The Differences Between English And Chinese And Their Transformation In Translation

The nature of translation is a transformation between two different forms ofthinking. The great differences between Chinese and English cultures and thinkinghabits lead to the tremendous differences between English and Chinese on syntacticallevel and semantic level. Therefore, it is quite necessary and important to seriouslyconsider their peculiarities and differences.In recent years, the research on translation history receives much concern afterCultural Turn. As an internationally renowned scholar, Anthony Pym’s Methods inTranslation History is not only a necessary work for the research and writing oftranslation history, but also a superexcellent introductory book for those graduatestudents who are interested in the research on translation history. Translating andintroducing translation history is the only way to bring in excellent western translationtheories.This translation project deals with an about10,000-word English-Chinesetranslation. The translation material is selected from the Chapter Three from this book,belonging to the category of the methods in translation practice and research.Therefore, it is a must to convey the content of the original text accurately in order tobe loyal to the original. Moreover, the translation should be soundness in logic andclear and easy to understand, conforming to the writing habits of the target language.The differences between English and Chinese on syntactical level and semantic levelshould be concerned. On syntactical level, we must have a clear understanding of thelogical order that English and Chinese should be followed when constructingsentences as well as their sentences structure characteristics. It is also worth notingthat the main difference between English and Chinese is the difference betweenhypotactic language and Parataxis language. On semantic level, passive voice is oftenused in English while active voice in Chinese. In addition, the translator should alsopay attention to make flexible transformations among various of parts of speech andmake transformations between positive meaning and negative meaning. Thus somerules for the translation from English to Chinese can be obtained by contrastiveanalysis of the linguistic differences in English-Chinese translation from different levels and angles.This thesis tries to discuss the status of the research and its insufficiency from theangle of comparative study of English and Chinese. Meanwhile, with detailedintroduction about the writer’s translation process and display of the specificexamples, it expounds how to effectively and successfully complete thetransformation from English to Chinese by taking advantage of the differencebetween English and Chinese. This research is also expected to contribute to theexploration of the rules and techniques for English-Chinese translation.