Structural Shift In Translation

Research backgroundSince the emergence of descriptive linguistics, linguists have concerned themselves with the extent to which languages could be expected to differ from one another. In 1976, Li and Thompson proposed a new typology of language, drawing scholastic attention to the issue of basic sentential structures presented as subject-predicate and topic-comment constructions. The notion of subject had long been considered as basic grammatical relation in the sentential structure of a language. However, the evidence Li and Thompson gathered from certain languages suggested that in the languages that they looked into the basic constructions manifest a topic-comment relation rather than a subject-predicate one. Their study shows that the notion of topic may be as basic as that of subject in grammatical descriptions, but languages may differ in their strategies for constructing sentences, according to the prominence of the notions of topic and subject. With these findings, they put languages into four types: languages that are subject-prominent(Sp), languages that are topic-prominent(Tp), languages that are both subject-prominent and topic-prominent, and languages that are neither subject-prominent nor topic-prominent.With the new hypothesis established, linguists, especially Chinese scholars, have been attempting a different approach to the description of Chinese sentence structures. They choose to describe the basic sentence structure in terms of topic-comment rather than subject, object and verb. However, to clarify the notion of the Tp structure, the Sp construction is always taken as a contrastive framework, within which topics are identified. Identification of subjects and topics is found to be the most interesting issue in this field. Syntactic and semantic features, the role topics or subjects play in constructing sentences; contribute to distinguishing topics from subjects. Apart from the criteria for identification of topics and subjects, grammarians are interested in the relation between Sp and Tp structures in terms of topicalization and pragmatic effect when Tp structures replace Sp ones. As Chinese is characterized as a topic-prominent language, Chinese scholars are more interested in topic properties (or topic-related propertiesl). Their studies focus on topic properties, topic establishment, the function of topics in contrast with that of subjects and the relation between theme and topic. All of the findings in this field lay solid foundations for our investigation into subject-to-topic transition taking place in English-to-Chinese translation.Research goalsBased on the previous findings this paper attempts to probe into the issue of structural transformation, a shift in sentence structures. Much of our consideration is given to the principles governing, or to the ways of, the switching of sentence patterns, which involve structural features at syntactic, semantic and textual levels. Those features may account for what happens during the transition from Sp structures to Tp ones in E-C translation.This dissertation is meant to account for the motivation underlying the translator's efforts to render the subject prominent sentence in the original into the topic prominent one in the target language text beyond the conventional preoccupations about how to distinguish subjects from topics. To achieve the aim the paper starts with a discussion of the parts of speech, an aspect less touched on but an element that characterizes subject-predicate structures. It is necessary for the translator to know the features of subject and topic constructions, and to know that both structures are available in translation as basic constructions. With this knowledge, he/she is entitled to switch to the alternative way in sentence construction when the English way of expression is found to fail in Chinese in terms of its smoothness and naturalness. In order to bring to light why and how the shift of structures is conducted, the dissertation looks into the interaction at syntactic, semantic and textual levels, thereby coming up with some strategic suggestions for experimenting with the shift in translation.Our research goals include:1. To set up a descriptive systematic framework of structural shifts based on syntactic, semantic and textual theories.2. To experiment with a perspective of structural shifts from subject-predicate to topic-comment via an explanation of the close relation between parts of speech and parts of a sentence that determines the sentence structure, especially in English.3. To validate the reasonableness and feasibility of this framework by applying this framework to explaining structural shifts in E-C translation and verifying the patterns introduced to turn a Sp sentence into a Tp one.4. To put forward our claims that it is highly necessary to avoid adopting the peda- gogical strategy of teaching translation in a translation class and to avoid applying grammatical translation to professional performance, even if without the former nothing can be desired in the latter.Anyway, the sentential adjustment is too big a topic to get fully covered. That's why we chose this specific discussion in an attempt to focus on typological differences between English and Chinese, probing into the basic Chinese structure manifesting a topic-comment relation rather than a subject-predicate one so as to help translators, especially student practitioners, to get over translationese in their English-to-Chinese translation and make their expression more idiomatic and accessible to their readers.The dissertation consists of eight chapters. Its layout is as follows:In Chapter One, a sketch of the related research is made to give a general idea of what has been done and what is to be done. It also describes our intentions to choose a fresh perspective in the discussion of the structural shift from Sp to Tp. Then some of the terms used in the dissertation are presented and explained.Chapter Two takes parts of speech into consideration, which leads to a comparative study on sentence construction between English and Chinese in the following chapters. There are two criteria for determining parts of speech: form and meaning. According to form words are classified by noun, verb, adjective, article, pronoun, preposition, adverb and conjunction etc. In English"form"is primarily related to morphology. Parts of speech are determined by the distinction between inflected words, for instance, noun, adjective, conjunction and preposition."Meaning"is related to conceptual categorical aspects, for instance, noun, adjective and verb are based on the logical categories"substance","property"and"process"while conjunctions and prepositions are based on the category "relation". Due to the lack of morphological system, Chinese depends on the semantic criterion to tell the part of speech of a word. Since Chinese lexical categories are not morphologically marked, they are semantically dependent. For a language characterized by semantic dependence, parts of speech can only be made known by means of conceptual categorical aspects and the word's position in the sentence, i.e. word order. With Chinese being paratactic and English being hypotactic, one of the biggest differences lies in their dependency on morphologically marked categories. In English, parts of speech play a key role in designating a word as a dependant element or a dominant one and are an important factor affecting word order and the syntactic structure. There is always a corresponding relationship between parts of speech, parts of a sentence, and word order. All of these features characterize a subject prominent sentence. In contrast, in Chinese two elements related to each other are of equal status, one initiating and the other continuing, which is an important feature of topic-comment structure. Chinese words with zero-affixes have little impact on sentence construction in terms of syntactic dependency of one element on another. Although the part of speech seems like an irrelevant notion, it is repeatedly mentioned in a round-about way in Sp-and-Tp discussions in terms of word order and parts of a sentence. That's why parts of speech are mentioned before we look into structural shifts in translation.In Chapter Three,much of the effort is given to a review of the relevant research abroad and at home. Among the Western theories we apply to our discussion, the theories of M. A. K. Halliday and Charles C. Fries, for Halliday's modification of the functionalist division of subjects at three levels and Fries'approach to a syntactic description within an integrated system covering parts of speech, parts of a sentence and logical subject or"actor subject"in Halliday's term provide us with an insight into the notion of subject and the function subject plays at a different level. Their claims about the nature of subject shed light on our study of structural shifts in translation, enabling us to take the research a step further to the analyses of subject. Among the Chinese scholars we are drawn to Ma Jianzhong and Chao Yuenren, whose works on Chinese grammar are landmarks that mark an important stage in the linguistic field in China. The systematic and scientific study of Chinese did not begin until the late 19th century, when Ma Jian Zhong published his Mashi Wentong in 1898. In this work he established the system of parts of speech, parts of a sentence and word order, a framework borrowed from Indo-European languages rather than something of Chinese origin. It can be best described as a mixture of western and Chinese grammars. In this system, subject,"起词"in Ma Jian Zhong's term, is described in detail, with its structural features, position in a sentence (or syntactic functions) and meaning are well-covered. Short of morphological means, Ma bases his description of subject on the position of a word in the sentence, or ci (次), a term created on the basis of"case,"and meaning, a semantic approach to distinguish subject from the other parts of a sentence. Lexical categories are mentioned again and again in Mashi Wentong, but their appearance is most often found in the discussion of the parts of a sentence. From this we see that parts of speech are closely related to parts of a sentence and therefore play a key role in sentence construction. As has been mentioned, rooted in the alien linguistic system, some of the claims proposed in Mashi Wentong fail to describe the linguistic facts of Chinese language. One of the failures is found in the description of subject. Some of the subjects in the book can hardly be justified as subjects according to the criteria of Western linguistic system. Such subjects, as explained by Chao Yuen Ren, are actually topics, which are delved on in Chapter Four.Chapter Four is dedicated to a discussion of subject and topic. Chao Yuen Ren(1968)is the first man to have introduced the notion of topic in his work A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. In Chao's explanation the grammatical meaning of subject and predicate is"topic and comment, rather than actor and action," on which we make a comment in the dissertation. This assertion can only be understood as a denial of a complete acceptance of the Western notion of subject since no universal formal properties of subject can be identified across languages and the rules of transitivity sometimes fail to work properly in constructing a subject-dominant sentence, i.e. there is no actor-subject relationship in many Chinese sentences. That's why Chao introduced the idea of topic-comment, but he didn't give a clear idea of this new concept. In the examples he gave to show the topic-comment relationship he still used the term"subject."Here we give our critical review in this regard.Chapter Five investigates typological differences between English and Chinese, probing into the basic sentential structure of Chinese which manifests a topic-comment relation rather than a subject-predicate one. Based on the seven criteria proposed by Li and Thompson (1976) of identifying a topic and the fourteen types of topics under Shen Xiaolong's (1996) description, the dissertation also makes a tentative and comparative effort to place topic-comment structures into three categories so as to make it easier for the translator to approach the adaptation of sentence structures in translation. It points out that it is a topic rather than a subject that plays a key role in an SP to TC structural shift.In Chapter six, we experiment with five patterns to turn a subject-prominent sentence into a topic-prominent one. These patterns, based on a comparative study of the sentence structures of both languages, are aimed at finding a more convenient way to handle the sentential adaptation in English-to-Chinese translation. They help a lot in avoiding"translationese"in a Chinese version and make it more idiomatic and accessible to the target language readers. Since the grammatical rules of subject-predicate sentences are often found undesirable, a translation loaded with English syntactic features would deplorably create an unacceptable product for its readers.In Chapter Seven, the discussion is based on Chao Fengfu's discourse-oriented study on Chinese topic-comment structure, in which cohesion and coherence are brought into consideration. It points out that a topic-oriented sentence calls for discourse analysis strategies rather than syntactic ones. The topic has an impact on its comment in terms of semantics and cohesion. From a pragmatic perspective, the degree of markedness is believed to be a yardstick to measure the appropriateness of the sentence adaptation in English-to-Chinese translation.In conclusion, reflections are made on the origin of subject and the issues related to translation such as priority of meaning over form in translation, and the difference between sentence-oriented construction and discourse-oriented structure. This research set our mind on the relationship between teaching translation and translation teaching. The two types of translation-related teaching are different in pedagogical performance and orientation. Teaching translation is second-language oriented while translation teaching is meant to teach students how to handle the transformation of surface structures with the meaning of the original conveyed at its best. It points out that it is necessary for the teacher to warn his students against an addiction to the source language grammatical framework in the target language expression. The innovations of this dissertation include:1. Subject and topic are a familiar topic in the linguistic field but a less covered one in the field of translation. In previous studies, argument and predicate, case grammar are most likely theories for linguists to base their discussion on. Though these theories are applicable in explaining topicalization or in describing the typological differences between subject and topic, they are far from enough to explain why and how to conduct the structural shift in the process of English-to-Chinese translation. That's why we take an innovative effort to approach the issue of the relationship between parts of speech and parts of a sentence, which is thought to be an important factor in deciding sentence construction.2. Classification of topic structures is attempted for the first time to apply the classified framework to translation. Our classification is based on Shen Xiao Long's. He classifies topics typical of Chinese sentences into fourteen categories, which we turn into three according to structural markers, semantic relations and discourse based interaction between topic and comment. This makes it easier for the translator to handle structural shifts in E-C translation.3. Translation models are innovatively conceived and tentatively presented. We set up five models, with which the student's performance turned out satisfactory. All of the models have been tested in teaching for five years, They are"Subject vs. Topic","Non-subject vs. Topic","Head vs. Topic"and"Head vs. Comment", which consists of two approaches.Research significanceOne of the hassles that bothers translators is how to get the message of the original across to the target language reader in a smooth way. Anyone who takes a hand in translation will inevitably find that a smooth expression is often something unattainable, owing to the different linguistic systems between the two languages involved (for instance, English and Chinese being in a contrast of hypotaxis and parataxis). A long involved sentence, a sentence with a complex of propositions, or a head word with more than one modifier attached to, most likely turn out to be a hard nut to crack in English-to-Chinese translation. This is what drives us to investigate it. The significance of this research may be accounted for as follows:1. Translation is a communicative activity involving change, but the change takes place at the surface level. Where there is no transformation there is no translation. However, what underlies the transformation? For syntax, linguistic rules are something underlying the transformation. The research shows that the translator has to abide by the grammatical rules of the target language when the linguistic system of the original is found to be in conflict with that of the target language. Generally speaking, in L1-to-L2 translation, the translator is expected to follow the grammatical rules of the second language, and in L2-to-L1 translation, he is expected to follow the grammatical rules of the first language (mother tongue). For instance, in Chinese-to-English translation, we have to be keen on the corresponding relation between parts of speech and parts of a sentence, but in English-to-Chinese translation the importance of parts of speech diminishes, for parts of speech are not as important in determining the sentence structure in Chinese. This sheds light on translation teaching.2. It warns us against confusing the task of teaching translation with that of translation teaching. The former is characterized by teaching lexeme and grammar via translation (another term for it is grammatical translation), while the latter is known as a teaching task aimed at enhancing the student's ability to translate. Grammatical translation serves as a tool for foreign language learning and translation teaching is performed for communication between two mutually incomprehensible tongues. The two types of teaching tasks come into a"relay relationship"in that teaching translation functions as an early stage in which learners receive lexemic and grammatical instructions mainly via translation, which offers subsequent access to translation training, contributing to L2 proficiency and a preliminary attempt at translating.If we continue with the teaching strategy designed for L2 proficiency in a translation class, the grammatical rules of the second language will be so deeply entrenched in the learners'linguistic behavior that their translating will undoubtedly be encumbered with the alien linguistic rules. It's up to the teacher responsible for translation teaching to expose his/her students to the decision-making procedure rather than give them the translator's final decisions, or an end product. Our research displays underlying structural shifts in English-to-Chinese translation. It also provides the translator with convenient translating models (which can be applied to machine translation as well).Of course, our research is designed for one aspect of transformation taking place in E-C translation, making a preliminary probe into the field of syntax from the perspective translation. It expects more scholars to come up with their new findings to get along with this line so as to push forward the research.