A Study On The Chinese Translation Of English Passives

Passive voice is a common phenomenon in English and Chinese.However,the passive construction of English and Chinese differs greatly in terms of structure,meaning,and genre,thereby causing translation difficulties(Wang 1943/2011;Lian 2010:118-132;Wang,&Liu 2018:79-90).Therefore,passive voice is a difficult point in translation research.In order to better reveal the nature of the differences between English and Chinese and to explore the phenomenon of source language interference in the process of translation,this study makes a quantitative study of the Chinese translation form of passive construction "be passives" in the literary genre with the help of the literary sub-database from "China English-Chinese parallel corpus".At the same time,this study also attempts to explore the influence of the source language characteristics of the English passive construction on its Chinese translation form.The findings are as follows:firstly,in terms of the English passive construction in literary genre,1)As for the type,the English central passive is much more than the semi-passive.2)Formally,the short passive is much more than the long passive.3)Semantically,the English passive construction in literary genre tends to use more neutral semantic preference,while the negative and positive semantic preference are relatively less.In addition,the dynamic passive is much more than that of static passive.4)Pragmatically,the use of past tense in English passive construction is about 1.5 times more than that of the present.5)Syntactically,English passive construction acts as predicate elements in sentences,while other elements are less frequent.Secondly,as far as the Chinese translation forms of English passive construction in literary genre are concerned,they are listed in descending order,including:notional sentence,active sentence,passive sentence,other translation sentence,disposal construction,construction of attributive phrase,ellipsis,periphrastic causative construction,nominalization,grammaticalization and quasi-grammaticalization.Finally,in terms of the impact of English passive structural language features on Chinese translation,1)The passive type has a certain influence on the translation of notional sentence,active sentence and periphrastic causative construction.2)The passive form has a certain influence on the translation of notional sentence,active sentence,passive sentence,disposal construction and periphrastic causative construction.3)The semantic feature has a certain influence on the translation of notional sentence,active sentence,passive sentence,periphrastic causative construction and grammaticalization.4)The animacy of pragmatic features has a certain influence on the translation of active sentence,passive sentence,periphrastic causative construction and periphrastic causative construction.5)The syntactic feature has a certain influence on the notional sentence,ellipsis and construction of attributive phrase.To sum up,this study focuses on the Chinese translation of English passive construction in the literary genre,as well as the linguistic features in form,syntax,meaning,usage and their impact on the Chinese translation form.The results of this study are not only helpful to discover the essence of the differences between English and Chinese.What's more,it has some implications for translation teaching,machine-aided translation and other fields.