Context And Translation

Language is a social phenomenon and is only used in certain environment of certain society. Meanwhile, it is a tool for transmitting information used by human beings exclusively. There is always a specific language environment when people use this tool to communicate. Many knotty problems would arise if language researchers, especially translators leave the problem of language environment-context alone. As indicated by a large quantity of research results, context plays a very important role in translation studies and practice. Generally speaking, the process of translation starts with the analysis of the original text, followed by information transmitting and target text organizing. The understanding of the original text could be regarded as a process of explanation and there is no stable meaning in the text if context is not taken into consideration. We can thus come to the conclusion that translating is influenced by context from the very beginning. Only if translators take context into consideration can they produce legitimate translations.The thesis consists of six chapters.The first chapter expounds the problem of context, including the significance of the study of context, the history and present situation of context studies, the definition and classification of context and functions of context.The second chapter discusses the problem of translation, including the significance and definition of translation, literal translation and free translation and the history and present situation of translation studies.The third chapter expatiates on how context influences translation, including translation theorists, points of view on question of context and an example which illustrates well the point.The fourth chapter deals with linguistic context (co-text) and translation. The linguistic context mentioned here is word context and sentence context. This chapter mainly discusses how the former influences translation, ambiguity, antonyms and synonyms, and vagueness. As to the relation between sentence context and translation,the essential factors such as reference, substitute, ellipsis and so on are discussed.The fifth chapter dwells on situational context and translation. The concept of register, which is divided into field, mode, and tenor, is introduced in the beginning of this chapter. Different illustrative examples are given here to explain successfully the relations between these three factors and translation. Besides, the translation of rhetoric is included in the part of mode.The sixth chapter deals with cultural context and translation. First, the relation between language and culture and that between translation and culture are introduced. Then this chapter provides many examples to show the relations between different thought patterns, historical background, geographic culture, customary culture, religious culture and translation.The thesis is concluded by the summary of the problems of context, translation and their relation. The legitimacy of translation is largely influenced by context and it is impossible for translators to do their job without context.