翻译心得及翻译实践

翻译心得及翻译实践

摘要

本文旨在对两篇材料进行翻译，并从翻译实践中获得经验并撰写翻译心得。其中材料《敬畏生命——生态批评视域下的<白鲸>》为中译英，而材料《生态批评视角下的当代美国小说》为英译中。

《敬畏生命——生态批评视域下的<白鲸>》一文从生态批评的角度对小说《白鲸》做了新的解读。批判了人类中心主义的思想及由此产生的人类行为。从小说主角亚哈和白鲸莫比·迪克的争斗关系造成的生态悲剧中得到启示。即人类必须遏制自己的欲望，并学会尊重其他的生命从而与自然世界和谐相处。只有这样才避免生态悲剧的发生和人类与自然共同灭亡的悲惨结局。

《生态批评视角下的当代美国小说》则主要从生态批评和生态女权主义两方面对当代美国小说进行了探讨。分析了美国生态学和对小说的研究方法的发展，以及生态批评和生态女权主义的历史发展情况。同时强调了生态批评和生态女权主义的重要地位。

在结束了对以上材料的翻译实践后，得出了一些有关于英汉翻译的心得。而翻译心得主要从对翻译材料的描述、寻找背景信息、句子的处理、对词和词组的处理、结论这五个方面来进行总结。分别针对翻译中篇、句、词等方面容易出现的问题和难点进行分析，从而寻找有效的解决方法。对今后的翻译工作起到积累和指导的作用。

关键词：翻译生态批评生态女权主义

Abstract

The main purpose of the article is to summarize the gains and experience after translating two materials. The material Hold Life in Awe and Veneration—Moby Dick under the View of Ecological Criticism has been translated from Chinese to English while the material Nature in the Contemporary American Novel has been translated from English to Chinese.

The article Hold Life in Awe and Veneration—Moby Dick under the View of Ecological Criticism analyses the novel Moby Dick under new view from aspect of ecocriticism. It criticizes the idea of anthropocentrism and human’s behavior com ing from anthropocentrism. This article also gets inspiration from conflict between Ahab and Moby Dick and the tragedy caused by this kind of conflict. Human must limit their desire and must learn to respect other livers and to live with natural word harmoniously. Only in this way, can the ecological tragedy and the death of both human and nature be avoided.

As for Nature in the Contemporary American Novel, it discusses contemporary American novel from aspects of ecocriticism and ecofeminism. It analyses the development of ecology in America and of methods used to analyze America novel, and also analyzes the history of ecocriticism and ecofeminism. At the same time, the article emphasizes the importance of ecocriticism and ecofeminism.

Having translated these two materials, I gain lot about the translation between Chinese and English. This article has been writt en from five parts which are “the description of the material for translating”, “s earching for background information”, “d ealing with sentences”,“words and phrases”, and “conclusion”. This article means to analyze problems and difficulties, which may happen in translating, on aspects such as passages, sentences, words and than to find out methods to solve those problems and difficulties. In this way, this article can be used as a kind of guide and accumulation in future translation works.

Key words: Translation ecocriticism ecofeminism

Contents

摘要 (1)

Abstract (1)

1. The Description of the Material for Translating (1)

2. Searching for Background Information (1)

3. Dea ling with Sentences (2)

3.1 Structure of Sentences (2)

3.2 Logic of Sentences (2)

4. Phrases and Words (3)

4.1 Phrases (3)

4.2 Words (4)

5. Conclusion (5)

Bibliography (5)

Translation (from English to Chinese）……………………………….. Translation (from Chinese to English)………………………………………….

1. The Description of the Material for Translating

This time I have translates two articles—Hold Life in Awe and Veneration—Moby Dick under the View of Ecological Criticism(from Chinese to English) and Nature in the Contemporary American Novel (from English to Chinese).

Hold Life in Awe and V eneration—Moby Dick under the View of Ecological Criticism is an article that analyses the story, Moby Dick, from a kind of new view point. It dissects the relation between human being and nature, and at the same time shows us the warning of ecology and environment.

Nature in the Contemporary American Novel mainly analyses contemporary American Novels from the aspect of ecocriticism and ecofeminism. It describes the history of ecocriticism and ecofeminism in 1970s, and emphasizes its importance.

Translation is a kind of work which can best test a person’s ability to use both the two languages. This time, by translating these two articles, I have learned a lot about the skills and methods of translation. However, I was also faced with several difficulties during the translation. And through the great efforts I have found ways to deal with those difficulties.

2. Searching for Background Information

The first problem comes to me is that I does not have enough background information concerning the content of the two articles I needed to translate.

Both of the two articles are about the ecological problems and environment protection, however as my major is not ecology, I am not familiar with what those articles talk about, especially the article Hold Life in Awe and Veneration—Moby Dick under the View of Ecological Criticism which concerned with the book Moby Dick. Although I know something about this book, I have not finished reading this story. And this is a problem we always faced with when we need translate an article. We have not read the book mentioned in the article but have no enough time to finish reading it. Thus, in order to translate the article as exactly as possible and as quickly as possible, I search for materials concerning the book, find out the mean idea of the story and read those parts mentioned in the article. In this way I get to know the gist of the book Moby dick, thus I can understand the content of the article, which makes great contribution to my translation.

The article I have translated from English to Chinese—Nature in the Contemporary American Novel—has been handled by using the same method. This article mentions a lot of historical events such as the Civil Rights movement and anti-war movement. So I search for information about those events.

In these works, I get to know that the first thing we must learn before we do the translation work is finding background information and knowledge concerning the material we need to translate. Only in this way can we make a good beginning.

3. Dealing with Sentences

The second problem I have to solve is the Sentence-type. As we all know, English and Chinese are two languages which are quite different from each other. And the logic of sentences in these two languages is also quite different.

3.1 Structure of Sentences

Firstly, articles in English always consist of long sentences which usually have a main sentence and several clauses while Chinese articles are generally made up of short sentence which contains large amount of information. Thus, as we have been used to the type of sentences in Chinese, it is always not easy for us to understand the meaning of long sentences in English. For example, the sentence “While much feminism is focused on criticizing and trying to transfo rm the present, to alleviate the forms of oppression that women experience around the world, ecofeminism is more focus on the future”. Such a long sentence contains several meanings. Thus, in order to make sentences clearer, I break this sentence into several shorter sentences, according to these three parts of meanings—“feminism is focused on criticizing and trying to transform the present”, “to alleviate the forms of oppression that women experience around the world”, “ecofeminism is more focus on the future”. I try to find the relation of those sentences. In this way the long sentence becomes easy to understand.

3.2 Logic of Sentences

Secondly, the logic of Chinese sentences is also different from that of English sentences. In people like to leave the most important part at the last of the talk or a sentence. And before that, Chinese people like to explain reasons, conditions, time, place or other things in term of coordinate clauses. As all the coordinate clauses are look almost the same, it is always hard for an English speaker to find out the core of a Chinese sentence. On the contract, in English, a main clause will be used to explain core of the sentence, and all the other information will be given in the clause or parenthesis, which decorate the main clause. Furthermore, there are always some marks in those clauses, such as the introductory word in attributive clauses and adverbial clause. Thus, people can easily find out the main idea of the sentence. For this reason, we need to make the suitable change in logic when we translate a sentence from Chinese to English or from English to Chinese. For example, in the article Nature in the Contemporary American Novel, there is a sentence “often focusing on the adventures and observations pf a single individual, nature writing is perhaps best represented by Thoreau in the first half of the nineteenth century and by John Muir and John Burroughs at the end of the century” in which the main clause is“nature writing is perhaps best represented by Thoreau in the first half of the nineteenth century and by John Muir and John Burroughs at the end of the century” while “often focusing on the adventures and observations pf a

single individual” is a adverbial clause which is used to decorate the main sentence. In this kind of situation, when we translate the sentence, we must pay attention to the core of the sentence, and the logic of the sentence. Another example is the sentence—“‘environmental’ literature, in contrast to ‘nature literature,’ presumes a high degree of s elf-consciousness about ecological relationships and environmental crises.” In this sentence the main part of the sentence is “‘environmental’ literature presumes a high degree of self-consciousness about ecological relationships and environmental crises”.And “in contrast to ‘nature literature,’” is a parenthesis. As the parenthesis breaks the main part of the sentence, it is necessary for us to restore the main part when we translate it.

On balance, in the translation, dealing with those complex sentences, we must pay great attention to the sentence-type especially the logic of those sentences. And the useful way I have fund is to find the main part of the sentence first, thus we can understand what information the sentence want to show us, and than we can translate and make up the new sentence according to the style and logic features of the language we need to translate the sentence to.

4. Phrases and Words

Words and phrases are also a quite important part. No matter how long a sentence could be, it must be consisted by words and phrase. They are the basic element of a sentence, a paragraph and even a passage. In the translation, it is quite necessary to make clear the meaning of those words and phrases. During my translating of these two articles, I have been occurred with several difficulties in this aspect, and I have fund some ways to solve those problems.

4.1 Phrases

For those phrases, greatest difficulty I fund in the translation form Chinese to English is the translation of set phrase. Set phrase is a kind of idiomatic phrase, it usually contains cultural of the country, so we must be careful when translating it. In Chinese, set phrases are always taken out from a story, a literary quotation, a work or a mythology. And generally have the distinct image and strong national characteristic. However, the world people live in and people’s thought and emotion more or less have something in common. Thus set phrases in English and in Chinese are kind of alike in aspects of language style and allegory image. And we can translate them according to their surface meaning. For example, we translate the set phrase “一箭双雕” into “to kill two birds with one stone”. Or we translate “火上加油” into “to pour oil on the flame”. But on the other hand, there are still some differences exist between different countries on aspects like geography, custom and religion. So when translate some set phrases, we must understand that although this set phrase in different language has similar meaning, the allegory images can be quite different. For example, “画蛇添足” should be translated into “to wake a sleeping dog”. Another example can be fund in the article Hold Life in Awe and Veneration—Moby Dick under the View of Ecological Criticism. “生死与共” should be translated in to “ go through thick and thin together”. Beside this two, there are some set phrases that can not be translated according to the surface meaning because

of the great difference in culture. Take a look at the set phrase “粗枝大叶”. We can not simply translate it into “thick branches and big leaves”, but should translate it into “to be crude and careless.”

4.2 Words

As for those words, the problem is proper nouns. Proper nouns contain words such as name of a person, name of a place, name of organization and so on. Those words always contain large amounts of cultural information. And it is not an easy thing to translate those words right and exactly. However, there are still several skills to translate those words.

The first way is transliteration. Transliteration which means translating a word according to its pronunciation is often used in the translation of people’s names. For example, we translate the name “Ahab” into “亚哈” as their pronunciations are similar. However, as there are some homophones in Chinese, it is hard for us to decide which Chinese words to use to do the translation. For example, should the name “Max” be translated into “马克思” or “ 马科斯”. The formal one is a great revolutionist, a German, while the latter one is the formal president of Philippines. For this reason, we should consult background materials, so that we can translate those words according to practice. Otherwise, readers may be confused, and can not identify who the article is talking about.

Form translation is another method. Using the form translation, we need to find out the form of the noun. This method is often used in the translation of names things which have special forms or outlook. For example, we can translate the word “U-tube” in to Chinese as “U型管”. And “A-frame” can be translated into “A 型架”.

Beside these two, there are also many other methods, such as part transliteration and part semantic translation and transliteration plus semantic translation can be used to translate proper nouns. However, on the balance, we should at fist identify what kind of the noun is and than chose

a most suitable way to translate the words or phrases.

5. Conclusion

After all, having translated these two articles, I get to know that translation is not simply putting a passage of Chinese (English) into English (Chinese), but translating and exchanging the cultural. We should at first find background information and than make the purport and gist of the translating material clear. And at the same time, choosing a right skill is also quite important. So we should combine skills and customs, and only in this way, can we translate the material both correctly and exactly.

Bibliography

[1]Herman Melville. 1999. Moby Dick[M]. New York: Pocket books.

[2]王国炎，2007，《翻译探索》[J]，《时代文学·理论学术版》第六期，22-23。

[3]吴卫，2007，《人名的翻译技巧》[J]，《英语知识》第五期，37-38。

[4]张培基等，2004，《英语翻译教程》[M]，上海：外语教育出版社。