Corpus-based Translational Universals Study On That In The House On Mango Street

This thesis bases on the corpus establishment method and pragmatics studying on the translation of that of the poetic novel The House on Mango Street,which stands as a cross-subject research between pragmatics and translation study.Pragmatics aims at the specific language using under the very context,while translation funding on the original language and aiming at target language concerns more on the transmission of language meaning and cultural message in both languages.In this paper,pragmatics is put in use of not only the pragmatic usage of that in this novel but also creating a new division of translation study on this text.Translation activity is a process of language communication and a practice of cultural transmission.This commonness of languages contributes to the integration of both subjects.Given the definitions of that on LONGMAN Dictionary of Contemporary English(Eng-Ch)4th Edition,there are three characteristics of that: determiner,conjunctions and adverb of degree.Determiner characteristic could be used for four functions as deictic usage,non-deictic usage,gestural usage and symbolic usage,and divided into four types in this novel as spatial deixis,temporal deixis,person deixis and discourse deixis.As a unit of instructing spatial,temporal and textual information,demonstratives can play a role in bringing in,keeping or changing any information mentioned before to create a closer connection between the texts and contexts.At the same time,deictic expressions offer an insight of the attitude of the speaker.Many pragmatists have already done a lot of researches on demonstratives but rare of them have stepped into the study of its translation.To turning into domestic field study,there exists not only a lack of study on demonstratives themselves,but also the studies on the translation.This thesis has conducted a detailed and explicit analysis on that of its pragmatic usage and categories.By taking use of AntConc software,the researcher established a singular English corpus of The House on Mango Street,concluded a general wordlist of the words used in the novel basing on their occurrence and obtained the general hits of that in this novel happening about 200 times.Demonstrative that appeared at about 133 times,accounting as 66.5%;complementizer that appeared at about 64 times meaning 32%;adverb of degree that only appeared as 2 times accounting for 1%.Amid all these usages,demonstrative that can also be deeper divided into deictic usage for 29.5%,symbolic usage for 17%,non-deictic usage for 9% and gestural usage for6%.At the aspect of deixis types,discourse deixis takes 43.5%,temporal deixis for 10.5% and person deixis for 6.5%.On the basis of this finding,the author has conducted a translational universals analysis on the Chinese translation of that in this novel.Here are the specific figures: demonstrative that appeared at 94 places in the original text and the translation has showed a series of explicitation phenomena like its categories and degree accounting 47%;complementizer that were dealt with implicitation for 42.5%;the translation of adverb of degree that showed a tendency of strengthening only with 1%.To sum up the general translation phenomena,complementizer that were frequently used to connect the discourse,express some direct attitude,illustrate the facts and draw forth the following passages without any translation in the target text;demonstrative that was translated with the typical temporal,spatial,person and discourse information referred in the original context;adverb of degree that with only two occurrences was translated with a strengthening tone in the target text.