On The Standard Of Transliterating English Personal Names Into Chinese

Due to the specialty of names,the translation of English names should be different from the translation of ordinary English nouns.In this case,transliteration is often the first choice.However,the arbitrariness of the transliteration method makes it possible that one English name is translated into different Chinese names.A translation standard of English names is desperately needed in order to ensure unified and consist translated Chinese names.Currently most research on this issue focus on the strategies of translation,while few studies discuss the specific rule of English-name transliteration.Based on the book of A Translation Handbook of English Names,the thesis studies the translation of English names into Chinese names.The translation process is divided into three stages,which include segmentation of phonetic groups,conversion of phonetic group into Chinese syllable and distribution of Chinese character to corresponding Chinese syllable.And the transliteration rules in each step are analyzed.The structural feature of Chinese syllable should be taken into consideration in the segmentation of phonetic groups,so as to make sure that each phonetic group adapts to the stuctural feature of Chinese syllable.The conversion of phonetic group into Chinse syllable is realized between two phonological systems,the most important basis of which is the degree of phonetic similarity.Being the last stage of producing a translated Chinese name,the distribution of Chinese character sometimes requires several Chinese characters to respond to one syllable to match the respective sources of phonetic group.Faced with problems such as negligence of the influence of the phonemes on their consecutive ones,the prescriptive ways of translation and the presence of many unconditioned inconsistences,this thesis comes up with corresponding solutions to make translated Chinese represent the pronunciation of English names to the largest extent.The concept of 'variant of correspondence' is suggested using the idea of allophone.This thesis argues that the correspondences in complementary phonetic conditions are also complementary,which enables translators to choose proper correspondence according to the phonetic condition.In this way,the accuracy of transliteration is improved.The idea of improving systematicness is also embodied in the proposed solutions,which aims at eliminating the inconsistence under the same phonological conditions.