On The Translation Strategy: Abstraction And Concretization

Traditionally, translation has been regarded as a process of changing one language into another one. Therefore, language analysis and textual contrast became the main tasks in translation research. As global transcultural communication is being widened, people come to realize that translation is actually a communicative activity. A number of scholars began to study translation from the angle of the inner structure of languages and of the effects of languages upon context and social activities. These studies may help people further understand the characteristics of native and foreign languages and pay enough attention to different expressions in different languages. In this way, people can adapt to the differences either about languages or about culture to fulfill the purpose of communication.In the latter period of the fifties of last century, there emerged a new branch of linguistics—Contrastive Linguistics. Many scholars have long studied translation theories in the perspective of contrastive linguistics. Experience has proved that translation theories, skills must be based upon the contrastive studies of different languages. Some fundamental skills of translation such as diction, conversion, amplification, omission, etc. are all closely related to contrastive studies between different languages. Therefore, the important task of translation studies should be laid on theanalysis of the language and cultural differences, so as to avoid the mistakes in expression, thus attaining the goal of successful communication.Professor Lian Shuneng published a book entitled Contrastive Studies of English and Chinese in 1993. On the basis of the research in Chapter 8 of this book, this paper attempts to further probe into the strategy of the mixed diction of abstract vs. concrete so as to be of use to the theoretical studies of translation. The author of this paper expects to enhance people's understanding of the essence of abstraction and concretization to provoke more attention to this strategy.This paper consists of four parts:Chapter one deals with the perspective of the abstract vs. the concrete in translation in general. It lists some relevant theories by Chinese scholars. It also tries to distinguish between the three pairs of concepts: domestication and foreignization, literal and free translation, and abstraction and concretization.Chapter two emphasizes on the strategy of concretization in translation. The abstract diction in English as well as some other lingual characteristics requires concretizing when translated into Chinese.Chapter three states the strategy of abstraction. The Chinese language doesn't abound in abstract diction but in imagery words: idioms, proverbs, etc. These vivid and concrete words and expressions may...