文化负载词翻译

四川师范大学文理学院本科毕业论文
Translation of Chinese Culture-loaded Words 中国文化负载词的翻译
作者：郑秋红
院系：文理学院外语系
年级： 2006级
专业班级：英语（师范）2班
学号： 6411106232
指导教师：刘慧玲
答辩日期： 4月24日
中国文化负载词的翻译
学生：郑秋红指导教师：刘慧玲
摘要：中国文化负载词是表达中国文化中的特有事物，当中国的文化传出中国走向世界的时候,这些文化负载词又是怎样不失原味的被翻译成外语，被外国人所接受的呢? 本文从中式英语、中国特色词汇和中国文化负载词的对比分析入手，尝试探讨中国文化负载词的特点，分析文化负载词英译中出现的各种问题及其成因。

最后得出结论：在中国文化负载词英译中，译者可以通过意译、直译、意译等方法实现文化负载词的转化和使用，从而逐渐融入传统英语中，为英语使用者所接受。

关键词：中国文化负载词；文化差异；翻译
Translation of Chinese Culture-loaded Words Abstract: Each language contains elements which are derived from its culture, such as idioms, proverbs, and other fixed expressions. Translation is not only an Interlingua transfer,
but also a cross-cultural communication. Chinese culture-loaded words are becoming
increasingly important in the study of China English. Chinese culture-loaded words
refer to the uniqueness of Chinese items, and of course, contain the connotation of
Chinese culture. With the wide spread of Chinese culture to the world, how can they be
understood and accepted by foreigners accurately in translation? The paper, by giving a
good number of examples, introduces some methods of translating Chinese
culture-loaded words, including transliteration, literal translation, and free translation
and so on. These methods help to understand how Chinese culture-loaded words are
transformed into and used in English.
Key words: Chinese culture-loaded words; culture differences; translation
Contents
Introduction (1)
Part ⅠThe relation between Chinese Culture and Chinese Culture-loaded word (2)
1.1Culture-loaded word, China English and Chinglish (2)
1.2 The characteristics of Chinese Culture-loaded words (3)
1.3 The influence of Chinese culture on Chinese Culture-loaded words (4)
Part ⅡThe translation difficulties of Chinese culture-loaded word (7)
2.1 The lexical gap which caused by traditional history culture (7)
2.2 The lexical gap caused by the Regional cultural differences (8)
2.3 The lexical gap caused by the differences of customs and cultures (8)
Part ⅢTranslation methods of Chinese Culture-loaded words (10)
3.1 Hypo taxis and Parataxis (10)
3.2 Translation methods in culture-loaded words (11)
3.2.1 Transliteration plus free translation (11)
3.2.2 Literal Translation plus free translation (12)
3.2.3 Interpretation in culture-loaded words (13)
Conclusion (15)
Bibliography (16)
Introduction
Today, English is undeniably becoming a more widely used international language, and it is the interaction tool between countries. Along with the accelerated process of global integration, China’s foreign deepening of reform and opening up and China’s further economic development, a large number of new terms appeared in modern Chinese, including the old words with new meaning, buzzwords, new alien words and expressions, etc.; even many old words that have been annihilated for many years frequently appears. Words with Chinese characteristics are part of the culture-loaded words. Therefore the research of words with Chinese characteristics will gradually become an important discussion of the subject on China’s English teaching and the research community. Cultural-loaded words, as a series of symbols for communication, are the carriers of national culture. They not only open up the unique characteristics of a nation, but also bring difficulties and confusion to English learners Mr.SunZhili said, “It is the meaning of the culture that makes the translation the most difficult rather than the language itself.” Mr.WangZuoliang has also said, “The most difficulty of translation is the difference of two different cul tures.” Mr.LiuShouhua thinks, “People with different culture have different view to the real world, therefore making their own language demonstrate uniqueness and nationality in its development.”Cultural terms have different names, such as culture-loaded words, cultural vacancies words, vocabulary vacancies. This paper prepares to discuss the translation of Chinese culturally-loaded words in the following aspects: the characteristics of Chinese culturally-loaded words and the reason why it come into being, and will also introduce some of the translation methods of the Chinese culturally-loaded words.
Part ⅠThe relation between Chinese Culture and Chinese
Culture-loaded word
1.1Culture-loaded word, China English and Chinglish
Since China is a country with a long history of more than 5000 years, during which it has cultivated and accumulated a broad and profound culture. Chinese culture-loaded words refer to the uniqueness of Chinese items, and of course, contain the connotation of Chinese culture, such as “Baxianguohai”in the “Eight Immortals”Who was this guy?Which, “Liu Qin”? There is a saying called “seven things” (seven daily needs of household), which “7”?“柴米油盐酱醋茶”(fuel, rice, oil, soy sauce, vinegar and tea) somehow is highlighted. As for the “三教九流”can be translated into people of all sorts, people of different social origins and backgrounds and so on English words with Chinese culture can be regarded as China English, which is almost the same with culture-loaded words. While China English is absolutely different from Chinglish. It is necessary to make it clear what are China English and Chinglish. China English, mainly used as an international language in China, with Chinese unique borrowings, or phrases, contributes much to the international communication. In contrast, Chinglish refers to the English usually created by inferior Chinese English learners, who translate English into their own words so arbitrarily, that the interpretation fails to accord with grammar rules or custom usages, thus being regarded as an unaccepted form of English.
The distinctions between China English and Chinglish lie in three aspects. First, grammatical or spelling mistakes are inevitably found in Chinglish while China English complies with English practical norms strictly. For example, “Open the door see mountain” is a typical Chinglish term, which means explaining one object in very clear words directly before any specific information is given. In the sense of grammar, the phrase is poor. Both “open” and “see” are verbs. They shouldn’t be put together without a conjunction. On the contrary, China English is always accurate, concise polished and hit the nails on the head. Take “one country, two systems” as an example. It refers that two diverse political systems coexist in one unified country. With respect to grammar, this term is correct to the core. Besides, it is brief; yet, well-polished, conveying a sophisticated idea with concise words. Thus, correctness differentiates Chinglish and China English. Furthermore, people’s attitudes towards these two languages also set them apart from each other. China English is considered as an accepted new form of English, contributing to enriching original language while
Chinglish causes barriers and misunderstandings in communication. China English is gaining increasing importance in multinational communication, for the sake of better understanding about Chinese unique policy. Nevertheless, Chinglish is suffering a stead decline, for its negative influences.
Actually, that the English language is originally the language of English people. Other peoples who use English should follow the idiomatic and conventional ways of the English people. However, each nation has its specific culture. As in China, there must be special Chinese culture and way of life to be expressed in English, that is, China English is to express Chinese phenomena and ideas.
As for China, be it old or new words, it has many things with Chinese characteristics that need to be expressed when they are translated in English. To support this idea, we can cites some examples as follows: Hanlingyua n(翰林院),Imperial examination(科举), May Fourth Movement(五四运动),Xiucai(秀才),Eight-legged essay(八股文),Baihuawen(白话文),Two hundred policies(双百方针), Ideological remolding(思想改造),Four modernization(四个现代化),and so on. All these English versions with Chinese characteristics are correct English and should belong to China English.
1.2 The characteristics of Chinese Culture-loaded words
Culture-loaded words are mainly an international variety. We take Chinese borrowings for instance. From seventeenth to twentieth century, many Chinese borrowings directly entered English through transliteration such as tea (茶), kowtow(叩头), yamen(衙门), Great Leap Forward (大跃进), Great Cultural Revolution (文化大革命), Gang of Four (四人帮), Four Modernizations (四个现代化). All these English versions of course belong to China English no matter where they are used. As is well known, the relation between language and thought is of dialectical unity. Language development can promote that of thought, and vice versa. An accomplished language acquisition marks the formation of a certain thinking mode. One’s English inevitably has Chinese features once he or she has acquired Chinese and formed the way of Chinese thinking.
Accordingly, the Chinese features of China English are unavoidably caused by the intrinsic thinking model specific to Chinese people and culture. What are the characteristics of culture-loaded words?
Firstly, Culture-loaded words do not exist without Chinese interference. When one’s English proficiency is improved, one’s Chinese interference may be less, but it can never
disappear completely. This is even so for an expert in English. So long as one has Chinese as one’s native language and thinks in Chinese way, one’s English is definitely characteristic of Chinese flavors. The fourth is on the scope of the features of China English, that is, whether China English has the features at the level of phonology.
Secondly, in the process of English language learning, it has been realized that there are sometimes no equivalence between English and Chinese culture-loaded. There exist big differences in the connotation of diverse words, due to unparallel historical and cultural developments of the two languages. By tracing the distinctive cultural elements reflected by certain words, learners are able to thoroughly understand the language itself and the disparity between the Chinese and western cultures, which is definitely conductive to the master of English.
Language is closely related to the development of culture, while the various elements of vocabulary in the language can best reflect the material aspects of the culture, and therefore it is greatly influenced by the I culture. By studying a culture of a nation can learn its values and way of thinking, customs, way of life and traditional customs, religious beliefs, etc.（XuJun, 2001）
It is better to give some examples to illustrate the characteristics of the culture-loaded words. The mascots “Fuwa” of the Olympic Games in 2008 is a cultu re-loaded word. The English translation of “Fuwa” ---“friendliness” has aroused controversy since its birth. The first, “friendliness” are suspected of having something wrong w ith its spelling; because as an adjective “friendly” means: “affable, friendly, environmentally.” Used as a noun it means “friendly competition”. As in this plural form, it must be used as noun, but its meaning is not proper. The second, “friendliness” is hard to display Chinese characteristics and reflect the distinctive Chinese language and culture.
The mascots of each Olympic Games are required to have a wide range of cultural content, which can reflect the national characteristics of the host country.
1.3 The influence of Chinese culture on Chinese Culture-loaded words
Language is a long history of development in the form, the language is the carrier of culture, and culture is the language of the soil. For this the true meaning of culture and cultural groups, it is all too familiar for something, but for different cultural groups, it is very strange. Different cultures create different language groups, so that when different language groups in the process of mutual exchange term vacancies on the rise, that can not be within the scope of non-native languages to find to express the meaning of the corresponding
vocabulary, these cultural differences, mainly manifested in the belief, art, ethics, law, Customs, as well as the rest of the community learned abilities and habits.
From a certain prospective, it covers all special things. Obviously, there’re many things with Chinese characteristics that haven’t been described in English, not to mention the new things that constantly spring up in recent years. For example, in the aspect of food, there are new different kinds of vegetables and fruits which need to be further discussed. At present, the comparatively practical method is to use Chinese spelling and add notes, most of which have been the Chinese loans in English. For example, lychee, litch(荔枝), baozi, jiaozi, tofu, mantou, tangyuan, etc have been the popular Chinese loans in English. Foreigners can totally understand what they are referring to, for they have accepted the China English version. However, many Chinese specific words cannot be translated in proper English, which is used among the native English speakers, such as “汤圆、馄饨、刀削面”etc, they cannot be replaced by dumplings. That’s because there is no correspondent thing in western countries. Accordingly, few Chinese loans share the same meaning with English words. Therefore, the Chinese loans get involved in English in a completely new meaning.
V ocabulary is the accumulation of cultural information, the nation’s cultural values and values at all levels of culture are reflected in the vocabulary of their own systems, which form a kind of cultural words with cultural connotations. As with the load of a special connotation of the national culture, cultural terms is often posed as difficulties in the translation of The original existence of the cultural lexical gap shows that translation is not only just a language activity, but also a kind of cultural activities. Therefore, the translator is required not only a bilingual abilities, but also a double-cultural competence. If he can not see the original cultural lexical gap, he will impose his own understanding of the translation to the reader.
For example, in an English article, whose author talked about his favorite saying when he was a teacher: Being a teacher is being present at the creation, when the clay begins to breathe? The translation is: “当一名教师意味着创造,使泥土开始呼吸” it is no doubt that very few Chinese readers can understand this meaning. However, the sentence implied in the cultural lexical gap of the Western reader is very clear: According to the “Bible”, which say that humans were made by God with the earth, when the God endowed life to the clay, this clay is completed by the creative process, becoming a living creature. Here the author compared the work of teachers to the God’s work, suggesting that teachers help students to become a flesh and blood person with a soul, so that students have a real life.
Cross-cultural communicative and even become an obstacle to information transmission. In next chapter, I will discuss the difficulties in culturally-loaded words translation.
Translation is not only the conversion between languages, but also the communication
between cultures. Translation language and culture are closely linked. Because language is an integral part of culture, it is also the symbols of culture, its using ways and expressing content still possess a certain cultural connotation. In the process of creating works, the original author’s intended readers generally do not include foreign readers, particularly does not include those with different language and culture. Therefore, the cultural background knowledge which is easy to understand for the original mother tongue speakers in communication is possible not understood or missed the meaning by the people from other culture.
Part ⅡThe translation difficulties of Chinese culture-loaded
word
2.1 The lexical gap which caused by traditional history culture
China is an ancient oriental civilization with a long history, its traditional culture and thought of a natural reaction to the language. While tradition is deeply rooted in people's minds, like the “dragon” character, in the Chinese culture, the “dragon” is a legend of the miraculous character of animals, and the phoenix, the unicorn, turtle collectively known as the “four spirits”. In addition to the word meaning, it can also be regarded as a symbol of the Chinese nation, forming a kind of totem of the Chinese culture, and now that Chinese people as “Descendants of the Dragon”, is indicative of the great. Later emperors sat on the “dragon” were regarded as a symbol of authority, such as sitting on the throne, wearing gown and robe, sleeping dragon bed and so on. However, in Western countries, “Dragon” (dragon) is a danger thing, because in English history from the Beowulf times, the dragon is a symbol of evil, dangerous and is a monster spit fire injuries. This is the accumulated result of the traditional people’s different interpretations of the same thing; its further development will result in a lexical gap. What’s more, “Mid-Autumn Festival”Mid-Autumn Day; “Splash”Water-Splashing Day, etc, which are the Chinese traditional festival, are excellent cultural accumulations that has a long history of heritage treasures, these traditional cultural festival is now not only exclusive to the Chinese people, but also a number of foreigners like the Chinese culture. While Europe and the United States is a Christian faith, so there are a lot of words, including their festivals with the “Bible” and Christian related.
If a covenant of salt (not betray the Covenant), as poor as a church mouse (utterly destitute); than the Han culture, an important part and is inseparable from Buddhism and Taoism, such as: Oliver bounds repent and are saved, Buddhism boundless. Then there are some, such as “martial arts”wu shu, “kung fu”kung fu, “Niu Yangge”yang ko, the characteristics of these folk cultures in China has not yet opened to the outside world, which is unheard of for a Westerner, and these reflect The vocabulary of the vacancy caused by two different history and culture.
2.2 The lexical gap caused by the Regional cultural differences
Regional cultural differences refer to a nation’s geographical location, natural conditions and ecological environment formed by various cultural differences. Language generations and people’s working and living environment greatly related to the culturally-loaded words. The large number of English idioms, allusions, slangs, sayings, maxims and proverbs are with a thick Chinese name, ethnic and geographical characteristics. Han Chinese living in the Asian continent, the people’s life is inseparable from land. The UK is an island nation; the maritime industry has been very well developed. The difference appeared in Chinese culture, a lot of vocabulary are land-related, while in the English vocabulary in many of which are related with the sea; for example, Chinese with “土崩瓦解” to describe the total collapse and can not be collected, while the English version “get into hot water”, describing a difficult position. “烂醉如泥” English with “drunk as a sailor”, here they use sailor to replace “mud”. It may wondered why they use “sailor” instead of “mud”, that’s because the regional culture differences. In English native speakers, they could not use “mud” to describe a person, while in Chinese people’s eyes, they usually use some others words to make the phrase more active, actually these words as “mud” are often without any relation with the phrase itself.
In addition, the geographical differences in turn affected by changes in the weather will affect agriculture and animal husbandry;Humid and rainy mountains northwest of the British Isles, followed by an moist type, suitable for the growth of mushrooms in the woods, while China is located in Southeast Asia, the difference between them is quite large, so the Chinese language is used to prompt a large number of new things compared to emerged phrase. For instance: “雨后春笋” was translated into English when the spring up like mushrooms or to mushroom up.Springing up like mushroom refers to after the rain of spring, bamboo shoots turn out suddenly, which means a lot of new things are emerging constantly. England could n ot produce “shoot”, “bamboo” is a foreign language, therefore, use “mushroom” is more acceptable for the recipient, but also convey the same meaning. What need to mention is that the emotional color and pragmatic effect are not entirely right, bamboo shoots give vibrant sense, which is compliment, “mushrooms”, with a short growing season, turn out and disappear rapidly, is neutral.
2.3 The lexical gap caused by the differences of customs and cultures
The difference between English and Chinese customs, reflected in many aspects, such as diet, marriage, solar terms, the preference of color, family relations, etc. These differences between languages often make a relatively lexical gap. For example, in China, people like the red to decorate and the auspicious red represents good luck and new love in marriage when they are wearing red clothes; while in Western countries，they think that the red represents the violence and bloody, the new people in the wedding use white to represent their love, but in China, white has often been regarded as unfortunate thing .Therefore, the auspicious day in Chinese is a white day which the English people couldn’t not understand. The attitude in the treatment of animals, dogs are one of the British national favorite pets, they think the dog is very loyal. The dog in the Chinese culture is a kind of humble animal, it is considered a “humble” a synonym. Therefore, most of the dog-related derogatory terms such as: “狗胆包天” ,monstrous audacity“狗仗人势” ,a cock is bold on his own dunghill ，use the influence of sb. in bullying others, be a bully with the backing of a powerful person , be a bully under the protection of a powerful person “狗腿子”,henchman; lackey; hired thug“狗头军师” ,a person who offers bad advice , a person who offers bad advice; inept adviser“狗急跳墙” ,a cornered beast will do something desperate, even a worm will turn , do something desperate; but in English, there is no pejorative term on the majority of phrases concerned with dog, such as: be top dog “living high” ; “lucky” a lucky dog. Again, the Chinese women in ancient times should take three inch golden lotus (“三寸金莲”translated in literal meaning) for beauty, so there is woman “bound feet”: A vile feudal practice which crippled women both physically and spiritually and the “child bride” child wife: girl rose from childhood to be wife of son of family. There are some words that reflect China’s living habits, such as “kang”: a heat able brick bed and so on. All these can be seen as a result of cultural differences, customs lexical gap.
The whole chapter demonstrates some of the reasons that cause our culturally-loaded words: they are traditional history culture, regional cultural differences and the custom differences. These differences will absolutely make our translation more difficult. For example, when we translate “三寸金莲”,we can not use the literal translation”three inch golden lotus” which will confuse the foreigners, they cannot understand what it refers to and don’t know it’s deep meaning. Therefore we must pay more attention to these cultural differences when we do the translation. The translation methods of the culture-loaded words must be chosen according to certain circumstances
Part ⅢTranslation methods of Chinese Culture-loaded words 3.1 Hypo taxis and Parataxis
Hypo taxis and Parataxis are the basic difference between English and Chinese language. . Hypo taxis is the meaning of the dependent or subordinate relationship of clauses with connectives (Christiane, Nord.1988:128), while, the concept of parataxis means that the juxtaposition of clauses or phrases without the use of coordinating or subordinating conjunctions.
Hypo taxis reflect the thought pattern that westerners attach more importance on logic and empirical, while parataxis reflect that Chinese emphasize on introspection and simple way of expressing, they don’t emphasis the logic, with a ambiguous meaning mode of thinking. With an appropriate understanding of hypo taxis and parataxis is beneficial to the translation of English and Chinese. The translator should be carefully to figure out the differences of the source language and target language, both should not only loyal to the original work, but also think of the feeling of the reader, so that letting the translation be as close as possible with the original article. Mr. Flake once said the excellent words:” the ideal translation of the works of foreign authors usually gives readers feel as if they are writing in Chinese.”
The main difference in sentence structure between English and Chinese is that English is a language of Hypo taxis while Chinese is a language of parataxis. Therefore, English words or sentences are well knitted, and Chinese ones are terse and lucid. Some shortened sentence forms are adopted in Chinese so as to make words or sentences concise. Consequently, this features of Chinese sentence translation is reflected in China English consisting of many short sentences forms, the following translation examples can well illustrate this point:(1) Life is above and service is first. “生命至上,服务第一”(2) Safety is first and prevention is most. “安全第一,预防为主”(3) The higher authorities have polices and the localities have their counter-measures. “上有政策,下有对策”（4）Ten thousand years are too long, seize the day, and seize the hour. “一万年太久,只争朝夕”(李文中, 1993:53) These examples fully demonstrate the characteristics of Chinese, whose translation is not rigidly adhere to the original sentences, instead, it uses short, colloquial Chinese language words and sentences to make it read natural and active.
Here is another example:
“原文：有一个老村子叫格兰骞斯德，有一个果子园，你可以躺在累累的桃李树荫
下吃茶，花果会掉入你的茶杯，小雀子会到你桌上来啄食，那真是别有一番天地.”
English version：There is an old village called Grant Chester, and an orchard where you can lie under clustering fruit-trees, sipping tea, as flowers or fruit hang down into your teacup, and little sparrows come to your table to feed – truly a paradise on earth.
The Original article is taken from Xu’s essay, “I know Cambridge,” the article writes with delicate strokes, refreshing style which is easy to read and feel quite cordial. The picture depicted in the text is just like a group of Cambridge landscape, from far to near, and then from near to far. The whole sentence is not connected with a word, the subject to clause changing every time, but there is no offensive feeling. However, when they were translated in English, the original meaning must be skillfully and reasonable weaving in the “form” with proper English syntax. The most important thing is to identify a verb as the main axis of the structure. Here the translation use the str ucture of “There is ... “as the main line,“Where you can lie under clustering fruit-trees” as attributive clause of “an orchard” , “as flowers or fruit hang down into your teacup, and little sparrows come to your table to feed” as the adverbial of “you ca n lie under clustering fruit-trees, sipping tea “of , with a dash leads to” truly a paradise on earth “as conclusive and further describe. The translation make s full use of the English translation Hypo taxis features, which make the text read with a sense emotion and fluently, almost like the original style.
All these English translation versions mentioned above are close to the structure and style of the original Chinese, and every phrase conforms to English syntax. A series of the symmetric short forms reflect the features of Chinese sentence structure
3.2 Translation methods in culture-loaded words
3.2.1 Transliteration plus free translation
From an information-theoretical point of view, transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another, word by word, or ideally letter by letter. Transliteration attempts to use a one-to-one correspondence and be exact, so that an informed reader should be able to reconstruct the original spelling of transliterated words. To achieve this objective, transliteration may define complex conventions for dealing with letters in a source script which do not correspond with letters in a goal script.
Also, transliteration should not be confused with translation, which involves a change in language while preserving meaning. Transliteration performs a mapping from one alphabet into another.。