The Interfacial Characteristics Of Pragmatic Shifts In Chinese-English Translation

In linguistic researches,the notion of ‘interface' plays an increasingly important role.The study of intralingual structures mainly explores the interaction of syntax,semantics and pragmatics and pays special attention to the relation of the syntactic structure and semantic representation,with less attention to the study of pragmatics.Therefore,this thesis attempts to analyze the interaction of syntax with semantics and pragmatic from the perspective of pragmatics.At the syntactic and pragmatic level,Crofts(1991)differentiates three types of syntactic categories(i.e.,nominal phrase,verbal phrase and modifiers)and their prototypically corresponding pragmatic functions(i.e.,reference,predication and modification).In order to explain the mismatch of semantic orientation and syntactic position of Chinese modifiers,Zhang Guoxian(2005)generalizes three groups of pragmatic functions which can fall into three categories: perpetuity and temporariness,unintentionality and intentionality,objectivity and subjectivity to account for the syntactic dislocation of modifiers.Thus,the interaction of pragmatics with syntax and semantics can be partially explained.When it comes to the sentence level,according to Morley(2010),both paratactic and hypotactic structures can play two functions of projection and expansion,which is one of the foundations for the conversion of two types of structures.In C-E translation,since Chinese is a language characterized by parataxis while English features hypotaxis,the C-E translation will be likely to evoke cross-lingual shifts in syntactic level,the interpretation of which is a major concern for translation studies.Translation studies should focus on language itself,so interface researches in linguistics can be used to study the cross-language transformation of syntactic structure in C-E translation.Based on this,this thesis selects some typical examples from three novels of Yan Lianke and their respective translations.Through comparative analysis,the thesis is intended to investigate the interfacial characteristics of pragmatic shifts by studying the pragmatic motivations underlying the syntactic shifts,the dislocation of modifiers and the conversion from paratactic clauses to hypotactic clauses in C-E translation from an interfacial perspective,thus exploring the interaction of the three levels from the perspective of the transformation of pragmatic functions.It is shown that the transformation of the two syntactic structures in C-E translation is based on the similar pragmatic functions they both perform.The syntactic shifts will bring about the changes of their corresponding pragmatic functions.Moreover,for the purpose of semantic equivalence,the syntactic dislocation of the original modifiers will be rectified by the translator,resulting in the loss of original pragmatic functions implemented by the syntactic mismatch.