Contrastive Studies On Russia And Chinese Text Type And Their Translation

Like every other disciplines with a long-term view of development,translation needs to absorb and assimilate the findings of related disciplines thatwould inspire new perspectives and research methods. In 1990s, scholarssuccessively introduced the theories of text linguistics into translation studieswhich was then provided with a new pattern of research and theory basis. Distinctfrom previous linguistics, text linguistics is no longer confined to the study oflanguage itself; instead, it has broadened its horizons into the context andcommunication function of language. Translation studies with the methodology oftext linguistics hold that the unit of translation is the text in context, rather thanspecific words or sentences. Taking text as the unit of translation does not meanthat translators can neglect words and sentences or that translation practice onevery level should be carried out with regard to a higher level. Rather, it is theentire text where the translation strategy is carried out and the quality oftranslation is given a verdict.From the perspective of text linguistics, this thesis studies the text type inRussian and Chinese and the translation practice based on text type. Texttranslation requires text classification. Text type is directly related to the contentand the form of text; to some extent, text type decides which translation strategy tochoose. In view of the significance of text type, scholars from domestic and abroadsuccessively turn to the study of this field. However, classifications of text type arecomplicated and there is no agreement. Generally speaking,"text grammar"and"communication model"are the two standards for studying text type, which arealternatively named by Minru Qian as"syntax-oriented text model"and"functional and communicative text model". With an emphasis on the second IVstandard,this thesis adopts Newmark's classification model for text type and,according to the functions of language, divides text type into expressive text,informative text, and vocative text.Based on the classification of text type by Newmark, this thesis compares thetext type in Russian and Chinese. Common characters amongst human languageaccount for the similarities in Russian and Chinese text type, which constitute thebasis for the comparative study. Meanwhile, divergent cultures and thinking modesbetween Russia and China leads to the difference in Russian and Chinese text type,which is manifested by text composition and cohesion and causes the degree oftranslatability. Newmark proposed two translation strategies,"semantictranslation"and"communicative translation", and pointed out that semantictranslation is applicable to expressive text, and communicative translation toinformative text and vocative text. Through examples of Russian and Chinesetranslation, this thesis elaborates the relationship between text type and translationstrategies; i.e. text type decides which translation strategy to choose.