A Translation Study Of English And Chinese Degree Adverbs

Palmer referred adverbs as a “ragbag” or “dustbin”.According to Guo rui(2002),the average occurring frequency of adverbs is second to verbs and nouns.Due to the use of adverbs of high frequency and strong activity,adverb usage presents multifarious,it is bound to cause learning difficulties for language learners.Degree adverbs' operating frequency is pretty high.But both in English and Chinese,they are not completely corresponding.Due to the uncertainty of the degree adverbs,this thesis will rely on the degree adverbs in Zhang Peiji's Selected Modern Chinese Essays 1 to make contrastive analysis between English and Chinese degree adverbs,and to study how to translate Chinese degree adverbs into English.Therefore,this thesis discusses degree adverbs in the following aspects:Firstly,the contrast of definitions,numbers,features and classifications of degree adverbs.In Zhang's book,there are 22 Chinese degree adverbs which appear 563 times;30 English degree adverbs which appear 424 times.The function of degree adverbs is to strengthen or weaken the impact of the word it modifies.Different degrees of adverbs represent different degrees,and influenced by subjectivity linguists have classified them into different degree scales.Because of the fuzziness of the degree adverb itself,different linguists have different ways of dividing.Secondly,English and Chinese degree adverbs can collocate with verbs,adjectives,nouns and adverbs,etc.English degree adverbs are more inclined to collocate with attitudinal verbs while Chinese DAs are more inclined to collocate with psychological verbs.They both can show the psychological state of preference and disgust.Degree adverbs are placed before the modified adjectives,except for“enough”and some special circumstances(such as“???”).When collocating with adverbs,English degree adverbs follow a fixed order,while Chinese DAs are always put before the modified adverbs.They can both collocate with themselves due to the fuzziness,so two or more degree adverbs are used together.When collocating with nouns,English degree adverbs are usually put in fixed phrases,while Chinese are rare and usually used inspoken language.English degree adverbs also can modify pronouns,while this is not the case in Chinese.Lastly,the strategies used in translation.By contrast the original essays and Zhang Peiji's translation,several translation strategies are often used in English and Chinese.They are amplification,omission,conversion,negation and literal translation.In the whole book,omission is mostly used and amplification is the least.However in most cases degree adverbs are replaced by other ways.By comparative analysis and translation studies,this paper makes a systematic summary of the similarities,differences,collocation tendencies and the translation strategies used while translating Chinese degree adverbs into English,which have a certain role in language learning and translation.