Function Of Context To Translation

The term “context” refers to the environment when language occurs, serving as animportant factor to decide the understanding and utilization of language. Ever since theconcept of context was put forward, numerous scholars and linguists have attachedtheir great attention to it and extended their research in this field. Right now, contexthas become a basic concept of semantics, pragmatics, stylistics and sociolinguistics.Translation, as a linguistic communicative activity aimed at transmitting semanticmeaning between two languages, takes place in a certain context consisting of specificlanguage, situation and culture, and the process depends on context to a large extent.During translation, the context provides us with an indispensable basis for an overallaccurate understanding and delivering of the meanings in different linguistic structurescombined with specific words, phrases, sentences or paragraphs in a discourse.Starting from the study of contextual theory, this paper intends to explore thedifferent functions exerted by different types of contexts to translated works, namelylinguistic context, situational context and cultural context and analyzes the intimateconnection between context factors and translating practices based on theself-translating work of Cang Huang; meanwhile, makes contrastive and comparativestudies on different translated texts at different levels with or without the involvementsof contextual analysis, pointing out corresponding translation strategies so as toelaborate on the profound significance of contexts to translation studies.Through the introduction of contextual theories and the demonstration of detailedexamples, this paper aims to promote other translators to build up the awareness ofcontextual analysis during translating exercises and advocates them to conduct theirtranslating practice with the engagements of contexts in a proper way. In this paper, itis recommended that the translators should understand the source text precisely duringtheir translation practice, learn to choose appropriate translation strategies withcoordination and consideration according to specific contexts, and then use the exacttarget language to express; On the other hand, with the integration of the author’s owntranslating practice and the illustration of abundant living examples, the author, fromthe view of contextual research, conducts elaborating analysis, study and comment todeepen the understanding of the self-translating work, distinguishes the stand or fall ofthe translated texts and reduces mistakes such as misinterpretation and missingtranslation caused by the absence of contextual analysis, so as to provide a reference to the readers and wish them to strengthen the attention on context during their study oftranslation theories and practices.