On Translation And Europeanized Chinese Syntax

Language serves as a vital tool for human communication. Since Ming and Qing Dynasty, the Chinese language has begun its constant contact with western languages. Especially after the Opium War, China is faced with the historical task of modernization. As a channel, Europeanized Chinese is utilized to reform the traditional Chinese culture mainly through translating. This posturing undoubtedly motivates the advancement of modernization at the beginning. However, nowadays, when China opens its door with great amounts of translated works swarming in, there appears more and more Europeanized or over-Europeanized Chinese that evolves into a shock to us. Both in lexicon and syntax, the nature and purity of the Chinese language has been spoiled to some extent. Europeanization has sent a warning message to our mother tongue. Therefore, whether we can get rid of this awful linguistic phenomenon will exert a deep and long influence on the development of our conventional culture and the raising of national consciousness.Europeanized Chinese refers to those Chinese expressions imitated or copied with western language structures as their reference. Touching upon the relation between Europeanization and translation, Wang Li hits the mark with a single comment: Europeanized Chinese is apt to derive from translated materials. Specifically speaking, it is"literal translation"or"foreign translation"from English to Chinese that directly breeds Europeanized Chinese.As translation directly gives rise to the Europeanization of Chinese, this issue draws a lot of attention in the translation field. At the early stage, the disputes rage over whether the Chinese language should be Europeanized or how much it should be Europeanized. With the trend becoming increasingly clearer, experts after Wang Li gradually focus on the Europeanized language itself, that is, they tend to analyze this phenomenon from the linguistic angle. Nevertheless, as the heart of culture, language integrates deep-level factors behind it, such as politics, economy and ideology, etc. Therefore, based of previous researches, this paper will explore how Europeanized Chinese generates, what effects it has on the Chinese language and our national culture, and finally provide some strategies to solve it in the framework of post-colonialism translation theory.Standing by the side of weak cultures, post-colonialism translation theory predominately reviews the asymmetry in language and culture. Similarly, Orientalism also advocates striving for the third world's equal status through revealing that the western divides east from west and exaggerates this distinctness to realize its hegemony. Due to the disparity in national strength, the Chinese language has obviously stayed in margin, with the manifestation that not a minority of Chinese translators tend to adopt foreignization in English-Chinese translation owing to certain inferior complex. Consequently, there appears more and more Europeanized Chinese, destroying the purity of the Chinese language and even resulting in the loss of traditional Chinese culture. This phenomenon also proves the concept of cultural turn in translation studies: translation is not only conducted between two languages, but involved with cultures, which is greatly manipulated by ideology; in return, translation contributes to constructing cultures. Therefore, in order to keep balance of Chinese and English exchanges, Chinese translators are supposed to take a resistant strategy, that is, domestication in E-C translation.Studying Europeanized Chinese syntax, this paper draws largely from political comments, teaching materials and literary works that are generally classified into seven categories for a Chinese-English comparison: addition of subjects, addition of link-verbs, addition of connectives ("and","or","although","but", etc.;"in/on/at","when/while/as", etc;"about/on/over","for/to", etc.), lengthiness of attributes, excessive use of"bei", Europeanized inverted constructions and others. From the analysis, it can be perceived that our mother language has been seriously Europeanized, not only jeopardizing its purity, but also reflecting Chinese people's collective inferior complex and a decline of their self-identity. This endows the Chinese translator with the responsibility to purify our beautiful native language by means of translating.Based on post-colonialism translation theory, and focusing on Europeanized Chinese syntax, this paper finds that besides translation as a key factor, it is the asymmetry in politics, economy and culture that results in the Europeanization of Chinese, which in return generates the loss of our traditional culture and the decline of national awareness. Accordingly, this paper proposes the resistant strategy of domestication in E-C translation, which may be conducive to the maintaining of the purity of the Chinese language, inheriting of traditional culture and raising of our national identity.