A Study Of The Translation Of Classifier Structures From Chinese To English

Classifiers are particular to Chinese rather than to English. Since, the classifier is an independent word class in Chinese, while no such word class exists in English. Thus, translation of classifiers and classifier structures matters much with C-E translation. The previous studies about the translation of classifiers and classifier structures have contributed a lot in this field, but they mainly focus on description of certain phenomena. In addition, the translation of action classifier structures is seldom discussed. Consequently, the previous studies are not comprehensive or systematic enough so that they fail to guide the translation practice effectively.Actually, in order to make the study more effective, factors that may influence the translation of classifier structures as well as similarities in the translation of all the classifier categories should be found out. This thesis analyzes most of the classifier categories by means of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. It is not difficult to find that there exist common translation strategies to follow in translating classifier structures. Chinese bounded classifier structures tend to be translated into English quantitative structures, while unbounded classifier structures various non-quantitative structures. Whereas, other factors apart from "boundedness" and "unboundedness" can also influence the translation of classifier structures, such as the particular meaning that the classifier structure expresses in the ST in the specific context.This thesis makes a more comprehensive and systematic study on the translation of classifier structures and it can, to some extent, guide the translation practice more effectively.