英汉比较与翻译(主要差异)
Practice
1.玛丽没有被邀请去参加宴会,心里很难受。 Mary felt sad not to have been invited to the banquet. 2.许多房子,盖着琉璃瓦,曲曲折折,无数的朱红栏杆。 Many houses were roofed with glazed tiles and set within winding red balustrades. 3.The kaleidoscope of shifting interests of the nations during the negotiation made it impossible to sort out the “winners” and “losers”. 谈判期间,各国的利益变化不定,好像万花筒似的,这就 使人难以分辨出究竟谁是“胜者”,谁是“输家”。
All these people wanting to eat human flesh and at the same time stealthily trying to keep up appearances, not daring to act promptly, really made me nearly die of laughter.
Features of Chinese as a Diffusive Language
汉语主谓结构具有很大的多样性、复杂性和灵活性, 因而句式呈“流散型”(diffusiveness)。 汉语的主语不仅形式多样,而且可有可无。谓语也 复杂多样,可以是动词、名词或形容词可以是一个动 词,也可以是多个动词,还可以没动词;可以是一 个单词,也可以是多个词组。 汉语句式松散,句与句之间缺少连接成分,所表现 的信息往往从语法外形上主次不分,善用流水句, 常常把主要信息和次要信息的区别暗含在短句的并 列之中。
fell; the river flooded; the huse washed away.
在不同的语言中,句子内部连接或外部 链接几乎都是用三种手段: 句法手段(syntactic devices) 词汇手段(lexical equivalence) 语义手段(semantic connection) 用 前 两 种 手 段 连 接 成 为 形 合 (hypotaxis), 用后一种手段连接成为意 合(parataxis)。
Hypotactic vs. Paratactic 形合与意合
孟子曰:“鱼,我所欲也;熊掌,亦我所欲也。二者 不可得兼,舍鱼而取熊掌者也。生,我所欲也;义, 亦我所欲也。二者不可得兼,舍生而取义者也。”
paratactic
Mencius said, “ I like fish and I also like bear‟s paws. If I cannot have the two together, I will let the fish go and take the bear‟s paws. In a similar way, I like life, and I also like righteousness. If I cannot have the two together, I will give up my life to preserve righteousness.” hypotactic
Practice
1. When I try to understand what it is that prevents so many Americans from being as happy as one might expect, it seems to me that there are two causes, of which one goes much deeper than the other.
Feature of English as a Synthetic Language 英语通过词汇的形态变化,表示句子丰富多采的 语言关系和逻辑关系。
形态变化包括性(gender)、数(number)、格(case)、 时 (tense) 、 体 (aspect) 、 语 态 (voice) 、 语 气 (mood) 、比较级 (degree of comparison) 、人称 (person)、词性(parts of speech)。
Compact vs. Diffusive 聚集与流散
The boy, who was crying as if his heart would break, said, when I spoke to him, that he was very hungry because he had had no food for two days.
compact
男孩哭得心都快碎了,当我问及他时,他说饿极了,有 两天没吃了。
diffusive
Features of English as a Compact Language 句子主次分明,层次清楚,前呼后拥,严密规范, 句式呈“聚集型” (compactness)。 结构严谨,通常由名词性短语和动词性短语构成; 主语不可或缺,谓语动词是句子的中心,两者协 调一致提纲挈领,聚集各种关系网络。 英语句子先把主要信息以“主、谓、宾(表)” 的语法主干形式突出地表达出来,尔后再运用动 词不定式、分词短语、从句、独立结构或其他语 法手段来表现次要信息或用连词、介词来衔接。
Subject prominent vs. Topic-prominent
analytic
Synthetic vs. Analytic
A synthetic language is “characterized by frequent and systematic use of inflected forms to express grammatical relationships. An analytic language is “characterized by a relatively frequent use of function words, auxiliary verbs, and changes in word order to express syntactic relations, rather than of inflected forms”.
为什么如此众多的美国人不能如想象中那样幸福呢?我认 为原因有二,而两者之间又有深浅之分。 2. 抓住了主要矛盾,一切问题就可以迎刃而解。 Once the principal contradiction is grasped, all problems can be readily solved. 3.不进则退。 He who does not advance falls backward./ Move forward, or you‟ll fall behind.
Hypotactic vs. Paratactic
The American Heritage Dictionary
defines hypotaxis as “the dependent or subordinate construction or relationship of clauses with connectives”, for example, I shall despair if you don‟t come. The World Book Dictionary defines parataxis as “the arranging of clauses one after the other without connectives showing the relation between them”, for example, The rain
Feature of English as a hypotactic Language 英语造句常用各种形式手 段连接词、语、分句或从 句,注重显性接应(overt cohesion),注重句子形 式,注重结构完整,注重 以形显义。 英语句中的形合手段:关 系词和连接词、介词、其 他连接手段,广泛使用代 词,以及替补词 it 和 there 等等。
试比较以下的英汉句子:
1.跑得了和尚,跑不了庙。 Even if the monk can run away, his temple cannot run with him. 2.谦虚使人进步,骄傲使人落后。 Modesty helps one go forward, whereas conceit makes one lag behind. 3.冬天来了,春天还会远吗? If winter comes , can spring be far behind? 4. 好好学习,天天向上。 Study hard, and make progress everyday.
Feature of Chinese as an Analytic Language 汉语基本没有形态变化,主要靠词语、词序及暗 含逻辑关系来表达句子的语言意义。
Practice
1.听到他这样讲话,我差点笑出来了。 I could have laughed to hear him talk like this. 2. The mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valley. 群山开始向山谷投下一道道蔚蓝色长影。 3. 李教授原打算在这干一辈子的,但还是由于种种原因去 了深圳。 Professor Li had planned to work here for the rest of his life, but now he has been to Shenzhen for reasons. 4.一群人立刻把他围住了,向他提出一个又一个问题。 Very soon he was surrounded by a crowd and was snowed under with questions.