On The Translation Of English Slang Into Chinese

Slang, the colorful, irreverent, sometimes offensive language ofinformal speech, is an integral part of everyday life: it makes itselfheard not only in the street, at the baf, but in the prison, the pulpitand even in the House of Parliament. Slang has also largely enteredthe written documents such as literary works, newspaPers, andmagazines. A foreign research-student at Cambridge has ever said:"It is impossible to acquire a thorough Anowledge of English [or anyother language for that matter] without being familiar with slang orvulgarism, Whoever is uninitiated... will be at a loss to understandmany of the master pieces of English literature. Nay... he willscarcely be able to understand an English newspaPer."(qtd. inPartridge, l954:3)Thus, as slang is used by every class, and as thisfact is now everywhere recognized, it is quite normal, justifiable,and challenging to study slang, the increasingly active strength oflanguage. Another reason why I carry out this research is that manytranslations of English slang in literary works are far from satisfyingand that translators do not seem to have made a thorough andsystematic study on the translation of English slang into Chinese.Thus, this paper takes a particular perspective on slang translationand follows this through to guiding principles and possible strategiesfor its translation.This paper is divided into five chaPters. Chapter One,"1ntroduction to English Slang", provides a basis for my paper,while Chapter Two, "Problems in the Translation of EnglishSlang", Chapter Three, "Principles of Slang Translation" andI[ChaPter Fouf, "Proposed Strategies fOr Translating EnglishSlang" are the main concems of my research. Chapter Five,"Significance and Prospects of Slang Translation", functions asboth conclusion and prediction.The opening chaPter, "Introduction to English Slang",concems itself with the definition, characteristics, formation, and its- differences from other speech forms. Linguists have not arrived at aconsensus on the definition of slang because their attitudes towardt slang have undergone three processes: at first, the sheer negativeattitude, and then the negative attitude going side by side with thestrong affirmative one; gradually it turns into the objective attitude. Iappreciate the definition stated in ffebsterk DictIbnary Of theEnglkh Language (Unabrhad) as it is the most comprehensive andconvincing one so far. Slang is characterized by its ephemeralitynovelty and innovation, the possibility of ermobling and its functionas a mirror of culture. As to the formation of slang, there are mainlysix possible ways: coinage; changes in meaning; changes in forms;functional shift; borrowing; and playing with sounds. It is hard butnecessary to distinguish slang from other similar terms such asregionalism or dialect words, colloquialism, cant, jargon and argot.They all fall into the category of non-standard speech, but slang. 1enJoys much more publicity and tried for more humorous, moreinitiative mode of speech.In Chapter TWo, "Problems in the Translation of EnglishSlang", an attempt is made to identify the existing problems ofslang translation by analyzing authentic examples of translated textSw in Chinese. One problem that occurs most is the mistranslating ofslang, which is defined broadly as referring to any distortion ofmeaning as a result of misunderstanding of the original slang.Besides this unfaithful rendering of meaning, the unique flavor thatIIIslang carries such as being pungent, humorous, and witty is oftenlost when it is translated into Chinese. Therefore, "loss of originaIflavor" is the second problem. Finally slang conceming sex,frequently referred to in the daily speech by English speakers, isvery often a taboo in China. As a result of these two differentcultures, Chinese translators may consciously downplay or evenskip the sexually suggestive slang. This pr...