摘要:英汉口译是通过口头表达,将信息由英语转换成汉语的语言交际行为。英汉口译所涉及的因素颇多,其中文化因素的传达尤为重要。不同的文化背景决定了语言的表达方式,因此,译者在口译过程中要采取转换、解释等技巧将文化内涵传达给听众。本文主要探讨口译过程中文化因素传达的内涵、技巧及意义。
关键词:英汉口译;文化因素;传达;文化背景
摘要:英汉口译是通过口头表达,将信息由英语转换成汉语的语言交际行为。英汉口译所涉及的因素颇多,其中文化因素的传达尤为重要。不同的文化背景决定了语言的表达方式,因此,译者在口译过程中要采取转换、解释等技巧将文化内涵传达给听众。本文主要探讨口译过程中文化因素传达的内涵、技巧及意义。
关键词:英汉口译;文化因素;传达;文化背景
abstract:e-c interpretation is a kind of communicative behavior in which information in english is converted into chinese by oral expressions. among the factors in e-c interpretation, the most important one is cultural factor. different cultural backgrounds determine the form of expression. so, during e-c interpretation, the interpreter should have to pass on the cultural connotation to the listeners by explanation or conversion. this article aims to explore the connotations, techniques as well as its importance of transmission for cultural factors in e-c interpretation.
key words:e-c interpretation; cultural factors; transmission; cultural background
1introduction
it goes without saying that both english and chinese languages are endowed with profound culture. language is an important carrier of culture. different languages reflect different cultures. what’s language? “in the broadest sense, language is the symbolic representation of a people, and it comprises their historical and cultural backgrounds as well as their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking” and what about culture? according to the definitions of sociologists and anthropologists, the term “culture” refers to the total pattern of beliefs, customs, institutions, objects, and techniques that characterize the life of a human community. (deng yanchang, liu renqing, 1989). language is a very special component of culture. as a symbolic system of human communication, language is part of the conventional culture. most of the languages are contained within their cultures, and a society’s language is an aspect of its culture. there is a dialectical relationship between language and culture. every language is part of a culture and every culture is part of a language. as such, language can’t but serve and reflect cultural needs. the two are intricately interwoven such that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language or culture. thus, the relation of language to culture is that of part to whole. culture is really an integral part of the interaction between language and thought. cultural patterns, customs, and ways of life are expressed in language. for example, eskimo tribes commonly have as many as seven different words for snow to distinguish among different types of snow. in african cultures of the equatorial forests, there is no word at all for snow.
we shall not go further into the relationship between language and culture. what needs to be stressed here is that the two interact, and that understanding of one requires understanding of the other.
what we call “cultural factor” refers to beliefs, customs, social systems, institutions, objects, techniques, ways of thinking, family patterns, etc that comprise the culture. the criteria of interpretation differs from person to person, which, in general sense, are quickness, exactness and fluency. e-c interpretation covers broad contents in which the transmission of cultural factor is not only important but also can’t be ignored.
2the transmission of the connotation of cultural factors
just as we mentioned above, cultural factors refer to beliefs, customs, social systems, institutions, objects, techniques, ways of thinking, family patterns, etc that comprise the culture. so, it’s obvious that the transmission of the connotation of cultural factors is to pass on what comprise the culture stemmed from the english-speaking countries to the listeners in e-c interpretation.
it goes without saying that both english and chinese languages are endowed with profound culture. language is an important carrier of culture. different languages reflect different cultures. what’s language? “in the broadest sense, language is the symbolic representation of a people, and it comprises their historical and cultural backgrounds as well as their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking” and what about culture? according to the definitions of sociologists and anthropologists, the term “culture” refers to the total pattern of beliefs, customs, institutions, objects, and techniques that characterize the life of a human community. (deng yanchang, liu renqing, 1989). language is a very special component of culture. as a symbolic system of human communication, language is part of the conventional culture. most of the languages are contained within their cultures, and a society’s language is an aspect of its culture. there is a dialectical relationship between language and culture. every language is part of a culture and every culture is part of a language. as such, language can’t but serve and reflect cultural needs. the two are intricately interwoven such that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language or culture. thus, the relation of language to culture is that of part to whole. culture is really an integral part of the interaction between language and thought. cultural patterns, customs, and ways of life are expressed in language. for example, eskimo tribes commonly have as many as seven different words for snow to distinguish among different types of snow. in african cultures of the equatorial forests, there is no word at all for snow.
we shall not go further into the relationship between language and culture. what needs to be stressed here is that the two interact, and that understanding of one requires understanding of the other.
what we call “cultural factor” refers to beliefs, customs, social systems, institutions, objects, techniques, ways of thinking, family patterns, etc that comprise the culture. the criteria of interpretation differs from person to person, which, in general sense, are quickness, exactness and fluency. e-c interpretation covers broad contents in which the transmission of cultural factor is not only important but also can’t be ignored.
2the transmission of the connotation of cultural factors
just as we mentioned above, cultural factors refer to beliefs, customs, social systems, institutions, objects, techniques, ways of thinking, family patterns, etc that comprise the culture. so, it’s obvious that the transmission of the connotation of cultural factors is to pass on what comprise the culture stemmed from the english-speaking countries to the listeners in e-c interpretation.
(1)to be an interpreter, what he or she should convey in e-c interpretation? maybe someone would say “i’ll interpret what he or she says” the answer to the above question may be right or wrong. for example, a foreigner says “how about having supper together tonight? go dutch.” if it is interpreted as:“今晚一起吃饭如何?去荷兰,”the chinese listeners might think that you would invite him or her to have supper in dutch or in a certain restaurant named dutch. here “go dutch” means “pay your bill yourself ‘not’ to have dinner in dutch or a dutch restaurant.” the example reflects one kind of characteristics of culture. on the contrary, if someone in china invites you to have dinner with him or her, he/she will pay the bill. this phenomenon is called cultural difference. there are plenty of examples to show the cultural difference between english and chinese. chinese has a complex system of kinship terms. it distinguishes“外甥、侄子、堂兄、表兄、姑母、姨母、姑夫、舅父、姨夫、外祖母、外祖父”,while in english there are no counterparts. this is because the chinese are more particular about these relation distinctions while the english people do not need to make these distinctions so often. therefore, an interpreter has to pass profound knowledge about the cultural connotation of english-speaking countries. in this way and only in this way, he or she can convey the cultural connotation in e-c interpretation. this is the main point of cultural factor transmission.
(2)the requirements of cultural factor transmission
the interpreter should have to interpret not only what the speaker says but also what he or she really means. cultures differ from one another, and each culture is unique. language is influenced and shaped by culture and it reflects culture. different language backgrounds determine the form of language expression. for instance, “it was greek to me” in one of shakespeare’s plays “julius caesar” means “i know nothing about it.” it means“一窍不通”in chinese. so the requirements of cultural factor transmission, in my opinion, are:
1)to convey the real meaning of culture
some phrases and sentences in english have inner meaning. it’s difficult for our chinese interpreters to grasp. what we must do is to put across the meaning(not every individual word in the given phrases or sentences)in the light of the context. for example:
“it’s very kind of you”→“您太客气了”
“that won’t be the end of the world”→“天塌不下来”
“he is braver than wise”→“他有勇无谋”
“take care how you do so”→“千万别这样做”
“pull sb’s legs”→“嘲弄某人”
similarly, in interpreting this english sentence, “this piece of information has not been made public yet, so keep it under your hat”, we can grasp the real meaning of the sentence from the context and render it into.“这条消息尚未发表,因此你要保密。WwW.11665.coM”
2)to transmit the attributes of culture
the term “attribute” here means “a quality or feature, especially one that is considered to be good or useful”(longman dictionary of contemporary english, 1997).the attributes of a culture also refer to the good or useful parts of its language. to be a good interpreter, one should certainly interpret the good and useful parts of the target language. for instance. some foreigners often speak coarse language, such as “fuck” “damn it” , which are better not to be interpreted for the listeners’ sake. fortunately, some good expressions, such as “go and see” “trust the future; trust the young” are widely accepted by chinese people. with the development of science and technology, people in different countries will get to know each other better.
3)to pass on the connotation of culture
some words or phrases in english reflect the connotation of its culture, such as idealism and materialism. as a term of philosophy, idealism, its opposite is materialism, doesn’t contain any ameliorative or derogatory meaning in english. but it is different in chinese, which means.“唯心主义”on the contrary, materialism means“唯物主义”in chinese, which is an ameliorative word. but the two terms “idealism” and “materialism” are not always ameliorative or derogatory. for example:
“i came here out of conviction and idealism.”
我是抱着信念和理想而来的。
“a lot of people are prepared to turn their back on the materialist way of life.”
很多人都准备放弃追求物质享受的生活方式。(a dictionary of british and american culture , hu wenzong 1995)
from the above examples, we can see that “idealism” is ameliorative and “materialism” is derogatory.
the above requirements may be somewhat abstract, but in fact, it is what an interpreter has to do.
3the techniques of cultural factors’ transmission
in the case of e-c interpretation, which involves two well-developed languages that are carriers of two vastly different cultures, techniques do play a helpful role. besides explanation and conversion, techniques of e-c interpretation include subordination, diction, implication, omission, negation and division, etc. but explanation and conversion are the two basic techniques of cultural factors transmission.
as far as the content of e-c interpretation is concerned, it includes conversation, interview, ceremonial speech, informative speech, persuasive speech, academic speech, business speech, popular science speech etc. no matter what kind of interpretation is, it can’t avoid cultural factor transmission. how to transmit the cultural factors of target language is the problem most interpreters face. here’s how.
3.1equivalence in e-c interpretation
although cultures and languages of both english and chinese are different, it is not difficult for an interpreter to find equivalents in chinese language in e-c interpretation. for instance. “welcome to shanghai, mr. roberts” “nice to meet you” “thank you so much for your concern” can be interpreted as“欢迎来上海,罗伯茨先生”“很高兴见到您”“非常感谢您的关心”。fortunately, we find an interesting fact that some expressions, sentence structures and words in english are similar or have the same meaning in chinese, such as “may i hereby declare openly…” “may i propose a toast…” “cheers” “opening ceremony” “market economic,” etc. human experiences and observations of the world are similar in many respects. so, in spite of the dissimilar cultural backgrounds of the chinese and the english-speaking peoples, the number of proverbs or sayings in the two languages that are equivalent or approximately close is rather surprising. consider the following:
“strike while the iron is hot”→“趁热打铁”
“many hands make light work”→“人多好办事”
“more haste, less speed”→“欲速则不达”
“out of sight, out of mind”→“眼不见,心不烦”
but, in fact, not all words or phrases in english have the similar or the same meaning in chinese. in other words, the form is similar but the meaning is different. therefore, we should attach much importance to the cultural connotations. for example, in china, the term “知识分子”, generally includes college teachers, college students, and people as medical doctors, engineers, interpreters——people who have had a college education. in the u.s and europe, however, intellectuals would include only people of high academic status such as college professors, but not ordinary college students. more examples:
each time he raised his glass, he would say: “well, here’s mud in your eye!”
他每次举杯时都说:“祝你好运!”
“heads i win, tails you lose!”
无论怎样,我都不会输!
the invaders have shown a clean pair of heels.
入侵者已逃之夭夭。
“anyone can do it on his head,” said the old man.
“这件事谁做起来都很容易。”老人这样说。
3.2explanation in e-c interpretation
learning a foreign language well means more than merely mastering the pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. it also includes learning to see the world as native speakers of that language do it, learning the ways in which how their language reflects the ideas, customs, and behavior of their society, learning to understand their “language of the mind.” otherwise, an interpreter would interpret the superficial meaning of the speaker and miss his inner meaning which reflects the ideas, customs and behavior of his society. as a result, the listeners would not understand what the speaker really means. in this case, the interpreter should take up the technique of explanation. for instance, once a group of chinese was visiting the home of a fairly well-to-do american. as they were shown around the house, they commented, “you have a very nice home. it’s so beautiful,” the hostess smiled with obvious pleasure and replied in good american fashion “thank you”——which caused surprise among some of her chinese guests. to english-speaking people, praise is to be accepted. it’s assumed that the compliment is sincere, there should be no show of false humidity, no pretended modesty. to chinese, however, the customary reply to a compliment would be to claim that one is not worthy of the praise in order to show modesty. acceptance of a compliment would imply conceit or lack of manners. more example, a native speaker says “there are some butterflies in my stomach” if the above sentence is interpreted as “我肚子里有蝴蝶”, it would cause confusion to the chinese listeners. because the sentence means that “i feel nervous very much.” both the cases reflect the speakers’ culture. furthermore, some words also need explaining when interpreted, such as “clock watcher” “teenager” in the following sentences.
“she is a clock watcher.”——她是个看着钟等着下班的人。
“he is a teenager.”——他是个十多岁的小孩。
3.3conversion in e-c interpretation
because of the cultural differences, some words or phrases do not have equivalents or counterparts in chinese. so we have to interpret them by conversion or shifting. for example, “excuse me” is a general term preceding a request or interruption. in chinese, however, there are different terms:“劳驾”when asking a favor or requesting a person to do something. therefore, it can’t be interpreted as“对不起”in chinese. “when in rome, do as the romans do.” this is an english proverb. it means“入乡随俗”in chinese, not for“在罗马,就象罗马人那样做。”there are also some common english proverbs that do not seem to have their chinese equivalents. the sampling below includes some that reflect different daily habits, some that show a different perception of things, or indicate a different philosophy or attitude. consider.
absence makes the heart grow fonder.
越是不见越想念。
an apple a day keeps the doctor away.
常吃苹果少得病。
you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
两者不可兼得。
let sleeping dogs lie.
莫惹是非。
english proverbs without chinese equivalents are too numerous to be listed here. as long as the interpreter knows their real meanings and the techniques mentioned above, he or she can translate them well orally, anyway.
as in the case of e-c interpretation, a word in either of these two languages belonging to a certain part of speech has often to be converted into a different part of speech in the target language, and a passive construction into an active one etc.——to conform to the usage of the target language. conversion is necessitated primarily by the difference in syntactic structure and idiom of the two languages. consider the following samples:
(1)nouns converted into verbs:
…to realize the objective of effective prohibition of the development, production and stockpiling of all chemical weapons…
……实现有效禁止发展、生产和储存一切化学武器的目标……
(2)prepositions converted into verbs:
…use military force against oil-producing countries
……用军事力量来对付石油生产国。
(3)adjectives converted into verbs
with unemployment high, the dollar low and the stock market in distress, the economy will be the president’s sternest trial.
由于失业率增高、美元币值下跌、股票市场处于困境之中,经济问题将是总统所面临的最严峻的考验。
(4)conversion of the passive into the active:
it is said that…
有人说……(人们说……;据说……)
4the causes which influence the cultural factors’ transmission
there are many causes that affect the cultural factor transmission. it includes cultural background, the qualities of an interpreter and regional differences etc.
4.1cultural backgrounds
different languages reflect different cultures. as a phenomenon of social culture, language is the result of the development of social culture. no language can exist and develop without a certain social and cultural environment, meanwhile, social culture restricts the language users’ way of thinking and their ability to express themselves. because of the cultural differences, misunderstandings may arise in translating or interpreting, although the language used in communication may be faultless.
once a teacher in a college acted as an interpreter for a foreign teacher, as all the leaders of the college were seated in the sitting- room. the foreign teacher was happy to have so many important guests in his house. after some courteous greetings, the foreign teacher had a suggestion. “would you like to play chicken foot?” “你们想玩鸡爪吗?”the teacher interpreted immediately. the leaders looked at each other in surprise. the foreigner didn’t know why. he rushed into his bedroom and returned with some toy. he showed how to play them just as our chinese play chess. only by that time did the teacher know that he had made a mistake. chicken foot is kind of game in south america!
4.2the qualities of an interpreter
interpretation is a job with high professional requirements. there is no doubt that the qualities of an interpreter determine the result of interpretation. these basic qualities include: a. a strong sense of duty. b. a good command of the languages involved. c. an encyclopedic knowledge. d. acute hearing. e. a good pronunciation. f. familiarity with simultaneous note-taking. g. a good memory. h. quick and accurate response, etc. i don’t want to go further into the qualities of an interpreter. but an interpreter must at least have profound knowledge about current affairs, politics, economics, business, trade, science, history, geography, etc. just as a common saying goes “a good interpreter should know something of everything”.
4.3regional differences
regional differences in the same language may be found in pronunciation, intonation or rhythm; or in the choice or usage of certain words and idioms; sometimes, even in syntax, although this is not so common. regional differences in english may be quite a problem for chinese who are used to hearing the standard or more common forms of english. there is no easy solution. one must gradually accustom oneself to the differences through frequent hearing and trying to figure out the meaning. otherwise, you can’t interpret them well.
in american english, regional differences are not so great, but there are dissimilarities that should be mentioned. people in new england——the northeastern states in america——tend to pronounce certain words the way the british do. people in the south——the dozen or so states in the southeastern part of america——tend to speak with a drawl; they speak slowly and the vowel sounds are greatly prolonged. also, for a number of objects they use terms that are different from those commonly used in other regions; for example, a bag in other states would be called a poke in the south; a purse would be called a pocketbook.
5the importance of transmission for cultural factors in e-c interpretation
since we have known the relationship between culture and language, the importance of transmission for cultural factors in e-c interpretation is self-evident. no language doesn’t reflect its culture. though language is different from one another, it can be interpreted from the angle of culture. culture covers a broad content. but “genuine knowledge comes from practice”. as long as the interpreter masters the two languages as well as their cultures, the transmission of cultural factors in e-c interpretation can not be boasted.
6conclusion
e-c interpretation is a difficult task. to be a good e-c interpreter is even more difficult. as far as e-c interpretation is concerned, it is vital to be quick, accurate and fluent. cultural factor transmission is only an important part of e-c interpretation. so it is very important for an interpreter to master the connotation of cultural-loaded words and the techniques of cultural factors’ transmission in e-c interpretation.
reference
1 deng yanchang & liu renqing. language and culture[m]. foreign language teaching and research press, 1989
2 hu wenzong. a dictionary of british and american culture. foreign language teaching and research press, 1995
3 mei deming. an intermediate course of english-chinese interpretation. shanghai foreign language teaching press, 1998
4 wang fuxiang & wu hanying. culture and language[a]. foreign language teaching and research press, 1994
5 tan baoquan. techniques of modern english translation[m]. shanghai. transportation university press, 1997
6 zhong shukong. a practical handbook of interpretation[m]. beijing. china foreign-oriented translation publishing press co, 1999
