THE COMPARISON BETWEEN ENGLISH WORDS AND CHINESE ONES IN TRANSLATION

夏金婷

（龍巖技師學院，福建 龍巖 364000）

0 Introduction

Translation is,in fact,a converting process.Theoretically,a translation should give its readers the same conception as that a native reader gets from the original.Word is the smallest unit of language that can be used by itself.(Bolinger and Sears,1968：43)Chinese and English are two different languages which have different words,consist of lexical,word formation.So,many translators and theorists have been searching for the equivalence in order to reach the nearest equivalence between these two languages,to get better versions.We should be sure that equivalence does exist in translation,which makes the translation possible.

According to Balfudalov (Chai Yi,etc.Tr.49),there are three kinds ofequivalence which are mainly aboutsemantic meaning：full equivalence,partial equivalence,zero equivalence.This paper will discuss zero equivalence and the way of its translating.

Zero equivalence (non-equivalent)means that some words in one language have no equivalence in another language.Non-equivalence at word level means that the target language has no direct equivalent for a word which occurs in the source text.(Mona Baker,20)There is no oneto-one correspondence between orthographic words and elements of meaning within or across languages.(Mona Baker,11)As far as I am concerned,the exact same effect of equivalence cannot be reached.There should be at least some loss of meaning,especially in the aspects of cultural,social background knowledge.

1 The cause of non-equivalence

1.1 Culture-specific concepts

The source-language word may express a concept which is totally unknown in the target culture.The concept in question may be abstract or concrete;it may relate to a religious belief,a social custom,or even a type of food.Such concepts are often referred as ‘culture-specific’.An example of an abstract English concept which is notoriously difficult to translate into other language is that expressed by the word ‘privacy’.This is a very ‘English’ concept which is rarely understood by people from other cultures. ‘Speaker’ (of the House of Commons)has no equivalent in many languages,such as Chinese.(Mona Baker,21)

1）Religious belief

In some western countries,especially in British and America,people believe Christianity and believe that God controls everything in the world,while Chinese believe Buddhism.So there are many expressions relate to God in English,such as ‘God bless you’ which has no equivalent in Chinese.Vice versa,we can not find the exact expression of the Chinese saying “借花獻佛” in English.There are some examples.

（1）Homer sometimes nods.智者千慮,必有一失。

（2）God helps those who help themselves.自助者天助。

Homer is the wise and the great who was worshiped by western people.Because of the different religious belief,we Chinese have difficulties in understanding this idiom.So we cannot use literal translation here.

2）Geographical conditions

As we all know,Britain is an island which around by the sea.As a result,the sea plays an important part in their life,which reflects in the language.We can easily find the expression related to the sea.Such as‘follow the seas’ (做水手，當海員),‘a sea of troubles’ (無窮的煩惱),‘miss the boat’(錯失良機),‘rock the boat’(搗亂),‘to be all at sea’(茫然不知所措)

The poem Ode to the West Wind shows us that west wind is good image for British.While in China,it has opposite image.The cause of this difference is that these two countries have different geographical location,have different climate.In Chinese culture,the east wind is welcomed.

3）Custom

The custom varies from countries to countries,which make the languages have theircharacteristics.In middle age times,when Englishmen offered their guest,they put a salt pot on the table.The most respectable guest sat near the salt pot.So there is a phrase ‘sit above salt’(坐上座，受尊敬).And some phrases are related to the salt.Such as‘eat salt with sb.’ (在某人處做客),‘worth one’s salt’ (稱職，勝任)

Besides,there is also the phenomenon that zero equivalence is caused by the cultural and social factors,that is,something existed in the people’s life of another language.For example, “中秋節” can not be found in western culture.In this case,translators have to give more explanation,have to seek for the meaning from deep equivalence.So we can have the equivalence of“中秋節” as‘Moon-cake Festival’.

1.2 The way of translating

What does a translator do when there is no word in the target language which expresses the same meaning as the source language word?Every language has its own capacity of expressing what it intends to express.From this point,we can see that untranslatability is impossible.First of all,we should have good comprehension of those words or phrases,and then use free translation.Let’s see some examples.

（3）Diamond cuts diamond.強中自有強中手。

（4）One cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.朽木不可雕。

（5）Better a living dog than a dead lion.好死不如賴活。

（6）To put the cart before the horse.本末倒置。

（7）Love me,love my dog.愛屋及烏。

Besides,when people cannot find words with the similar meaning in one language,they would add the new words into the system of the language,by doing so,language itself is developed.Translators can translate the non-equivalent indirectly into the target language text.They can add some explanations at the end of the text or in the text.

［1］Dai Weidong.A new concise course on linguistics for students of English[M].Shanghai,2002.

［2］Gao Lin.The translation of proverbs[J].Journal of Guangxi University Wuzhou branch,2004,14,1：39-42

［3］Mona,Baker.In other words：a coursebook on translation[M].Beijing,2000.