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Translating English Long Sentences: A Semantic Chunk Account

Posted on:2010-05-29Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:W L SongFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360275455280Subject:Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
It is commonly believed that there are something shared by different languages,that is the semantic representation of the sentences.And also it is admitted that the ways to realize the semantic representations are quite different between English and Chinese.Therefore,dealing with English long sentences has always being a hard nut for translators.At present,studies on English long sentences focus on the ways and techniques and they are usually researches in the syntactic level.The deep reason for these methods has little been mentioned.This thesis mainly investigates the semantic basis for the treatments of English long sentences.With semantic chunk as the means of analysis,the semantic relations between the semantic chunks are analyzed to explore the ways for dealing with English long sentences and seek the inner drive of these methods.Based on the analysis,an evaluation of the translation methods is made.In this thesis, the contrastive linguistic research methods and semantic analyzing techniques are applied to explore the treatment of English long sentences.By analyzing differences between English and Chinese in syntax,we can find different ways for realizing semantic relations in English and Chinese.In this thesis,we put forward a new concept-semantic chunk.Semantic chunk is a relative complete semantic unit for dealing with long sentences in E-C translation.It is very flexible and can be acted by a case in a clause or complex semantic relations or even larger units.The semantic relations are divided into three types:attribute relations,locating relations and logical relations.The attribute relations can be further divided into two types:one is the attribute describing quality and state of an entity,the other is the attribute describing manners and instrument of an act.The locating relations include location of time and location of space.The logical relations can be divided into cause-effect, assumption-inference,fact-conclusion and condition-result.By analysis it is found that there exist great differences between English and Chinese in the ways of realizing these semantic relations.The differences can be shown in two aspects:(1) the forms of realizing the semantic relations(2) the sentence structuring principles.In English there are various forms to realize the semantic relations while in Chinese there are fewer forms to do that.Besides,Euglish is very flexible in arranging the sentence structure while Chinese sentence usually follows the principle of background-foreground sequence and temporal sequence.We first surveyed the realizations of semantic relations in simple sentences,which pave the way for the treatment of English long sentences.Through the study of English long sentences in Jane Eyre.we found that with semantic chunk as the means for analysis,the semantic relations between the expressions and then rearrange the sentence and produce natural versions.The different methods for dealing with English long sentences,such as keeping the original sequence,reversing the original sequence,splitting a sentence into two or more sentences and combining the above three methods all have their rationality.They are reasonable adjustments based on the semantic relations between the semantic chunks.These adjustments can help the target reader understand the original English long sentence better.But the name of these methods may confuse the translator and make it difficult for them to escape the limit of syntax.Therefore, it is advised to analyze the semantic relations first and then represent them in Chinese expressing way.
Keywords/Search Tags:English long sentences, semantic chunk, semantic relations, adjustments
PDF Full Text Request
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