Corpus-based Study On The English-Chinese Translation Of Restrictive Relative Clause

Relative clause, as a universal linguistic phenomenon, has drawn considerable attention from the translation researchers and been one of the major concerns in the field of translation for its unique syntactic properties and frequent employment in communication. As far as English-Chinese translation is concerned, the translation of relative clause is not only important but also difficult, and it is mainly responsible for the rigidness of most translation. The reason why the translation of relative clause is difficult to handle is that English and Chinese belong to two different linguistic systems, which greatly differs from one another.Recently, quite a few articles concerning the translation of relative clause have been published, and they have reached certain consensus on the translation methods. However, some of them are concluded from the analysis of the surface structure, so some are limited to the superficial description and introduction of language phenomena. In addition, considering the examples cited in the previous studies cannot prove their own point, therefore, this thesis aims to summarize some translation techniques of relative clause through utilizing the parallel corpus. Only by analyzing the real language data in the corpus, can it adequately prove the concluded methods in return.First of all, this research picked up 597 pieces of restrictive relative clauses among the novel Sense and Sensitivity written by Jane Austin and its Chinese version translated by Sun Zhili in terms of the eight relativizers such as which-, that-, who-, whom-, whose-, where-, when-and why-. And then they are clarified into three categories according to the position between the antecedent and the restrictive relative clause (RRC) after translating into Chinese i.e. Pre-position (RRC before antecedent), Post-position (RRC after antecedent) and Others (neither pre-position nor post-position or them both). Afterwards, quantitative analysis is done to these corpora and it finds that, among the 597 RRCs,233 RRCs (39.03%) are pre-position,167 RRCs (32.33%) are post-position and 197 RRCs (28.64%) belong to Others. And then qualitative analysis is conducted and the factors affecting the choice among Pre-position, Post-position and Others turn out to be the length and complexity of the RRCs. According to the Mode in statistics, the critical value of the RRC's length proves to be 10 words. If the RRC's length is within 10 words, it should probably be pre-positioned, otherwise, post-positioned. However, because of the rhetorical needs, there are exceptions; in addition, the complexity of RRC firstly affects the understanding of the clause, which shall accordingly hinder its translation.Secondly, through analyzing the corpora one by one until 597 pieces are finished, ten translation techniques are finally concluded in terms of Pre-position, Post-position and Others:a) Translation techniques of pre-position. Translating into "de-"structure, put directly before the antecedent, takes up 75.54%, and reversing accounts for 24.46%.b) Translation techniques of post-position. Placing the RRC after the main clause after translating by repetition, omission, substitution of the antecedent, and topicalization, among which the frequently used is repetition and substitution of the antecedent, which take up 38,86% and 31.61% respectively. Then, omission of the antecedent accounts for 23.91%, and topicalization is in the smallest proportion, only 3.63%.c) Translation techniques of Others include paraphrasing, mixture, translating into predicate and object phrases, addition of logical connectives. The frequently employed translation technique is addition of logical connectives, which takes up 60.82% of all the 171 pieces. Then, translating into predicate and object phrases and mixture account for 24.56% and 11.70% respectively, and paraphrasing is least employed, only 2.92%.Thirdly, the tentative analysis towards the translation techniques and its constraints while translating is made. To be specific, the theoretical foundation of translating into "de-"structure is that the English finite structure and the Chinese finite structure is interchangeable, and that of reserving, repetition, omission and substitution of the antecedent, topicalization and translating into predicate and object phrases is that English emphasizes finite structure, while Chinese focuses on coordinate structure, and that of conversion is the corresponding relationship between the English adjective and adverb.In addition, the constraints of translating into "de-"is that the number of "de-" before the antecedent should be limited within 3 (≤3, if not for special rhetorical purpose), and that of repetition, omission and substitution of the antecedent, topicalization and translating into predicate and object is that the coherence among sentences and structures should be ensured and the word order has to be adjusted according to the relationship of theme and rheme when necessary.Finally, since translation is not the simple transformation of content, this study probes into the factors affecting translation such as translator's subjectivity, the misinterpretation of RRCs and the cultural differences.Above all, this research summarized ten translation techniques about the English-Chinese translation of RRCs by analyzing the true corpora with the assistance of the online corpus Sense and Sensitivity, and most importantly, tentative analysis is made to their theoretical foundations and constraints so as to enrich the highly generalized traditional translation methods and in hopes of throwing light on the translation teaching activities and the translation practice as well.