4．4　Lexical Translation in Culture文化中的词义翻译

4．4　Lexical Translation in Culture文化中的词义翻译

Chinese is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family，which consists of more than 400 languages and dialects and is the most popular and most used family．Chinese is obviously standing out in it．English belongs to the Indo-European family，which contains over 100 languages．It is the most world-wide used language on earth．Each has its own features．

English is a kind of synthetic language，whose feature is inflection．That is to say，English language has plurals，tenses，genders，and a lot of derivatives as well in words．Meanwhile，its feature is symbolized in word order and auxiliaries in constructing sentences．Take the sentence“He works well．”for example．The words in this sentence cannot be converted in order at random．But only can we change the order when it is changed into a question or an emphatic sentence．The changed sentences should be“Does he study well?”or“He does study well．”

Chinese，strictly speaking，is a kind of analytic and agglutinative language，whose phrases are constructed and linked with individual characters．For instance，光and明constitutes the phrase光明，正and大constitutes正大and then the two phrases when placed together form a new phrase光明正大．Another feature of Chinese is that there is no inflection．In other words，the nouns in Chinese cannot be changed in form，the verbs have no different tenses，and there is no gender change in words．The formation of phrases relies on word order and empty words，and others．

As far as vocabulary is concerned，both languages process plenty of vocabulary．Each has its own ways to express in words．Because of different environments，different ways of thinking，different histories and traditions，both languages remain a lot of words with little corresponding meanings．The most difference is the lexical gap(词义空缺)．

hill，mountain，landmass，alp，leap—山

　hen，chick，cock，rooster—鸡

　blue，green—青

　hare，rabbit—兔

　mouse，rat—鼠

Comments Carefully compare English and Chinese in this column and we find that the English words on the left cannot generalize the single word on the right．

你，您—you　　江，河—river　　父，母—parent

　枪，炮—gun　　嫁，娶—marry　　夫，妻—spouse

Comments Similarly，the English word on the right of each line cannot accurately express the Chinese characters on the left．It is this difference that leads to big difficulties in translating．This requires us to get acquainted with the characteristics underlying the two languages and cultures．

As for word classes，or parts of speech，there are 10 classes in English．They are noun，verb，adjective，pronoun，adverb，numeral，conjunction，preposition，article and interjection．There are also，roughly speaking，10 parts of speech in Chinese．They are noun，verb，adjective，pronoun，adverb，numeral(plus Chinese classifier measure words)，conjunction，preposition，auxiliary and interjection．Comparing the parts of speech，we conclude that English has its article alone，and Chinese owns its classifier measure words alone．

The classification of parts of speech in English is based on grammar，word classes and elements of a sentence．They have strictly corresponding relations．But the classification of parts of speech in Chinese is mainly based on word meaning，that is，notional and empty，dynamic and static，concrete and abstract in word meaning．Because of the differences，some points should be paid attention to．Firstly，in English-Chinese translation，we should apply some techniques to amplify，omit，interpret，transliterate etc．Secondly，we cannot be tied down by the literal meanings and should attach importance on the general meaning，and discourse meaning，and deal with the material flexibly．Thirdly，because of different classes，we may employ the technique of conversion so that we make the translation version various．

She went away with satisfaction．

　She went away satisfied．

　She satisfactorily went away．

　她满意地走了。

Comments The three English sentences show us the features of sentence structure．But we can only use one Chinese sentence to translate each of them．