How to Translate Long English Sentences2

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1、如何翻译英语长句How to Translate Long English SentencesContentsAbstract.1Key words.1I. Introduction.2II. Literature Review.3III. Syntactic Complexity and Simplicity.41. Synthetic and analytic.52. Hypotaxis and parataxis. . .53. The position of mobifiers7IV. Information Value Distribution in English-Chinese

2、Translation.8V. Conclusion.10References.11How to Translate Long English SentencesAbstract: To many English learners, translating long English sentences has been generally regarded as one of their major difficulties. The previous studies on the translation of English long sentences are mainly concern

3、ed with technique of transferring the English long sentences according to the norms of sentence-building. The common method is that what the translator should do in translating English long sentences is merely to handle the content alone. However, translation is not simply a linguistic transfer of c

4、ontent, but a decision-making process constrained by other factors. In the paper, two constraining factors have been examined: syntactic complexity and simplicity and sentence order. In the sentence structure, synthetic and analytic, hypotaxis and parataxis and the position of modifiers are discusse

5、d to handle the problem when translating. In the sentence order, taking into account for the information value distribution, we can learn some methods of translating long sentences by illustrating some examples.Key words: long sentence; syntactic complexity and simplicity; sentence order摘要：由于英语和汉语之间

6、各属于不同的语系，句法结构有很大的差别，对许多英语学习者来说，英语长句的翻译历来是英汉翻译中的难点之一, 以往这方面的研究大都着眼于总结翻译长句的经验和技巧，其中多是讨论如何地道的中文来传达原句的信息，却忽略了长句的翻译不仅仅是内容的转换。翻译长句过程会受到句子结构和语序等多方面因素的影响。在这篇文章中，在句子结构特点上，考虑到结构中综合和解析，从属和并列以及修饰语的位置；在语序上，考虑到按信息的重要性与否来决定长句的翻译。通过对长句的这些特点的分析，可以在一定程度上了解长句翻译的一些方法。关键词：长句；句子的简单和复杂；句子顺序I. IntroductionThere are a varie

7、ty of definitions about translation, but the definition given by Wilss as early as 1985 is more plausible in that it offers a useful framework for translation study: “translation is a sequence of mentally complex code-switching operations leading from a written source language text to an equivalent

8、written target text and it requires the linguistic and extra linguistic comprehension of source language text by the translator in his role as source language text recipient.” Translation becomes more and more important in culture communication. Due to the intrinsic differences between English and C

9、hinese, the English long sentences become a hamper between English-Chinese translating. Translating English long sentences has become a classic topic in translating studies. Those who involve discussion about the translation of English long sentences are mainly concerned with techniques of structura

10、l conversion. Although these techniques are helpful to readers in the translation practice, they share two defects. One defect is that they deal with isolated sentences; the other is that they are mainly aiming at fluent and smooth translation. However, translation is not a simple decoding and recod

11、ing process. Just as Susan Bassnett once put it, “if the translator handles sentences for their specific content alone, the outcome will involve a loss of aspects.” The translation of long sentences does not confine in the domain of negotiating syntactic differences, but it is a decision-making proc

12、ess constrained by many other factors.As we know, any sentence occurs in specific context. Zhu Cunshen says that a sentence categorizes into the text-building process as a syntactic bearer, information carrier and stylistic maker. As a syntactic bearer, a sentence is not formed by linking sentence m

13、embers randomly. In his book titled Towards a Relational-Perspective Approach to Syntactic Semantic, QianJun wrote, “As Helbig thinks, sentence members are not members simply put together, nor direct reflection of extralinguistic relations, but functional membersThough constrained by the language re

14、sources to a certain extent; one can make certain choices to express a synonymous meaning. And this indicates that a syntactic structure is endowed with certain meaning and this formal meaning is what one can choose to make use of expressing a slight difference without changing the perfect meaning.”

15、In light of this, syntactic structures as means of expression of semantic relations do have meanings of their own. And the categories are sentence complexity, clause types, and clause structure. When translating a specific long sentence into Chinese, if there are certain stylistic values in the orig

16、inal sentence, or if the long sentence is a poetic or thematic motivated choice, the translator should not take the original sentence for granted. According to the Chinese norms, we can simplify it, split it off or rank-shift certain elements norms. This may involve certain changes in those above-me

17、ntioned categories.II. Literature ReviewTranslation is generally regarded as the most efficient and important way for cultural exchange. Translation has always occupied a significant position in the development of cultures in the East or West. China is no exception. Over the course of its long histo

18、ry, translation has played a vital role. One need only mention two past instances of tremendous impact, namely, the translation of Buddhist scriptures in ancient times and that of the basic books of Capitalism and Marxim in the early years of the 20th century. Both changed Chinas history.China has b

19、een termed as a “translation power”, both in terms of its output and its history of translation. In China, translation has a record history as long as two thousand years, which is marked by four high tides, that is, the translation of Buddhist scriptures from roughly the East Han dynasty (25-220A.D.

20、) to the Song dynasty (960-1127A.D.), the translation of the Western science document in the late-Ming and early-Qing period, the translation of much Western learning including thoughts and literature from the Opium War to the 1930s, and the translation of various materials covering a broad range. A

21、ll these translation booms have brought fruitful results. The translation of Buddhist scripture introduced Indian culture and penetrated into its every part. The combined effort of Chinese scholars and foreign missionaries in translating Western science document in the second high tide brought the C

22、hinese, for the first time, into large-scale contact with the comparatively advanced science and technology of the West. The overwhelming wave of Western learning, which flooded in during the third high tide, not only spread the advanced Western science and technology and lent great impetus to China

23、s scientific development, but also made its greatest contribution in preparing the ideological ground for modern Chinas convulsing social revolutions that eventually overthrew the Manchu Dynasty and heralded in a Republic. This upsurge also featured the translation of abundant foreign literary works

24、 and the establishment of Chinas new literature. The latest boom coincides with the Open Policy, playing a crucial role by keeping China in pace with the latest development of the world.As compared with the long and thriving history of the translation of alien culture to Chinese, the translation of

25、Chinese culture is much shorter and has received far less notice. In Asia, Chinese culture finds its earliest translation in Sanskirt during the Northern Wei dynasty, while in the West, the translation of Chinese works started only from the end of the sixteenth century. In spite of all, there is no

26、denying that translation has paved an indispensable way for Chinese culture to reach and communicate with other culture. Through communication, Chinese culture is understood and appreciated. Meanwhile, it enriches other culture. For example, In Japan, Korea and Viet Nam, Chinese culture has made a p

27、rofound influence in the formative period of these natural cultures. Even today we can still find traces of Chinese culture in these countries. If perceived from another angle, both instances also indicate that Chinese culture can only survive in a foreign land with the help of translation.In light

28、of the above statement, it is certainly safe to say that Chinese culture has always had an intimate relationship with translation. Much of its glory must be attributed to translation. Today, as we are driven towards a global village, the significance of translation towards Chinese culture becomes in

29、creasingly noticeable. To survive in this global village, Chinese culture has taught us that translation is not only the only medium but also a way of communication. III. Syntactic Complexity and SimplicityEnglish long sentences can be seen as the expansion of English basic sentences patterns. The e

30、xpansion often involves the use of embedding. A typical English long sentence has a finite verb as a core, surrounded by preposition, relative and conjunction that organize phrases and clauses at different level. More often than not, its main clause contains some embedded phrases and clauses, which

31、can be further embedded. The following example will show the features of English long sentences mentioned above: They are the first to experience technological as a curse which destroys the old muscle power jobs that previous generation uses as a means to fight their way out of poverty.They are the

32、first(main clause)A. to experience.curse(infinitive clause modifying first)B. which destroysjobs(relative clause modifying process)C. that previous generationmeans(relative clause modifying jobs)D. to fight(infinitive clause modifying means)The example shows that the embedded clauses greatly lengthe

33、n the sentences. Although modern English demonstrates a tendency of shortening of sentences length, such complex sentences with embedded clauses are a common thing. On the contrary, a long sentence with embedded clauses is nowhere to be founded in Chinese.1. Synthetic and analyticIt is generally agr

34、eed that English sentences tend to be longer than Chinese sentences on the whole. Part of the reasons can be traced back to the intrinsic differences between English and Chinese. English is synthetic-analytic language while Chinese is a typical analytic language. Originating from Old English, a typi

35、cal synthetic language, which was highly inflected, Modern English is still characterized by a degree of inflection. As English inflections are concerned with gender, number, case, tense, aspect, voice, mood, person, part of speech and degree of comparison, an English word can express several gramma

36、tical meanings. In contrast, Chinese, a typical language, is characterized by non-inflection, frequent use of function words and functional manipulation of word order. The rules of inflectional changes demand grammatical concord between the elements in the sentences while in Chinese no such formal r

37、equirement exists. One translator once remarked, “if western grammar is a grammar of form agreement in which the relationship between words are clearly shown by inflectional changes, conjunctions and prepositions, then Chinese grammar is a grammar of meaning agreement or meaning perception.” In view

38、 of this, English grammar is rigid while Chinese grammar is supple.2. Hypotaxis and parataxis The differences between Chinese and English language are directly reflected in their disparate syntactic organization. The vast difference between English sentence structure and Chinese sentence structure i

39、s largely responsible for the tendency that sentences are longer in English than in Chinese. Unavoidably, difficulties come up in the process of transferring English long sentences into Chinese.With the use of inflections, the English sentences tend to have strict and compact syntactic structure. In

40、 addition, there are a wealth of conjunctions, prepositions and a developed system of connectives, which can incorporate and interconnect a number of clauses through subordination into complex long sentences. The structure of such a sentence is termed hypotaxis and is characterized by formalized rel

41、ations in which words, phrases and clauses are closely connected. In English the core of the structure is subject-predicate, surrounded by other element. The following long sentences clearly illustrate the features of hypotaxis.1) To a generation that believed a massive military industrial complex w

42、as brutalizing the American dream, jeans symbolized a return to the friendlier, simpler values of the frontier, where each man had control over his life and where people cooperated to survive.In these long sentences, the main clause is “jean symbolized a return”. The first preposition phrase “ to a

43、generation” functions as an adverbial of the sentences. The second long prepositional phrase “tofrontier” modifies return. Both of the preposition phrases contain embedded attributive clauses, “that-clause” modifying generation and two coordinated non-restrictive clauses “where,.where” modifies fron

44、tier. If we extend the tree-metaphor, then the main clause in the sentences can be compared to the trunk of the tree while the two prepositional phrases can be the branches and the three attributive clauses can be the twigs.The above sentences demonstrate to us the role that abundant cohesive device

45、s can play in forming a complex long sentence. Through these cohesive devices, many phrases and clauses can be adhered to subject-predicate core of a sentence. Moreover, there is no limit to the length of the phrases and the clauses and several dependent clauses can be suited to each other, thus mak

46、ing the whole sentences a huge and complex architecture, just as Eastman said “the English sentence is extremely plastic. It can be enlarged, combined, adjusted with almost any degree of fineness to express a writers thought.”The Chinese sentence structure is a sharp contrast to English sentence str

47、ucture. Logical sentence order and lexicons mainly convey in Chinese lack of inflections and grammatical meanings. The meaning of a sentence unfolds word-by-word or clause-by-clause, in a coordinated sharp. This mode of construction is termed parataxis convert connectivity, whereby words, phrases an

48、d clauses are organized in natural and logic sequence. Tai argues for the principle of Temporal Sequence at work in the Chinese language. He defines it as “the relative word order between two syntactic units is determined by the temporal order of the states which they represent in the conceptual wor

49、ld.” Chinese presents a case where word order corresponds to thought flow “in a genuinely natural way.” lets look at the following Chinese sentences.2) 他走得累了，挑了一家便宜的俄国馆子，正要进去，伸手到口袋一摸，钱袋不知去向，急得在冷风里微微出汗，微薄的不知是汗，只譬如是情感的蒸汽。3) 天气很好，我们去爬山。A sentence 2) follows temporal sequence of what happens to the char

50、acter “he”. Sentence 3) is arranged in the natural cause-effect sequences, without using any cohesive ties. However, the English versions of sentence 3 may have to resort to subordinate “as” and go like this “as the weather was fire, we decided to climb the mountain”, or resort to inflectional form

51、“ing” and go like this “the weather being fine, we decided to climb the mountain.” Additionally, what is easy to understand in sentence 3 is that it consists of two full sentences, zhenju(a sentence which has subject-predicate structure) and six minor sentences, sanju (a sentence which does not have

52、 subject-predicate structure), thus forming a flowing-water sentence. This typical Chinese sentence shows that Chinese syntax often uses the minor sentence, or flowing-water sentences to express the thoughts. The reason why Chinese is rich in minor sentences and flowing-water sentences is that subje

53、cts and cohesive ties are implied in the context and can be omitted. The feature greatly constrains the sentence length in Chinese.3. The position of modifiersWord order in English is more flexible than in Chinese. In English, as long as the grammatical concord is realized, the word becomes relative

54、ly flexible. However, since the Chinese language does not require this sort of grammatical concord, the word order tends to be more fixed. The position of modifiers reflects the flexibility of word order in both languages. In English, modifiers can be put before or after the headword and there is no

55、 limit to the length and number of modifiers. In English attributive modifies are mostly put before rather than after the headword can only be loaded with a certain number of modifiers.English is right-branching compared to Chinese, which is left-branching. English sentences are marked by their clos

56、ed beginnings and open endings. On the contrary, the beginnings of Chinese sentences are open to syntactic elements while their endings are closed. The convention of open beginning in Chinese encourages the occurrence of pre-modification. For example, if the basic sentence is “那个人是王芳”, and it can be

57、 expanded in the direction from right to left in this way: 和小明说话的那个人是王芳。 站在那边和小明说话的那个人是王芳。 你看到的站在那边和小明说话的那个人是王芳。 今天你看到的站在那边和小明说话的那个人是王芳。On the contrary, English sentences usually branch at the end of its main clause. Open ending encourages the position of modifiers after the subject and thus the sen

58、tences expansion model shows a right-branching tendency. The principle of open ending in English can be seen operating in the following example given by Mr.Liu This is the cat. This is the cat that killed the cat. This is the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt. This is the cat that killed the

59、 rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack builds. This is different to Chinese. If we translate it to Chinese, just like the version of sentences goes,“是那只猫，猫吃了耗子，耗子吃了麦芽，麦芽放在屋里，屋子是杰克盖的。” This feature leads to popularity of short and diffuse sentences in Chinese.Sometimes, English modifi

60、ers are too long to place before word being modified. If we meet this circumstance, cut the long English sentences and rearrange the parts and then translate them separately into Chinese. When translating long English sentences, we adjust the sequence of a given sentence so as to make it to Chinese

61、usage.IV. Information Value Distribution in English-Chinese TranslationThe principle of information value distribution is that the low information value unit is usually prior to the high information unit. It is as significant to have classification of degrees of information value as to have classifi

62、cation of given information and new one. Shannon and Weave point out in the Information Theory that there is often more or less substitute to some information units. The more alternatives it has, the higher information value it possesses. This point can be illustrated as follows.1) - what do you thi

63、nk about the discussion today?-Im very much interested in your topic.“I” in the example is the recurrence of “you” of the pretext, which belongs to the given information, catching no attention from the listener. It is valueless information.“m” following “I” is the new information since it does not a

64、ppear in the pretext, but it contains low information value in that it just functions as a structural link.“very much interested in your topic” following “m” is the important information in the sentence, among which “interested in ” has more chances of substitutes than “very much”, while “your topic” even greater than “interested in”. So “your topic” here carries the highest information value in the response. In summary, information value can be grouped into various degrees:Valueless information: the given information catch