A Comparative Study Of Chinese And Western Modes Of Thinking And Its Interaction With Translation

The relationship between language and thought, being controversial, is a hot issue in the whole comparative study. The author, acknowledging the close relationship between language and thought, makes comparative studies on Chinese and Western modes of thinking and the relative correspondence in each language in the paper.The western thought focuses its attention upon the contrast between man and nature has developed the logical, geological, scientific and objective cultural patterns; while on the basis of unity of man and nature, the Chinese culture is toward intuition, synthesis, fuzziness and ethics. The different outlook and the distinct ways of thought in Chinese and Western thinking make the two languages vary in many aspects. With the emphasis on the implications of such analysis for translating and translation studies, the paper tends to find out the rules in the shift of the Chinese and the English languages.Hong Lou Meng, as one of the four great classical works in China, has two outstanding English versions, namely A Dream of Red Mansions by Yang Xianyi and Cladys Yang and The Story of the Stone by David Hawkes. Taking examples from the two English versions, the paper qombines the comparative studies with the appreciation of good translation works, providing a new point of view in translation study.