ABSTRACT
This translation report acts as a summary for my C-E translation project ofTrademark Law ofP.R. China, and its emphases is on how to translate into English theChinese “De” structures with conditional implications. This project is a simulationpractice for the purpose of strengthening my translation ability.
The Trademark Law ofP.R. China contains lots of “De” structures with conditionalimplications which should be translated into conditional clauses due to linguisticdifferences between Chinese and English. The great change pose great difficulty totranslation. The first difficulty lies in the diversified and complex structures withintricate logical relations. The second stems from “De,,structures' vacancy ofconjunctions which should not miss in their corresponding English translations and thechoice of the conjunction is affected by the complexity of structure.
This project adopts Vermeer's Skopos Theory to the translation of 6De' structureswith conditional implications. The target readers of the translation are English-speakingpeople eager to get acquainted with the trademark law of China, and the purpose oftranslation is to provide them with a complete and readable English version. The authoradopts the method of syntactic linearity for the phrasal verb + 'De,structures, themethods of restructuring and disconnecting for simple clauses and complex clauses +6De' structures. The conjunction if or where is chosen according to the rules of legalEnglish.
The translator adopts different translation methods in this report hoping that thedifficulties of translating ”De“ structures with conditional implications could be solvedand at the same time,could provide some enlightenment for other translators confrontedwith similar difficulties.
ABSTRACT
This paper mainly explores the usages of Chinese non-canonical verbal classifierphrases （non-CVCl phrases for short） and then makes a contrastive study on Chinesenon-CVCl phrases and relevant English constructions （RECs for short） that aresemantically and functionally similar to the Chinese non-CVCl phrases.
The features of Chinese non-CVCl phrases have not been investigatedsystematically in previous studies. This paper makes a detailed analysis of the semanticfeatures and syntactic distribution of these phrases. It is found that in addition toquantifying events, non-CVCl phrases can also serve the individuation function oftransforming event types into event tokens. Besides, non-CVCl phrases are also of anominal character, which accounts for their relatively strong referential function asopposed to their weak declarative function. In addition, the diversified syntacticdistribution of non-CVCl phrases is also discussed in this paper.
With the help of Chinese and English parallel corpus and online resources, thispaper attempts to find out the RECs semantically and functionally analogous to Chinesenon-CVCl phrases and classify these RECs into different groups: light verbconstructions, cognate object constructions, double object constructions and nominaland verbal expressions. An analysis is also made of the features of these classes ofEnglish constructions or expressions. It is found that most of the RECs are related toevent nouns to some degree.
Grounded on the above discussion, this paper conducts a contrastive study of theChinese non-CVCl phrases and the RECs, aiming to bring out the differences betweenthem in terms of phrase structure, semantic meaning and syntactic distribution. Thefactors resulting in these differences are analyzed from a cognitive perspective. It isproposed that the differences between the Chinese language and the English language atlarge in perspective positioning and prominence selection, cognitive mechanism andscanning mode constitute the underlying reasons for the different ways of quantifyingevents and denoting actions in the two languages.
ABSTRACT
Following the quickened pace of Chinese culture's ”going out to the world“,Chinese films are also striving to walk toward the world to compete with other countrieson the international stage. Consequently, the subtitling of Chinese films into foreignlanguages has attracted increased scholarly attention in recent years. What role doessubtitling play in promoting Chinese culture exportation? What subtitling strategiesshould be employed to fulfill this aim? The answer to these questions can perhaps befound in a case study of Red Sorghum, the first modern Chinese film to have won aninternational acclaim. Mo Yan's winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012 testifiesto this film's wide popularity among English-speaking viewers and its far-reachingimpact.
This thesis aims to examine the strategies employed in the English subtitles of RedSorghum and to analyze why such subtitling strategies as were adopted by the subtitlersare both justified and instrumental in enhancing its warm reception by overseasaudiences. Two theoretical tools are adopted in the present study: one is subtitlingtheories proposed by Gottlieb and developed by Diaz-Cintas and others; the other isVermeer's skopos theory.
The Introduction states the research background, aim, scope and rationale of thisstudy. Chapter Two is a critical review of the relevant literature on the topic. ChapterThree summarizes the main points of Western subtitling theories and skopos theory.
Chapter Four tries to describe the general shape and features of the English subtitles ofRed Sorghum in the light of subtitling strategies and constraints. It is found that suchstrategies as transfer, paraphrase, condensation, decimation, deletion, expansion,imitation and resignation are frequently employed by the subtitlers. Yet what is termed”reductive domestication“ strategy （R&D strategy） in the present thesis is the basic oneadopted. Chapter Five attempts to explain from a functionalist perspective why thesesubtitling strategies, especially somewhat radical ones like deletion, condensation,rewriting, are justified and why Red Sorghum equipped with such English subtitles waswarmly received by Western audiences. The Conclusion discusses the significantimplications of Red Sorghum's success for Chinese film's ”going abroad“.
ABSTRACT
The term ”intertextuality“, which was introduced by French literary critics JuliaKristeva in the 1960s, refers to the relationship between texts. And it has been in thespotlight of the academic world since its debut. Kristeva claims that every text isconstructed as a mosaic of quotations; every text is the absorption and transportation ofother texts. The theory of intertextuality not only brings about great social, cultural andhistorical significance, but also stimulates a new thought and a refreshing researchperspective for the evolution of translation theory.
Biancheng, a novella that expresses the localism, is the masterpiece of the famousmodern Chinese writer Shen Congwen. The story happened in a border town namedChadong of Xiangxi in the 1930s, and it depicts the special local flavor of Xiangxidistrict. At the same time, the novel showcases the kindness of the humanity and thepurity of the soul by describing the tragic story of a girl called Cuicui. The novel hasattracted lots of readers at home and abroad for its unique artistic charm and vivid localflavor.
The thesis deals with the two representative English versions of Biancheng, one isfrom the famous British translator Gladys Yang, the other is from the Americansinologist Jeffrey C. Kinkley. The author engages in the exploration of how to apply thetheory of intertextuality to the translation of novels from theory and practice and tries todig up a new perspective concerning the translation studies of Biancheng as an effort toprove the fact that the theory of intertextuality can not only be viewed as epistemologybut also be taken as methodology for the research of novel translation.
All in all, two research methods are included in this thesis. First and foremost, thecombination of qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis runs through the wholethesis in order to reflect the frequency distribution for use of domestication andforeignization; in addition, the thesis mainly uses the case analysis, especially in themain body part. It expounds the enlightenment the theory of intertextuality brings to thenovel translation by comparing different translations of the different Chineseculture-specific items （CSI） in terms of linguistic, material, social, religious andecological culture. The features of the application of the intertextuality into thetranslation studies are as follows: it pays much more attention to the translator'ssubjectivity and manifests the nature of translation activities as intertextuality in aclearer way. Thus, it helps to build the new intertextual connections between the sourcetext and the target text and provide fresh new theoretical support for the macroscopicconstruction of the translation studies.
This thesis can be divided into six parts.
In the Introduction, the author displays a brief introduction of the researchbackground, research significance, the methodology, and the structure of the thesisrespectively.
Chapter One is the review of the previous studies on Biancheng and its Englishtranslations both at home and abroad.
Chapter Two is primarily concerned with the establishment and development of thetheory of intertextuality, and then the relationship between the theory of intertextualityand translation will be presented.
Chapter Three is about Biancheng and its two English translations. It not onlypresents a brief introduction of Shen Congwen, but also elaborates the description of thetwo translators---Gladys Yang and Jeffrey C. Kinkley. Meanwhile, it provides us withthe background information about the formation process of these two English versions.
Chapter Four is the main body of the thesis. The author initiates the comparativestudy of the two English versions of Biancheng by detailed analysis of five differenttypes of culture-specific items, namely linguistic, material, social, religious andecological culture,The last part is the Conclusion. The author holds that Biancheng contains a lot ofdifferent types of intertextual signals of Chinese culture-specific items which can betraced in other previous texts. At the same time, because of the different environmentand cultural background, the two translators share different understandings on theintertextual signals of those culture-specific items, resulting in the two translators'
different choices of different translation strategies. Gladys Yang's version involves bothdomestication and foreignization, and foreignization occupies a larger percentage. Asthis version got published in 1981, the readers from the English speaking countriescould grasp the style and content of the translated version in a rather difficult way;while Kinkley's version was out in 2009, and he tended to use more foreignization thanthat of Gladys Yang, which helped to meet the needs of those foreign readers who notonly possessed basic knowledge of China and Chinese culture, but also yearned forhaving a better understanding of Chinese culture. In addition, Kinkley's versionsuccessfully maintained the local flavor of the source text, helps transmit Chineseculture to the world, and making it a worthwhile material for further study.
ABSTRACT
With the rapid development of globalization, international academic exchangeand cooperation are increasingly strengthened. Today, most Chinese universities haveprovided English webpage profiles to draw more attention from oversea students,foreign scholars or academic institutions. University webpage profile, as the core ofthe whole webpage, plays a significant role in attracting foreign academic exchangeand cooperation programs.
Relying on its excellent location and prosperous economy, Zhejiang province hasgenerated many famous universities. In recent years, these universities have alreadymade great achievements in international academic exchange and cooperation. Butthere still exist some errors in the C-E translation of their webpage profiles.
The author chooses webpage profiles of 20 Zhejiang universities as samples, andmeanwhile employs webpage profiles of 10 famous American universities and 10famous British universities as parallel texts to conduct this study under the guidanceof Functional Translation Theory. The study indicates that translation errors in thewebpage profiles of Zhejiang universities can be classified into four types, namely:
pragmatic translation errors, cultural translation errors, linguistic translation errorsand textual translation errors. Through analysis of these errors, the author works outsome countermeasures including addition and amplification, deletion andsimplification, rewriting, reconstructing text structure and improving informationaccuracy to correct these errors in hope to improve the quality of webpage profiles ofZhejiang universities.
