The Translation Of Chinese Premodifiers Into English:A Study Based On Wei Cheng

This thesis studies the translation of Chinese premodifiers into English on the basis of Wei Cheng (é'±é'Ÿä¹¦ 2011), which is limited to the attributive premodifiers in the first three chapters of the book. It is aimed at summarizing some general strategies for translating Chinese premodifiers into English by employing two main kinds of research methods, that is, the comparison research method and the analysis research method.Premodifiers are all the components of modification in sentences, which are put ahead of words they modify, including all the words, phrases and clauses that act as attributives and adverbials. They can be classified into four categories:modifying premodifiers, restrictive premodifiers, subordinative premodifiers and identical premodifiers according to the semantic and logical relations between premodifiers and their headwords. It is found in this thesis that few scholars have involved themselves in the translation of Chinese premodifiers into English and that the translation methods or strategies they put forward in their researches have little practical significance.Chinese and English belong to different language systems and contrast sharply in many facets. From the internal perspective speaking, Chinese is an analytic, paratactic and simplex language while English is a synthetic, hypotactic and complex language. From the perspective of external manifestations speaking, the syntactic units of monomial premodifiers in Chinese mainly nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives etc; the syntactic units of monomial premodifiers in English contain nouns, pronouns, adjectives, numerals and so forth. Generally speaking, multiple premodifiers in Chinese follows accordingly the order:subordinative premodifiers, restrictive premodifiers, modifying premodifiers and identical premodifiers. Multiple premodifiers in English are put from small range to great range, from low degree to high degree, from minor importance to great significance, and from general to propriety.According to the case study of Chinese premodifiers in Wei Cheng, several strategies are concluded. On the basis of the positions and the sentence constituents, these translation strategies can be extended into three respects. First, Chinese premodifiers can be translated into English premodifiers, the syntactic units of which contain nouns, pronouns, adjectives, numerals, articles. Second, Chinese premodifiers can be turned into English postmodifiers, the main syntactic units of which include prepositions, non-finite verbs and attributive clauses. The last aspect is some other translation strategies. In some cases, Chinese premodifiers can be translated into English predicates and adverbial clauses. In all, in translating Chinese premodifiers into English, it is advisable to analyze semantic and logical relations between premodifiers and headwords and combine with the characteristics of premodifiers in both languages in the meanwhile.