A Course in English-Chinese Translation

1. A Course in English-Chinese Translation (basic ideas、skills and practice)

2. Course Description 1 • Purpose：basic ideas，basic skills，translation ability • Textbook and references (books to read)： • 《英汉语篇翻译》，李运兴，清华大学出版社，2003 • 《英汉翻译教程》，张培基，上海外语教育出版社，1980 • 《实用翻译教程》，范仲英，外语教育与研究出版社，1994 • 《英汉翻译教程》（自考），庄绎传，外语教育与研究出版社，1999 • 《简明翻译教程》，成昭伟，国防工业出版社，2006 • 《高级英汉翻译理论与实践》，叶子南，清华大学出版社，2004 • Teaching Plan • Look at the contents in the textbook

3. Course Description 2 • Demand： • Finish every task on time • Be active in discussion • Hand in your translation homework on time (I will choose some to check, at least 5 times for each person) • Evaluation： • Class participation, discussion and homework & research, 40% • Final examination, 60%

4. Chapter One Some concepts about translation • Questions to Discuss • What is translation? • What does the word “translation” mean? • What is translation generally understood? • What is a text? • What is the translation in a textual perspective? • What is the standard of translation? • What is the process of translation?

5. What is translation?(1) • The term translation itself has several meanings: it can refer to the general subject field, the product ( the text that has been translated) or the process ( the act of producing the translation, otherwise known as translating) • Categories of translation are as follows: • Intralingual translation, or ‘rewording’: an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language • Interlingual translation, or ‘translation proper’: an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language • Intersemiotic translation, or ‘transmutation’: an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of non-verbal sign system.

6. What is translation?(2) • What is generally understood as translation involves the rendering of a source language (SL) text into the target language (TL) so as to ensure that the surface meaning of the two will be approximately similar and the structures of the SL will be preserved as closely as possible but not so closely that the TL structures will be seriously distorted. This corresponds to interlingual translation.

7. What is translation?(3) • Nida: Translating consists in reproducing in the receptor’s language the closest natural equivalent of the source language messages first in term of meaning and secondly in term of style. (1969) • Meetham & Hudson: Translation is the replacement of a representation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a second language. (1972) • Bell: Translation is the expression in another language (or target language) of what has been expressed in another, source language, preserving semantic and stylisticequivalences. (1991)

8. What is translation?(4) • Some key concepts: • Source (second) language / target receptor’s/one) language • Meaning (semantic) / style (stylistic) • Product / process • Equivalent (equivalence) • Text • message

9. What is a text?(1) • Look at the following example: Is it a text? Why or why not? • Tom’s wife is female. • Help! • Grammaticallyspeaking, a textconsists of sentences; a sentence consists of clauses; a clause, phrases; a phrase, words. But Halliday and Hasan thought “the word text is used in linguistics to refer to any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length, that does form a unified whole…. It may be anything from a single proverb to a whole play, from a cry for help to an all-day discussion….

10. What is a text?(2) • A text is a unit of language in use. It is not a grammatical unit…. It is not defined by its size…. A text is best regarded as a semantic unit, a unit not of form but of meaning. Thus it is related to a clause or sentence not by size but by realization.” So we can say a text is a communicative unit. It does not only consist of sentences, it is also realized by sentences which must be meaningful. • The example is grammatically correct, but it means nothing. The sentence is not informative, it is not a text.)

11. What is a text?(3) A text in linguistics Text realized in Paragraph ↓ Sentence Clause Phrase ↑ Word controlled by

12. Translation in a textual perspective (strategic decision making ranks) Text logic among clauses Paragraph and sentence (operational ranks) Sentence decode and encode the information Clause and reconstruct sentences/ clauses Phrase collocation word meaning Look at page 2 in the textbook

13. Standards of translation(1)(What is a good translation?) • A good translation to be, That, in which the merit of the original work is so completely transfused into another language, as to be as distinctly apprehended, and as strongly felt, by a native of the country to which that language belongs, as it is by those who speak the language of the original work. (Tytler) • fidelity and fluency

14. Standards of translation(2)(How to realize a good translation?) • Consider the style of the text • Consider the purpose of writing and translation (writer and reader) • Consider the relationship between meaning and structure • Consider the background and culture • Consider the skills used

15. Process of translation 1 • Understanding, expression, checking text understanding paragraph ↓ ↑ sentence ↓ ↑ clause ↓ ↑←checking phrase ↓ ↑ word expression

16. Process of translation 2 • Nida’s explanation • Language A Language B • Decoding Encoding • (Understanding) (Reconstructing) • X transfer Y • Author, reader, translater; cultural difference; purpose; situation…

17. Homework • Read chapter one • Read the text of chapter two, unit one • Translate In the Cafe. • Hand in your translation on Wednesday. • 10 of you must send the exercise by e-mail. • Address: ectrzy@126.com • Name: 05XX1