Europeanization Of Modern Chinese And Translation Strategies-An Integrated Approach

On the surface, Europeanization of Modern Chinese and translation strategies belong to two different fields. The former issue is linked with language contact and historical linguistics, and the latter one is usually discussed by translators and translation theorists. Linguists, translators and translation theorists have discussed the two topics respectively, yet they have not elaborated on the relevance between the two issues. Therefore, the present study discusses the two issues together in order to probe into Europeanization of Modern Chinese and seek a feasible translation strategy so as to promote the healthy development of MSC (Modern Standard Chinese, Kratochvil 1968:19).The subtitle of this dissertation–"an integrated approach"has taken the following aspects into consideration. Firstly, the two topics (Europeanization of MSC and translation strategies) are combined and discussed together. The elaboration of the former topic offers scientific and reasonable explanations for the latter one. Secondly, the two major modules of the research cover multiple theories and perspectives. Europeanization of MSC and translation strategies are mainly related to contact linguistics, historical linguistics, general linguistics, quantitative linguistics, sociolinguistics (language planning included), corpus linguistics, theories of grammaticalization and lexicalization, discourse analysis, and translatology. Generally speaking, the theories listed above are compatible in nature. Thirdly, due to the multiple theories and perspectives of the dissertation, different methods are also applied in order to make the thesis valid and convincing.Modern Chinese is a historical product of the development of the Chinese language. In order to discuss the features of Europeanization of Modern Chinese, the present study starts from both the diachronic and synchronic perspectives. By comparing the lexicon, word formation and syntax of Ancient Chinese, Early Mandarin Chinese, and Modern Chinese, it can be discovered that Modern Chinese is different from its ancestor in many respects. Doubtlessly its interior mechanisms constitute the primary motivation of the formation of MSC. However, the foreign linguistic influence mainly triggered by translation should not be neglected. Due to the prominence of English-Chinese translation in modern translation activities in China,"the so-called Europeanization usually refers to Anglicization"(Wang Li 1943/1985: 334). Hence the terms of"Europeanization,""Westernization"and"Anglicization"may be simply equated in the present research. In the Europeanization process of Modern Chinese, English-Chinese translation has been playing the role of activator, or more figuratively, the catalytic promotor in chemical reaction.On the other hand, the present study discusses translation strategies at the linguistic level. The compatible relationship between two continua– the"lexicon-morphology-syntax"continuum and the"domestication-strictly defined hybrid strategy-foreignization"continuum– is revealed and explained. In fact, the latter continuum is determined by the former one. By introducing the Skopos translation theory, we believe that a hybrid translation strategy (broadly defined) should be adopted by translators in English-Chinese translation. Since the skopos of TL texts is a variable factor, translators should also take the styles of TL texts into consideration in order to guarantee the readability of TL texts. Although language planning is the government's responsibility, individual translators should also know their function in the healthy development of MSC.This dissertation is composed of four parts: 1) Part 1: Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 (offering the introduction and literature review); 2) Part 2: Chapter 3, Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 (presenting the empirical evidence of Europeanization of Modern Chinese and revealing the relevance between Europeanization and translation strategies); 3) Part 3: Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 (discussing translation strategies and presenting supplementary evidence); 4) Part 4: Chapter 8 (providing conclusion).There are also several limitations of the present study. First, the present study is restricted by budget. We only obtain 6 back-translated versions in a test of back-translation in Chapter 5. Actually the five translators do the job of back-translation for free. The shortage of budget has prevented us to carry out large-scale questionnaire surveys in Chapter 7. Second, the English-Chinese and Chinese-English parallel corpora co-built by Peking University and Beijing Foreign Studies University have not been published until now. It is well known that the two corpora are authoritative parallel corpora in China. The corresponding data are also unavailable for us. Hence the syntactical analysis in Chapter 5 is not exhaustive, and we are unable to provide exact data in Figure 10. Third, the present dissertation has discussed translation strategies from the linguistic perspective instead of cultural perspective. Fourth, due to the author's poor knowledge of Chinese linguistics, historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, cognitive linguistics, sociolinguistics, and translatology, the present study is quite shallow.Nevertheless, we are quite confident that scholars will make great progress in further studies.