汉语主题结构英译探讨

尽管汉语与英语的句子似乎大多符合主语-谓语-宾语及修饰语-被修饰语这一语序,但实际上两种语言具有本质的差异。汉语是主题突出型语言,而英语则是主语突出型语言,"主题-述题"结构是汉语的主要特点之一,但英语很少使用主题结构,一些通过主题化生成的主题句也主要是为了某种语用或修辞目的。就英汉翻译而言,英汉词序的相似性有时可以将汉语的主题句直接转换成典型的英语主谓(宾)结构。而在多数情况下,汉语主题句的翻译需要局部甚至全部改变原有句子结构才能完整精确地译出原句要表达的意思。根据这一指导原则,本文总结出了翻译汉语主题句的三条基本方法,即对应法、结构转换法和语义翻译法。

English Translation of the Chinese Topic Structure

Chinese and English are quite different in nature though they seem to have similar word order. Chinese is a topic-prominent language and English is a subject-prominent language, for predominance of the topic-comment construction is one of the chief characteristics of Chinese while in English the topic structure is rather rare and topicalized sentences are mainly employed for certain pragmatic or rhetorical purposes. As far as Chinese-English translation is concerned, the apparent similarity in word order sometimes makes it possible to transform a Chinese TVO or TSV(O) sentence into a typical English SVO sentence. But, in most cases, translation of such sentences involves partial transformation or even complete reorganization of the structure so as to fully/exactly express the intended meaning of the original sentence. Accordingly, this paper, based on many examples, summarizes three major translating methods, namely corresponding method, structural transformation and semantic translation, aiming at facilitating translation of the Chinese topic sentence.