Semantic Prosody In The Structure "Conjunction + Neng + Verb" And Its Translation

Semantic prosody,a hidden attitudinal meaning,is usually used to deliver attitude and evaluation and it has become one of the most popular topics in corpus linguistics.In recent years,numerous researchers at home and abroad have studied semantic prosody of words or structures extensively both from monolingual perspective and cross-lingual context.Neng,a prominent Chinese modal verb,has many semantic functions.At present,there is a lot of research on the functions of “Neng”,but relatively little research on the semantic prosody of the various structures of “Neng” and even less on its translation strategies.This paper aims to study the semantic prosody in the Chinese structure “Conjunction +Neng + Verb” and its translation strategies by self-built parallel corpus of the Chinese Luotuo Xiangzi and its two English translations,namely Rickshaw Boy by Howard Goldblatt and Camel Xiangzi by Shi Xiaojing.In this paper,19 structures “Conjunction + Neng + Verb” in Chinese Luotuo Xiangzi are identified including 4 structures of “Coordinating Conjunction + Neng + Verb”,9 of“Adversative Conjunction + Neng + Verb”,4 of “Hypothetical Conjunction + Neng + Verb”,1 of “Conditional Conjunction + Neng + Verb” and 1 of “Concession Conjunction + Neng +Verb”.By calculating the prosodic strength,it is found that the semantic prosody in the structure "Conjunction + Neng + Verb" in Luotuo Xiangzi is positive.Through analysis of the corresponding translations of semantic prosody in two English versions,this paper finds that each translator has delivered successfully the semantic prosody in 18 cases of the structure“Conjunction + Neng + Verb” in their translation.However,there are different adaptation methods and translation strategies between Howard Goldblatt and Shi Xiaojing.The major differences are: 1.Shi Xiaojing's translation is more foreignization while Goldblatt's is more domestication.2.Goldblatt utilizes a wider variety of sentence structures and vocabularies in his translation.3.Goldblatt's translation is more static than Shi Xiaojing's.Hopefully the present study can bring some enlightenment to the study of semantic prosody in the Chinese structures.