”. It means thatthey are carried out to have a full and clear comprehension toward the meaning of thesource sentence, which establishes the foundation for the next move. The last two stepsare called “the stage of expression”. It is to express the understood meaning of theEnglish source sentence into a clear and complete Chinese sentence. After the first foursteps, the translation has entered into the stage of comprehending, which is step fiveand step six. Then depending on the situation, the translator can adopt the “SixApproaches” to translate English into Chinese which is faithful to the source text andalso according with expression custom of Chinese. The “Six Approaches” areembedding, cutting, reversing, splitting-off, inserting and recasting.Lian Shuneng also discussed the translation of long and difficult sentences in hisA Coursebook on English-Chinese Translation written in 2006. He points out thattranslating long and complex English sentences involves not only a mixed applicationof various techniques but also a careful analysis of their grammatical structures andlogical sequences. That is to say, on the one hand, to achieve accurate comprehension a translator should take pains to decode the logical sequence of a long sentence inaddition to its grammatical relation, on the other, to achieve appropriate reproduction atranslator should make no less efforts to rearrange various parts according to theChinese way of thinking than to apply translation techniques, such as Diction,Conversion, Addition, Omission, Repetition, Inversion, Negation, Division, andCondensation. Lian Shuneng also comes up with seven major steps to translate a longand complex sentence。

Chapter 2 Literature Review…………………3

Chapter 3 Types of Difficult Sentences in English Literature………………6

3.1 Semantically Fuzzy Sentences…………....6

3.2 Difficult Sentences Involving Culture-loaded Words…………………8

3.3 Emotion-Attached Sentences………9

Chapter 4 Methods of Translating Difficult Sentences……………………11

4.1 Methods of Translating Semantically Fuzzy Sentences……………….11

Chapter 4 Methods of Translating Difficult Sentences

4.1 Translation Methods of Semantically Fuzzy Sentences
In this chapter, all examples represented are from the novel olive kitteridge (2008),which is a collection of short stories by American author Elizabeth Strout. The bookwon the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2009, and was a finalist for the 2008 NationalBook Critics Circle Award. The author binds together thirteen rich, luminous narrativesinto a book with the heft of a novel, through the presence of one larger-than-life,unforgettable character: Olive Kitteridge. In the novel, it tells stories about Olive andher immediate family and friends in the town of Crosby in coastal Maine.At the edge of the continent, Crosby, Maine, may seem like nowhere, but seenthrough this brilliant writer’s eyes, it’s in essence the whole world, and the lives thatare lived there are filled with all of the grand human drama–desire, despair, jealousy,hope, and love.At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in saddenial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little townand in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those aroundher: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance: a former student who has lost thewill to live: Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities;and Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is broughtto a deeper understanding of herself and her life – sometimes painfully, but alwayswith ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the humancondition--its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.In the following sections, the author would introduce some methods whentranslating three kinds of difficult sentences in the novel Olive Kitteridge. They aresemantically fuzzy sentences, sentences involving culture-loaded words andemotion-attached sentences. Two or three examples after each specific method arepresented. And the Chinese translations below them are all translated by the authorherself.

4.2 Translation Methods of Sentences Involving Culture loadedWords
We can’t find this compound word “wicky-wacky” in any dictionary. From thecontext and after some verification, we know that “wicky” means nothing but only arhyme here. Wicky-wacky means wacky, weird or strange. There is a similar word inEnglish where has a same structure: ticky-tacky, and “ticky” doesn’t mean anythingeither. If we just translate it into “古怪”, “奇怪” , “乖僻”, it would lose its feature inEnglish which two words are the same except the first vowel. It would be better if wealso use a four-character Chinese phrase which also has a similar structure like “怪里怪气”, “奇奇怪怪”. At times people from different cultures approach the same thing from differentperspectives. These differences are reflected in their respective languages and oftenpose barriers for understanding and communication. To ensure smooth communicationbetween cultures, it is necessary to shift the perspectives and find substitutions intranslation. “Kleenex” and “granola” are both famous commercial brands of facial tissue andcereal in America. In China, they are “舒洁牌” and “格兰诺拉牌”, but if we translatethem literarily, many Chinese readers may feel confused. Even if we add “面巾纸” or“燕麦片” after them, it would become unnecessary. Using “facial tissue” to substitute“Kleenex” and “cereal” to substitute “granola” are much better choices.
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Conclusion

It’s pretty new to analyze types of difficult sentences from the point of theauthor’s own translation experience of the novel Olive Kitteridge written by ElizabethStrout. This collection of short stories won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2009, so itslanguage may rank one of the top or be the model in literary works, which made ittypical and repeatable to research the translation of its difficult sentences.By the analysis of the main point of difficult sentences translation, this thesisclassifies difficult sentences in literary works into three types: semantically fuzzysentences from language context aspect, difficult Sentences involving culture-loadedwords from cultural context aspect and emotion-attached sentences from situationalcontext aspect. Combining examples from Olive Kitteridge, the author explains everycorresponding measure in detail toward each type of difficult sentences. Many methodsare suggested in this thesis, such as diction, addition, conversion, substitution and soon.However, the difficulty of translation is not completely covered by these threemethods. And it can’t be denied that the current study on the issue is rather tentativeand deficient, in spite of the fact that the author has attempted to base her argumentson the relevant authoritative theories. To be exact, her research on its types andmethods may not be exhaustive, due to some actual restrictions such as the author’sability, the complexity of translation and the limited time. But the author finds out thatthe ultimate reasons that cause the difficulty of E-C translation can be attributed todifferences between Chinese culture and Western Culture. Hence, for the translators,it’s really important to know the differences and their effect on language and put to usein the course of translation. In addition, a translator should be serious and responsiblefor his or her translation. With all these steps, the most difficult sentences can besolved.Therefore, in order to deepen the understanding of translation, which will bemuch helpful to better our ability of translation, more empirical researches in the formof case study, longitudinal study or the combination of the both, are needed, andfurther research should be conducted.
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