A Comparison Of Personal And Impersonal Expressions In The English And Chinese Spoken Texts Of Friends

With continuous economic globalization and cultural exchanges, translation or interpreting and second or foreign language learning and teaching is flourishing and is in urgent need of being aided by knowledge of the differences between paired languages. With the development of comparative linguistic and cultural studies and translation studies, foreign and domestic linguists have made various contrastive studies between paired languages at different levels. As a part of it, the comparative study of personal and impersonal expressions between Chinese and English are arousing increasing concerns. Most of the studies, however, are simple and general in the aspects of sample and text type, using only scientific writings or some other formal texts rather than informal spoken texts. Probably, the difference of personal and impersonal expressions between Chinese and English also exists in spoken texts because of the different thought patterns between the East and the West.Oriented to the current situation of translation and second language learning and teaching, in view of the problems in English-Chinese comparison and translation studies, this study attempts to make a comparison of the use of personal and impersonal expressions in English and Chinese spoken texts in terms of the frequency and situation or manifestation of use and the cause behind the use. It is carried out in the light of the common viewpoints about the differences between Eastern and Western thoughts accessible in comparative linguistics, comparative cultural studies and translation studies, on the basis of existing theories in the contrastive studies of personal and impersonal expressions between Chinese and English, adopting the scripts of the twenty-four episodes of Season One in the American sitcom Friends and their Chinese translation as data, and through the methodology of theory-based case study integrating quantitative and qualitative analysis. Through analysis and discussion, the study arrives at the following conclusions:(1) In terms of the frequency of use, English spoken texts more often employ impersonal expressions than Chinese ones. In contrast, Chinese spoken texts more frequently utilize personal expressions than English ones.(2) In terms of the manifestation of use, English spoken texts more regularly make use of inanimate or abstract nouns(e.g., “it”) as subjects and employ passive voice expressions. In contrast, Chinese spoken texts more often use personal nouns as subjects or frequently omit personal subjects.(3) These differences between English and Chinese spoken texts in the use of personal and impersonal expressions are mainly caused by the different thinking patterns between the West and East. While English thinking is characterized by objectivity, rationality and impersonality, Chinese thinking has the properties of subjectivity, intuitiveness and personality.This study may hopefully possess both theoretical and practical significance. On the level of practice, the findings of the study may help to enhance the quality of translation or interpreting and second language learning and teaching practice. On the level of theory, this study may make a contribution to the improvement of comparative linguistic and cultural studies and translation studies by contributing more knowledge of the differences between English and Chinese.