英语长难句翻译本科论文

摘要英语长句指词语多、结构复杂、形体较长的简单句或分句多、层次结构关系复杂的复杂句。

在英译汉的翻译中，长句的翻译历来是重点或难点之一。

主要体现在英语长句中主要成分往往带有很多修饰语，错综复杂、细腻入微，这就需要翻译者具备一定的语言功力和翻译技巧。

此外，英汉两种语言存在着较大的区别：英语是拼音文字，而汉语属于象形文字，这就要求翻译者在英译汉过程中应做出必要的调整以符合汉语表达习惯。

如：调整语序、转变句子结构、转换词性、词义等。

因此，本文将从长句的定义、主要特点、分析方法和翻译技巧等方面对英语长句的汉译问题做一个全面的总结和论述，力图克服学生或翻译实践者对英译汉中长句翻译的畏难心理并解决他们在翻译实践中遇到的具体问题。

关键词: 英语长句；修饰语；分析；技巧和方法AbstractThe long English sentence refers to the wordy, lengthy, complicated simple sentences or compound sentences. So in the translation from English to Chinese, the translation of lengthy sentences has always been one of the focal points or the difficult points for translators. It mainly embodies on the point that there are always many involved and delicate modifiers in the essential components of a long English sentence, which challenges the translator‟s linguistic quality and translating skills. Moreover, there are great differences between English and Chinese: English belongs to the language of Pinyin, while Chinese belongs to the language of glyph, which requires the translator to make some necessary adjustments in order to accord with the norms of Chinese expression, such as adjusting the sentence order, changing sentence structure, converting the part of speech and the meaning of the words and so on. So this thesis dwells on analyzing and summarizing the definition, features, means of analysis and translation techniques of the lengthy English sentences, trying to help the students and translators conquer the fear of difficulty and solve the concrete problems in their translation practice.Key words: long English sentence; modifiers; analysis; skills and methodsPrefaceThis thesis is a bachelor‟s thesis, which is about the translation of the lengthy English sentences into Chinese.The present thesis consists of three parts. Part one mainly discusses the comprehension of long English sentences, especially the position of modifiers. Part two attempts to compare Chinese with English and analyze their respective syntax so as to highlight the difficulties in transferring the English sentences into Chinese. This comparison lays a good starting ground for the discussion that mainly deals with necessity of adaptation and general practice of adaptation. Part three, the bulk of the thesis, discusses the four kinds of methods in English-Chinese translation.In the translation from English to Chinese, the translation of the lengthy sentences has always been one of the focal points or the difficult points for translators, so this thesis aims to analyze and summarize the definition, features, means of analysis and translation techniques of the lengthy English sentences, trying to help the students and translators conquer the fear of difficulty and solve the concrete problems in their general practices of English-Chinese translation.There are a great number of people to whom this thesis owes a great deal. First of all, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Jin Yinghao, my academic supervisor. Meanwhile, I express my many thanks to the teachers who have instructed me during my university study. Luckily, I have had the opportunity to study under their supervision.ContentsChapter 1 Introduction (1)Chapter 2 Comprehension of long English sentences (2)2.1 Definition of long English sentences (2)2.2 Features of long English sentences (2)2.3 The position of modifiers (3)Chapter 3 Linguistic transfer of long English sentences (5)3.1 The differences between English and Chinese (5)3.2 Necessity of adjustments (8)3.3 General practices of adjustments (9)Chapter 4 Methods of English-Chinese translation (11)4.1 Analysis of long English sentences (11)4.2 Skills and methods of English-Chinese translation (12)Conclusion (17)References (18)Acknowledgements (19)Chapter 1 IntroductionDue to the intrinsic differences between English and Chinese, the long English sentence more often than not poses a problem for English-Chinese translation. How to translate long English sentences has become a classic topic in translation studies. In the light of this problem, this thesis will discuss the translation of long English sentences, which I hope can be helpful to the translators.The present thesis consists of three parts. Part one mainly discusses the comprehension of long English sentences, especially the position of modifiers. Part two attempts to compare Chinese with English and analyze their respective syntax so as to highlight the difficulties in transferring the English sentences into Chinese. This comparison lays a good starting ground for the discussion that mainly deals with necessity of adaptation and general practice of adaptation. Part three, the bulk of the thesis, discusses the four kinds of methods in English-Chinese translation.Chapter 2 Comprehension of long English sentences2.1 Definition of long English sentencesA typical long English sentence has a finite verb as the core, surrounded by relatives and conjunctions that organize phrases and clauses at different levels. More often than not, its main clause contains some clauses, which can be further embedded. The following example suffices to show the features of long English sentences mentioned above:Example: They (the poor) are the first to experience technological progress as a curse which destroys the old muscle power jobs that previous generation uses as a means to fight their way out of poverty.They are the first... (main clause)A. to experience…curs e (infinitive clause modifying first)B. which destroys jobs (relative clause modifying progress)C .that previous generations jobs (relative clause modifying means)D. to fight... (infinitive clause modifying means)The example shows that the embedded clauses greatly lengthen the sentence. A long sentence can be seen as a clause enhanced, enlarged or expanded. Although modern English demonstrates a tendency of the shortening of sentence length, such complex sentences with embedded clauses are still a common thing.On the contrary, a long sentence with embedded clauses is nowhere to be found in Chinese.2.2 Features of long English sentencesFirstly, there are more phrases. In the long sentences there are prepositional phrases, adjective phrases, infinitive phrases, gerund phrase or participial phrase: sometimes some word in the phrase is decorated by other phrases, thus forms a multicolor structure in which a phrase contains other phrases. Secondly, there are more coordinate ingredients. Adding coordinate subject, predicate, object, attribute, and adverbialmodifiers, these compound ingredients (such as: the subject, the object) are sometimes narrated by the decorating words and expressions or the subordinate clauses, which lengthen the sentence and make it more difficult. Thirdly, there are more additive ingredients. There are parenthetical remarks, appositive remarks or the independent components, superadded other ingredients, thus the punctuation marks, especially the comma “,”increases, it is common that there are five or more commas in a sentence. Fourthly, there are more compound sentences. It is an effective way to expand a sentence by increasing compound sentences. Fifthly, there are more subordinate clauses. It is an important method to expand a sentence by increasing subordinate clauses. Sometimes we expand some certain subordinate clauses to compose a long sentence; Sometimes even the compound sentence and the host subordinate clause interlock in the same place or a subordinate clause includes another subordinate clause, thus composing a multicolor subordinate clause.2.3 The position of modifiersThere are always many modifiers in the essential component of a long English sentence, for example, the noun that serves as a subject or an object often has one or some adjectives, prepositional phrases, participial phases as well as the attributive clauses, which modify and limit this noun. Another example is a verb that serves as a predicate often has one or several adverbs, participial phases, prepositional phrases as well as adverbial subordinate clauses, which decorate this verb. When translating a lengthy sentence with a complex structure, we have to differentiate the essential component and the modifier first, and we can mark the essential components and the modifiers in the original English sentence in order to make the structure of the sentence clearer at a glance, and reorganizes the main information of this sentence in the brains. Obviously, modifier is a key point in the process of translation; next we discuss the position of modifiers.Word order in English is more flexible than in Chinese. In English, as long as the article concord is realized, the word order becomes relatively flexible. However, since the Chinese language does not require this sort of grammatical concord, the word order tends to be more fixed. The position of modifiers reflects the flexibility of word order in both languages. In English, modifiers can be put before or after the headword and there are no limits to the length or the number of modifiers one headword can be loaded with.In Chinese, attributive modifiers are mostly put before rather than after the headword and one sentence can only be loaded with a certain number of modifiers. English is principally right-branching as opposed to Chinese, which is principally left-branching. English sentences are marked by their closed beginnings and open endings. On the contrary, the beginnings of Chinese sentences are open to syntactic elements while their endings are closed. The convention of open beginning in Chinese encourages the occurrence of pre-modification. For example, if the basic sentence is“那个人是王芳”, and it can be expanded in the direction from right to left in this way:和小明说话的那个人是王芳。