ABSTRACT
This thesis focuses on the foreign children's literature translation （FCLT） in theLate Qing Dynasty（1898-1911）。 Under the guidance of polysystem theory, this thesisattempts to work out the complicated network of relations underlying the phenomenon.
In this way, the emphasis of this study is put on the relationship between FCLT andsystems including social background, the canonized literature and children's literaturein the Late Qing Dynasty. On the basis of this, the study comes to a conclusion aboutthe position assumed and the function served by FCLT in the Late Qing Dynasty.
Besides “Introduction” and “Conclusion”, this thesis consists of three chapters.
“Introduction” mainly deals with the research background, the methods employed aswell as the significance of this study; The first chapter is the literature review on thestudies of the children's literature and FCLT in the Late Qing Dynasty; The secondchapter takes polysystem theory as the theoretical foundation of this study; The thirdchapter is the main body of this thesis in which a detailed analysis of FCLT on thebasis of polysystem theory is presented in terms of the relationship between FCLT andthe above-mentioned three systems in the Late Qing Dynasty. At last, a conclusion ismade about the status of FCLT in the Late Qing Dynasty. In addition, limitations ofthis study are pointed out and suggestions for further study given.
As for the relationship between social background and FCLT in the Late QingDynasty, a macro study of the latter shows that FCLT made its first appearance in theLate Qing Dynasty to meet the need of the society. In addition, under the influence ofthe complicated situation of the society, it displays diversity in terms of motivations,translators as well as target readers. However, despite the fact that quite a number ofworks were translated to fulfill the translator's attempt to arouse a sense of patriotismamong readers or to spread Christianity, there existed works translated particularly forchildren. This is unprecedented in the Chinese history. Furthermore, those translationswith an initial goal of spreading Christianity turned out to be a good source ofchildren's books in both content and language during those days. Meanwhile, someother translations, such as science fiction, although not regarding children as the targetreaders, were widely favored by children. With regard to the relationship between thecanonized literature and FCLT in the Late Qing Dynasty, a micro study of thesetranslations reveals that the canonized literature has exerted a great influence on thetranslation in terms of the selection of works and the translating strategies. In addition,new elements were also introduced into the target culture via these translations. As aresult, going against the theory about the position of translated literature in the targetculture raised by Even-Zohar, FCLT in the Late Qing Dynasty not only employed theold patterns in the canonized literature but also introduced new types from the sourceculture. Concerning the relationship between FCLT and children's literature in theLate Qing Dynasty, these translations not only constituted a large share of children'sliterature but also promoted the production of works for children by domestic writers.
Based on the above study of the relationship between FCLT in the Late QingDynasty and the three systems, the thesis comes to the conclusion that at asynchronical level the translation resulted from the need of the society and fullyexposed the complicated situation of the social background. In addition, it not onlyfollowed the old patterns in the canonized literature but also brought in new elementsfrom the source culture. At a diachronic level, FCLT in the Late Qing Dynasty,together with works composed for children by domestic writers then, symbolizes thetransition of attitude towards children and the advent of Chinese children's literature.
Abstract
BaseNP is a relatively simple structure of syntax elements, which contains relativelycomplete semantic information. BaseNP is widely used and plays an important role insentence. Realization and translation of BaseNP automatically will help to understanddifferent languages. Recognition and translation of Russian BaseNP is significant andvaluable for cross-language retrieval, machine translation and other applications.
This paper learnt and summarized language and grammatical features of Russian, andrealized the recognition of Russian Base Noun Phrases based on the idea of combining rulesand statistical method. Besides, a method of building training corpus for CRF automatically isproposed to save the cost of annotating corpus manually. On the other hand, a translationmethod explicitly used Russian language feature, which is implicit in Russian words withform changes, improved translation quality of Russian translation BaseNP. The main worksinclude the following aspects :
Firstly, realized the recognition of Russian Base Noun Phrases based on the idea ofcombining rules and statistics, and for the lack and annotation cost of Russian corpus,proposed a method to build corpus automatically, which is based on Russian-Chinesedictionary and pattern library of speech collocation. The method builds training corpus forCRF automatically and gets the model to recognize BaseNP after labeling based on patternlibrary of speech collocation following the principle of Maximum Matching.
Secondly, a method of Russian BaseNP translation based on implicit knowledge isproposed. The “implicit knowledge” is Russian language feature which is reflected as wordform changes. Such as speech, case, gender, number, etc. By explicitly representing Russianlanguage feature in the corpus, data sparseness can be solved to a large extent, moreover,word alignment results can be improved in a certain degree , and the translation quality ofRussian BaseNP can be enhanced ultimately.
The F value of Russian BaseNP recognition method of this article is 84.14%, which is onthe basis of corpus annotation cost saving. The BLEU of translation by using of languagefeatures is 0.4257, increased by about 10 percentage points higher than the traditionalphrase-based machine translation method.
Abstract
Categorization, as an important theory in cognitive linguistics, refers to humans1 mentalprocess of classification under interaction of objective elements and subjective psychology.
With profound psychological basis,categorization has certain theoretical and practical valueto translation study. Taking Shuihuzhuan and its two English versions as corpus data,thisthesis intends to study lexical re-categorization and translation from the perspective ofcontemporary categorization theory.
Dating back to Classical Theory put forward by Aristotle, prototypical category theory isgradually molded in the development of categorization with the point-making such as “familyresemblance” and “foci”. Prototypical categorization theory holds that there exists a prototypein each kind of category.
There are three levels of category: basic level category, subordinate level category, andsuperordinate level category. Compared with the other two levels, basic level category gets arelatively central position, which is more common in our perceptional process.
Based on the notion claimed by cognitive linguists that words have cognitive andpsychological foundation, the nature of words translation is a process containing the switchingof cognitive categories between languages. Drawing materials from Shuihuzhuan and itsEnglish versions respectively by Pearl Buck and Dent-Yang,this thesis mainly studies thetransfer of lexical category in English and Chinese. Lexical category in the thesis principallyincludes three types: general category like color terms, sound imitation, unit terms, actions;culture-specific category as ecologicalculture, material culture, social culture, religious culture and linguistic culture; and alsocategory extension, containing metaphor and metonymy. In addition to these, lexical categorycan be used as a textual cohesive device. Langacker's S,T scanning model is referred toexplain the four translation outcomes of Pearl Buck and Dent-Yang,which can be concludedas: S>T（overtranslaion）； S<T（undertranslation）； S=T（equivalent translation）； ST（mistranslation）。
The thesis has studied the translation difference of the lexical categories betweenDent-Yang's work and Pearl Buck's based on the qualitative and quantitative comparison. Theoutcome shows that Pearl Buck has done a relatively better job in terms of the lexicalcategories translation with higher frequency of equivalent translation and lower frequency ofovertranslation and undertranslation. However, there are certain inadequacies in Buck'stranslation with a higher frequency of mistranslation and non-translation. The differenceresults are mainly due to the different understandings to the source text and the differenttranslation strategies' adoption.
Abstract
Ci poems are a great treasure of Chinese classic literary and occupy a unique place inliterary history. Translations of ci poems are abundant,among which Xu Yuanchong's 100Tang and Song Ci Poems is more comprehensive, for it covers the two dynasties in which cipoems developed greatly. Centering on the actualization of the aesthetic motivations, thisthesis examines the translation of ci poems by Xu Yuanchong from the semiotic perspective.
Semiotics is an independent discipline, and with the development of interdisplineiy study,it is applied to translation, but limited in research. As holistic and effective as it might be,semiotics is believed to be the most comprehensive system to analyze signs, especially inpoetry translation. The thesis will apply this methodology and study aesthetic motivationunderlying translations of the 100 ci poems at three levels: phonological motivation, syntacticmotivation and semantic motivation.
Through a rough analysis of tiie 100 ci poems, semiotics's function as an effectivemethodology has been largely fulfilled. In the study of semantic motivation, semiotics is takenas a powerful analytic tool. And in the study of phonological motivation and syntacticmotivation, the semiotic rationale and theoretical perspective is applied. Phonologicalmotivation, syntactic motivation and semantic motivation are all realized to a large extent inXu Yuanchong's translation, so his translation is successful in the actualization of aestheticmotivation on the whole. The degree of the realization of syntactic motivation is the highestamong the three while the degree of phonological motivation is the lowest. The research resultshows that Xu Yuanchong has strictly followed his translation theory of “beauty in sense, insound and in form” in his translation practice.
