On The Benignancy And Malignancy Of Europeanization In English-Chinese Translation

A main form of linguistic contact is translation, during which a source language and its target language are bound to affect each other. As for translation from English to Chinese, the influence of English on Chinese is much greater than that of Chinese on English. It can be said that the inter-linguistic influence in E-C translation is mainly reflected in the foreignization, or Europeanization, of Chinese language.By far, Europeanized translation has developed into a common linguistic phenomenon. Its wide-spread can be attributed to historical, cultural and social factors. During the New Culture Movement, classic Chinese could not meet the needs of new cultures and thoughts while the emerging Vernacular Chinese was by no means fully developed. Such a special historic situation and the thoughts dominating translation circles that time propelled the development of Europeanized translation with a far-reaching impact on later generations. Since China’s Reform and Opening up, factors like deepened penetration of Western cultures, economic globalization and shift of values occurring to the Chinese people all have contributed to the popularity of Europeanization in E-C translation.Europeanization of Chinese language is an indisputable fact and will remain a fact for a long time to come as determined by the open feature of languages. However, Europeanization, like other things, also has two sides. Although the concept of Malign and Benign Europeanization was proposed a dozen of years ago, no workable criteria have been agreed in translation circles, partly because little attention has been channeled to this area of translation research, and partly because the inter-convertibility between Benign and Malign Europeanization under specific conditions increases the difficulty of relevant research. Therefore, an attempt is made in this study to propose a system of reasonable criteria to improve the practicality of the distinction between Malign and Benign Europeanization while proving that the assortment of Europeanized translation, if not easy, is not impossible. In accordance with the duality of Europeanized translation, detailed treatments are explored to different kinds of Europeanized translations. On one hand, Benign Europeanization has injected a lot of fresh blood into the modern Vernacular Chinese and enriched it in all respects, from word, phrase to sentence. Translators and interpreters, as a result, shall have a correct understanding of Benign Europeanization and put it into proper use. On the other, Malign Europeanization is likely to produce translations of little readability and value, which are harmful to the ideographical features and beauty of traditional Chinese, and thus should be rectified and corrected.In a word, Europeanized translation has penetrated so many aspects of modern Chinese language that it has become an irresistible trend. Nevertheless, with its duality, Europeanized translation should be treated with differential measures, i.e. recognizing Benign Europeanization to enrich the original system of Chinese language while being alert to and putting right, if necessary, Malign Europeanization. In this way, the ideographical features and simplicity of Chinese can be preserved in the course of its sound development.