从文化角度看英汉习语翻译IdiomsTranslationfromCulturalPerspectives

从文化角度看英汉习语翻译

Idioms Translation from Cultural Perspectives

Abstract

Along with the development of the communications between the East and the West, translation becomes more and more important, of which idiom translation takes a great position. Idioms are the fruits of human culture, which reflect the culture in return. It is a big concept, which contains set phrases, sayings, proverbs, slangs, colloquialisms and enigmatic folk similes. Idioms come from various sources, such as from history, religion, poetry, literary quotations, daily life, etc. It is the point that idiom covers a rich information of its society and culture that makes the translation much more difficult than that of others, for it requires a better grasp of both the techniques of translation and the knowledge of the background of its target language, including its culture, history, religion, society, etc.

With a view to having a better master of idioms translation, in this thesis I will talk about the techniques of idiom translation from the cultural perspective by the means of comparing the Chinese and English images.

This thesis indicates the significance and the present situation of idioms translation, gives a brief introduction of idiom, including the definitions, formations, categories and the significance, makes a contrast between Chinese and English idioms’images, introduces the techniques of idioms translation on the basis of the comparison, and concludes the whole thesis and points out the limitation of this thesis and gives several suggestions for further studies.

Key words: idioms; idiom translation; culture; technique

摘要

随着中西方文化交流的深化和发展，双方语言翻译变的越来越重要了，而其中习语的翻译更是占了一个相当大的比重，有着举足轻重的作用。习语是人类智慧的结晶，反映着本民族自身的文化。习语包括很广泛的内容, 有成语、常言、谚语、俚语、俗语、歇后语等。习语来源甚广，如历史、宗教、诗歌、典故，人民日常生活等。习语不仅仅是平常的语言，它包含了广泛的社会文化信息，翻译者不仅要具备基本的翻译技巧，更要对于自己的母语和目标语的诸如历史、宗教、文化、社会、等背景信息相当详熟，才能把文章翻译好，这也是习语翻译的难点所在，它对译者的各方面的要求更高。

为了更好的掌握习语翻译，本文我将把中文和英文的文化意象进行对比，从文化角度探讨习语的翻译技巧。

这篇文章简要的介绍了习语的重要性、目前研究形式、定义、形成及其分类，并将中英文习语进行对比，阐述它们的相似点与不同点，在对比的基础上介绍了几种习语的翻译策略。最后总结论文的全部，指出此篇论文的不足之处，并对习语深入研究提出几点建议。

关键字：习语; 习语翻译; 文化; 技巧

1. Introduction

1.1 Purpose of This Thesis

With the flourish of mutually communication between the east and the west, the study of languages is gaining increasing attention of all walks of life, including government, research institutions, enterprises and individuals. Among all the elements of language, idiom takes an important position. As a special kind of language material, idioms enjoy great popularity among people because of their conciseness, vividness, distinctiveness and comprehensiveness ( 包惠南, 2001: 148 ). While as the deepening of the communication, because of their absence of the knowledge of the historical background, geographical conditions, social customs, religious beliefs, and cultural heritages, people find it difficult for them to translate the language without losing its original sense, and sometimes many misunderstanding are caused, which may lead difficulty or do harm to the exchange of two nations. Look at the following examples (Yang, 1993).

(l)Interaction Milieu: Professor Tu Lai，an American linguist，and Professor Yang，a visiting scholar from China，were talking about the relationship between teaching and doing research in the office.

Professor Tu Lai: To do research means to get your hands dirty.

Professor Yang: So you think teaching is worthier than doing research? Does the Phrase“to get your hands dirty” have some Pejorative connotations?

Professor Tu Lai: Oh，no! I didn’t mean that. When I was saying that，I simply