The effect of difference of culture on translation10

1、中英文化差異對翻譯的影響effects of cultural differences on translation1. introductionculture is a concept which has wide and complicated context, and it includes “knowledge, belief, policy, art, law, ethics, customs, and abilities and habits formed by people as social members.” language is the transition of cul

2、ture. english and chinese are based on two different cultures, and they impress different cultural customs and historical traditions. translation is not only an art, but also a science, so translation does not mean to transfer one language to another. as the bridge of trans-cultural communication, f

3、ulfilling humans culture, and emerging different expressions in different countries.common things in human experiences seem to express themselves in similar terms in quite unrelated languages. the expressions are usually metaphorical, and may be as similar as “strike while the iron is hot,” which ap

4、pears in chinese as “while hot strike the iron.”western culture is based on things, making nature as its standard, the culture tend to develop its external display, so it lays stress on creating things, and moreover, on the way how human creates things. instruments used in this study involved two en

5、glish language proficiency tests. therefore, during the process of translation, we should consider how to get out of the sentence structures of the former article, using different forms to express the meanings.2. detail examples of the effect of social customs on translation2.1 the differences of da

6、ily life and social customsbloom (1976) 間接引用。一般是對原文paraphrase或summarize，不需引號與頁碼。最后的句號應(yīng)放在括弧之后。 argued that teachers role is to provide the students with optimal conditions which can facilitate learning so that students can achieve similar results. obviously, these kinds of greeting are not suitable t

7、o greet people from english countries, as they may think that you are prying into their secrets and private things. a similar historical event may give rise to equivalent expressions in different countries. this sort of answers is suitable for chinese who have been cultivated by the oriental culture

8、, but if we translate them literally into english, as “no, no, its not good enough”, the westerners may feel unacceptable and even dissatisfied. so, the proper greetings used in western countries are “how do you do?”, “hello!”, “good morning!” or talking about the weather. it has been argued that te

9、achers role is to provide the students with optimal conditions which can facilitate learning so that students can achieve similar results (bloom, 1976). 間接引用。原作者未出現(xiàn)在正文中，故在括號內(nèi)注明。both of chinese culture and english culture require people to respect the old. as differences of cultural thoughts exist, t

10、he ways to show our respect are relatively different. for example, when we get out having a family travel, we will firstly care about the physical situation of the old, and then decide whether we need to have arrest or not. but old foreigners dislike being considered as they are old people, and they

11、 never think that they are less vigorous and less spirit. this argument was discussed as early as 1997 (wang, 1989). 間接引用。中文作者用漢語拼音。the disadvantage of the multiple regression analysis is that it cannot show the complex interrelations between independent variable (wang & sun, 1990). 間接引用。兩名中文作者。 ano

12、ther example, the oriental people consider being modest and obscure as a virtue, and this thought is also directly expressed on the use of language. some theorists find no value in smiths thesis and vehemently argue its faults (masters & malloy, 1978). 間接引用。兩名英文作者。adverbials are divided into two gro

13、ups in terms of the centrality. those that are integrated into clause structure are regarded as adjuncts (quirk et al., 1985). 間接引用。三名以上作者，僅標(biāo)示第一作者，其余用et al. 表示。 another example, the oriental people consider being modest and obscure as a virtue, and this thought is also directly expressed on the use

14、of language. this sort of answers is suitable for chinese who have been cultivated by the oriental culture, but if we translate them literally into english, as “no, no, its not good enough”, the westerners may feel unacceptable and even dissatisfied. comparatively, the westerners use commendation as

15、 frequently as they can, as a way of starting communication and helper of introducing formal topic. the turn of expression “thank you” seems to have become a conventional formula, especially in the western countries.somebody often says that without any intention of displaying this gratitude can not

16、be correct. based on different findings, it is proposed that “the type of motivation and its strength are likely to be determined less by some generalized principle and more by who learns what in what milieu at that time” (freeman & long, 1993:174). 直接引用。需加雙引號及頁碼，原文若已帶引號，應(yīng)將其改為單引號。原文內(nèi)容不能更改，若中間有省略，需加英

17、文省略號。 english has no regular answer at all. gardner (1985:10) sees motivation as “the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitude toward learning language”. 直接引用。原作者已經(jīng)在正文中出現(xiàn)。australian literature in english began soon after the settlement of

18、 the country by europeans. common themes include indigenous and settler identity, alienation, exile and relationship to place, but it is a varied and contested area .the australian literature is characterized as follows: emphasizing the orthodox tradition of jurisprudence and supporting the standard

19、 style of poetry. this represented the main trend of wu age. this view was in accordance with wus ideas and status as a confucian scholar and it embodied what literary men of wu emphasized: the authors personality should correspond to his writing style and jurisprudence should be mingled with litera

20、ture. people insist on learning from the ancient people and their rich minds (herders, 199:126). 直接引用。引文在四行或四行以上，需單獨(dú)成段，不需引號。上下各空一行，整段向右退8個字符。字體字號不變，但行距從“固定值20磅”變?yōu)椤皢伪缎芯唷保▋蓚€空行均為單倍行距）。we will discuss australian language, letters and literature, including discussions about poetry, novels, childrens lite

21、rature, plays and theatre scripts, literary magazines and newspapers. in his “hymn to intellectual beauty,” shelly personifies the immaterial, spiritual world: “the awful shadow of some unseen power / floats though unseen among us”(1809:75). 直接引用。詩歌不超過兩行，直接引用，加雙引號，兩行間用斜線分開。in “song of myself,” walt

22、whitman uses the dictation and rhythm of natural speech：a child said what is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;how could i answer the child? i do not know what it is any more than he.i guess it must be the flag of my disposition, hopeful green stuff woven (1892:23). 直接引用。詩歌超過兩行，需單獨(dú)成段，規(guī)則同注

23、9。indeed, only those foreigners who know a little about chinese culture may understand these explanations, and most of them can not get the marvels inside. so such words with peculiar cultural meaning should be added some explanations to illustrate their pragmatic usages. after the year all other ye

24、ars of the rooster, according to an old chinese saying, become either-good-or-bad-luck years for them.goethe wrote that “it takes more culture to perceive the virtues of the magic flute than to point out its defects” (qtd in newman, 1998:104). 無原著，內(nèi)容來自二手資料，需在來源前加上“qtd in”字樣。在參考文獻(xiàn)部分，以二手資料撰寫條目。a simil

25、ar historical event may give rise to equivalent expressions in different countries. when caesar crossed the rubicon, he had his army burn the bridges behind them, so that they had no choice but to march on and conquer rome.in six months time, he was tramped into marriage with her, though “he had no

26、respect for her” (40). 論文是文學(xué)評論，需從同一作品反復(fù)引用。為方便起見，從第二次引用起，只注頁碼。actually, it was once translated into “five stresses, four points of beauty and three aspects of love” without any explanation. as a result, it would cause misunderstanding that foreigners who had little knowledge about china may probably

27、consider it as “four beauties, and five lovers”.the web-based oral english teaching mode advocated by college english curriculum requirements is a new and developing mode with broad prospects and will exert a far-reaching influence on english teaching reforms. in chinese, a sentence can be embedded

28、in a noun phrase to modify its head noun and such a process is called gelatinization. gelatinization usually results in relative clauses or adjectival clauses. studies on such constructions in the past were mostly guided by structuralism linguistics with a focus on structures, ignoring semantic, pra

29、gmatic and cognitive factors.in the preface, pineland claims “this icelandic is the story of an adolescent whose needs are not understood by his descendants” (hardliners, 99:128). 原文中的詞語，因失去語境，指代不明。用方括號標(biāo)注。2.2 analogy and imaginationthis usage wants to express that it is extremely easy to invest or d

30、eposit money in united carolina bank. (1) do your teeth a flavor. no matter what the flavor, when your kids brush with crest, they are doing their teeth a flavor. arent your kids worth crest? 例句按順序用（1）（2）（3）（4）等統(tǒng)一編號，全文排序。每例左起頭，回行時與上一行例句對齊。上下各空一行，例句連同空行的行距均為“單倍行距”。（注：正文為“固定值20磅”）。in this advertisemen

31、t for crest, “do your teeth a flavor” completely imitates the phrase “do somebody a favor”. the sentence structures are the same, and the effect is also goodthe superstition that naming an evil force will cause it to appear was once widespread. the texts were then segmented by the automatic segmenta

32、tion system of academia. (2) *although the city is modern and convenient, but there are still some problems.(3) ?how old are you, professor smith?不合語法的例句前用“*”；合乎語法，但有語用問題的例句前用“?”。同一組例句間不空行。the results of segmentation show that the total corpus for editorials contains approximately 26229 words of run

33、ning text; the total corpus for magazines contains approximately 22,900 words; and the total corpus for fiction contains approximately 9,291 words. a simple complete sentence consists of a subject and a predicate. the subject is typically a noun phrase, though other kinds of phrases (such as gerund

34、phrases) work as well, and some languages allow subjects to be omitted. the differences between the two tenses can be seen from the following two sentences:(4) a. i have been playing the piano since i was a child. b. i have played the piano since i was a child. 例句對照比較。文中提到該例句時，用(4a)、(4b)、(4c)的格式。we

35、can find that sentence (4a) is different from sentence (4b) in meaning. however, i know of no other grammarians that allow any of sentences. now the descriptive part of the test: do educated indonesians use sentences like this?the typical differences between english culture and chinese culture are t

36、he understandings of words about animals. both of chinese and english have amounts of similes, sometimes they are similar, such as “fox” means cunning, “sheep” means a bashful, defenseless or easily-led person. but it happens rarely because of different customs, historical traditions, and concepts o

37、f aesthetic appreciation, and as a result, the differences of analogy exist.5) 己所不欲，勿施于人。do as you would be done by. 例句翻譯，英漢對照。as we all know, the cat is cute and obedient animal in chinese tradition; while, it represents “malicious woman with hostile temptation” in english. obviously, it is not the

38、 product of chinese culture. as a matter of fact, direct translation can not be acceptable in chinese culture. “chick” has the meaning of “to be a coward”, as same as “mouse” in chinese culture.animals like bear is connected with stupid, foolish, and useless image in china; meanwhile, in the western

39、ers opinion, although bear is a kind of dangerous, and cruel animal, the bears in the zoo are lovely and naughty, so if we want to mean someone is useless, we can not use the analogy in china into english. not the same as people in china think rabbits are quick and smart; the westerners compare rabb

40、its with cowards.labor creates the world as well as language. due to different geographical situation and ecological atmosphere, the use of analogy is obviously different. china is the great agricultural country. in early years, peasants were mainly based on cattle-plough, and cattle were excellent

41、helpers of peasants in the agricultural process, so chinese people had deep relationship with cattle. we usually say “to work hard and modestly as old cattle, and “he has the strong spirit like cattle”. this is stated by many linguists. “whatever the ultimate goals, one will almost certainly wish no

42、t only to codify the text in terms of cohesive categories but also to inspect the individual instances of cohesion, to look closely at the actual words and phrases that enter into cohesive ties and see what patterns of texture then emerge. a particular text, or a genre, may exhibit a general tendenc

43、y towards the use of certain features or modes rather than others” (halliday & hasan 1976:332). 2.3 chronological order and geographical space2.3.1 the understanding of colorsalthough in the same situation of wedding party, the new-married couples wear full dress with different colors during the pro

44、cess, according to the influence of different cultures. on the chinese traditional wedding party, the bride wears bright red cheongsam, and on western-style wedding, the first married bride wears pure white bridal gown, because in the western tradition, white means purity and happiness. the ways of

45、expressions of time is restrained by differences, and every culture must distinguish itself from others, according to the focus on time: the past, the present, and the future. table 1. readability formulae calculations and readability characteristics 表格統(tǒng)一編號，全文排序。標(biāo)題與表格居中，上下各空一行，標(biāo)題與表格間空一行，所有內(nèi)容（含空行）均為“

46、單倍行距”。textsflesch readingease scorefleschgrade levelnumberofsentencessentenceaveragelengthnumberofwordscharles dickensa tale of two cities86414112.4 words1663frances burnettthe secret garden86415310.0 words1633louisa may allcottlittle women86513214.1 words1667although in the same situation of weddin

47、g party, the new-married couples wear full dress with different colors during the process, according to the influence of different cultures. on the chinese traditional wedding party, the bride wears bright red cheongsam, and on western-style wedding, the first married bride wears pure white bridal g

48、own, because in the western tradition, white means purity and happiness.learners dictionaries can be classified into two major types: monolingual dictionaries like the oxford advanced learners dictionary, the cobuild dictionary, longman dictionary of contemporary english. another example is frequent

49、ly mentioned in chinese, and if we translate it literally into “to wear a green hat”, it may cause misunderstanding, i.e. that people have not been cultivated in oriental culture, because this expression is not the product of western culture. western readers will simply consider that someone is wear

50、ing a green hat. so, we have to explain it into “to be cuckold” with the similar meaning. we can see this from the following figure: 圖示統(tǒng)一編號，全文排序，格式同表格。listeningspeakingreadingwritingtranslationfigure 1. time consumption of intermediate learnersmoreover, “blue” is the imagery of being peaceful and ha

51、rmonious in chinese culture, but it means to be sad, and depressed in english; besides, “blue” also means “indecent, pornographic”, such as a blue joke, a blue film. on the aesthetic standard, oriental females always pursuit white skin as they think having white skin is the most important way to bec

52、ome beautiful, but western females like wheat-colored skin and they consider having white appearance to be unhealthy. so every summer, amounts of western females crowd into beach to become sun-tanned.2.3.2 the influence of religious beliefreligious belief is a part of humans spiritual activities, an

53、d it has great effect on the development of nations. in english-speaking countries, it is a custom to give best wishes to a newly-married person by saying “congratulation”. however, in the specific context of this humor, the speaker is an undertaker, and the hearer is a bereaved husband. what will t

54、he poor man feel when he hears such a “congratulation”? this dialogue reminds people that they should pay much attention to the specific utterances according to the actual contexts; otherwise, the conversation will sound humorous or even hurt others feelings. therefore, in specific contexts, people

55、should express themselves in a proper way. and this is obviously unsuitable to convey the former work. however, these idioms are hard to be transmitted into english. people believe in christian religion in western countries, especially in britain and america. they treat god to be the sole and suprem

56、e being, and men are born equally. so these expressions come into being, such as “god helps those who help themselves”. 3. findings and discussionthere are some idioms in english from greek myths, homers epic, etc. for example, the heel of achilles：the idiom comes from greek legend. it was said that

57、 when achilles was born, his mother wanted him to be an iron man, so she put him into the styx with holding his heel. as a result, his heel becomes his sole weakness. literal translation, as peter newmark puts it, is a translation where “the sl grammatical constructions are converted to their neares

58、t tl equivalents but the lexical words are translated singly, out of context” (2001:46). this kind of method follows closely the form of the source text and is able to achieve a unity of the form and the content when applied properly. it aims at preserving the most possible cultural messages, including the formal elements of the source text, and at the same time, maintaining the intelligibility of the target text. it is advised that literal translation be employed as much as possible in the cultural translation.language and culture may thus be seen as being closely related