On The Translation Of Restrictive Attribute Clauses

A restrictive-attributive clause is widely used in the English language, so the translation of a restrictive attributive clause is a very important part of the E-C translation. Due to the linguistic differences between English and Chinese, which belong to two different language systems, there exist some difficulties in the translation of a restrictive attributive clause, so the study on it is of very practical importance. Adopting a proper translating method is the key to a satisfactory translation, and being familiar with the grammatical structure of a restrictive attributive clause is the first step of the translation. Therefore, this paper studies the grammatical structure of restrictive attributive clauses and its influence on the translation with the method of statistic analysis with The Great Gatzby and the translation by Wu for example. The study finds:1) restrictive attributive clauses are used more commonly than non-restrictive attributive clauses;2) restrictive attributive clauses modify personal antecedents more often than non-personal ones.3) a relative pronoun functions most usually as a subject in the restrictive attributive clause;4) when the antecedent is personal, the relative pronounce who is mostly used as the subject in the restrictive attributive clause, and zero form is mostly used as the object;5) when the antecedent is all, anything or other non-personal indefinite pronounces, the relative pronounce that is used as the subject in the restrictive attributive clause, and zero form is mostly used as the object.6)"preposition" is the general method to translate restrictive attributive clauses;7)when the antecedent is all, anything or other non-personal indefinite pronounces and functions as the subject in the main clause, the whole noun phrase, when translated, can be regarded as a subject clause;8)when the antecedent functions as the object in the main clause, and the relative pronoun functions as the subject, the whole noun phrase can be translated as the telescopic form in Chinese, and when the antecedent functions as the object in the main clause, sometimes the whole noun phrase, when translated, can be regarded as an object clause;9)when the antecedent is sometimes, the time or other general temporal nouns and functions as an adverbial, the whole noun phrase, when translated, can be regarded as an adverbial clause;10)when there are more than one predicate verbs in the restrictive attributive clause,"preposition" is not adopted, but "postposition" tends to be adopted;11)when there are more than one attributives modifying the head except the restrictive attributive clause, the preferential method is not "preposition" but "postposition". This study is conducted to help translators, when translating a restrictive attributive clause, focus on its grammatical structure, adopt a proper method and produce an idiomatic translation which is close to the original texts.