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1、Transformation of Part of SpeechIn English-Chinese TranslationI. Introduction Any language in the world is following certain rules on purpose or without purpose. Each language has its own patterns to convey the interrelationships of persons and events, in no language may these patterns be ignored, i
2、f the translation is to be understood by its readers. (Mona Baker, 2000:110) These two language systems, English and Chinese, with the former rather logic and latter rather pictographic, what character do they have? Mr Wangli put up forward two concepts in his famous writing Chinas Grammar Theory hy
3、postasis and parataxis, English emphasizes hypostasis, some linguists claim that English is full of connecting device，whereas Chinese parataxis, Chinese sentences are loosely structured, which usually adopt accumulative clause or independent sentences. There is one thing that should be noted is the
4、position of the focus in a sentence, to be short: the core part is in at the beginning in English，while it is at back in Chinese. Two comparative examples demonstrate the dissimilarity apparently:For example: A tremendous achievement of the May 4th Movement was its public exposure of he ugliness of
5、old stereotype and the old dogma and its call to the people to rise against them.For example: Its public exposure of ugliness of old stereotype and the old dogma and its call to the people to rise against them were a tremendous achievement of the May 4th Movement.Obviously, the former sentence is En
6、glish type, while the latter one is Chinese pattern.We all know that it is always an extremely long sentence explaining before you know what happens when Chinese people are speaking, while English-spoken people are very direct, they always express their ends or results before telling you reasons. Th
7、is phenomenon creates huge obstacles for interpreters, because they have to remember lots of information before interpreting.The other thing is that English is static, Chinese is dynamic (周志培，2003：392-418). The representation of static in English is not rare, like using more nouns in a sentence than
8、 Chinese, making full use of gerund, to-infinitive as linking device, nevertheless Chinese tends to adopt verb whenever it can. But in some cases, English use preposition as opposed to verb in Chinese. Apart from that, custom, history, and many other elements account for the transformation of part o
9、f speech in English-Chinese translation.Hypostasis is based on sentence pattern, grammar serves as a bridge, put vocabulary (including changes of affix, tense as well as the collocation of words) into different position to form sentence structure with the purpose of communication and recording, expr
10、essing the idea and communicating is the main starting point of hypostasis, that is to say the idea of human beings, culture, inner relation of each word are the starting points to form a sentence. Chinese language culture dates back to Fuxi (伏曦)，in order to record the quantity of collected wild fru
11、it, people of primitive society used stones. Gradually they drew pictures to show their meaning, from then on, language was developed accordingly. So at the beginning of Chinese being created, the purpose of it was to express idea.As translators, we are primarily concerned with communicating the ove
12、rall meaning of a stretch of language. When we are doing translation work, the basic unit is a sentence not words, and the basic requirement of translation is faithfulness. To achieve that purpose, we need to start by decoding the units and structures which carry that meaning. Judging from all of th
13、e above, transformation of part of speech in English-Chinese translation is a must. This thesis deals with transformation of part of speech in the following aspects.II. The Similarity and Difference between English and Chinese2.1 The Identical Part of Speech in English and ChineseAccording to the fu
14、nction of words, they can be divided into noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, conjunction, preposition and so on both in English and Chinese. Lets see what the functions of them are in the following passage.2.1.1 Definition and Grammatical Function of NounNouns can be divided into proper noun an
15、d common noun，which is not so obvious in Chinese. Common noun is a general name for a group of people or things, which can be divided into abstract noun, material noun, collect noun as well as individual noun. Proper noun is the name for a particular person, place, organization, country, etc.Noun is
16、 very important in a sentence, understanding the function of them plays adominant role in understanding one sentence. The functions of nouns are:(1) Subject. It is the same both in Chinese and in English.(2) Object. Human beings and things can be the receptionist of action, therefore noun can be obj
17、ect.(3) Predictive. The general structure is: subject + be+ predictive when it serves as predictive. (4) Direct objective and indirect objective. They are twins, which comes one after another. If there is no indirect object, there will be no direct object, we call it object only then. (5) Object of
18、preposition. Noun can be after proposition as object (6) Attributive. Noun can be attributive no matter in English or in Chinese. It is not so complicated in Chinese, however it is a different case in English, because it involves singular form and plural form. The most typical example is man/woman+
19、noun. Man/Woman should be changed into men/women in English, which is not necessary in Chinese. (7) Appositive. There is one kind of clause called appositive clause, antecedent is a group of special words, like “idea”, “fact” those abstract noun. While in Chinese there is no appositive clause.2.1.2
20、Definition and Usage of VerbsVerb is a kind of words describing the action and status of persons or things， verb and noun are the most important vocabulary in any language, without them, it is impossible to form sentences.The usage of verb is much more complicated in English than in Chinese. In Engl
21、ish, verbs can be divided into five types: transitive verb, intransitive verb, predictive, auxiliary verb, a modal verb. In Chinese most verbs can be modified by “着, 了, 过”, which is compatible with simple past tense in English. Next let us see the usage of different verbs.Verbs have 16 tenses, which
22、 are based on changes of transitive verb, minus or plus auxiliary verb.(1) Content verb or its third singular form is aimed to present accustomed, commonly happened, immediate action, but some sensory verbs, like tell, hear, write, say, etc deliver past-time information. If they are added auxiliary
23、verb，dont, doesnt, the sentences become negative.(2) Past tense can describe action or existed situation in the past time. In the subjunctive mood sentence, there is exception that past tense sometimes displays action or situation at present or in the future.(3) If added will, shall or be going to i
24、n front of verbs, it is called future tense, meaning actions, situation, or trend in the future.(4) If put should, would in front of verbs, it is called past future tense, displaying action or situation in the future standing on the point of past time.(5) If verbs are following auxiliary verb have,
25、has, it expresses the fact that the action or the situation happens in past time, which is not exact, and still have certain effect up to now.(6) It is almost the same, if verbs are following auxiliary verb had, it shows that the action or the situation happens before a period of past time, sometime
26、s this pattern is used in subjunctive mood. There are 16 tenses in active voice, the number is the same in passive voice, all of which depend on the changes of verbs, and we can say that the usage of verbs is quite complicated.2.1.3 Definition and Usage of PrepositionPreposition is always in front o
27、f other words, one of the most active vocabularies, which cannot be a separate part in a sentence, it serves as links between other words.Preposition is always followed by nouns or phrases having the function of nouns, which are nouns, clause，pronoun, gerund or gerund phrase, infinitive or infinitiv
28、e phrases, numerable words. Preposition has the similar function in Chinese.2.1.4 Definition and Usage of AdjectiveAdjective is used to modify noun and pronoun, to describe the quality, size, ages, shape, color as well as nature of a certain object. Adjective can be in front of nouns, they have the
29、same usage both in English and Chinese. But, the position of adjectives can be after noun in English, whereas it is not the case in Chinese. There are comparative degree and superlative degree in English, which do not exist in Chinese.2.2 Different Part of Speech in English and Chinese(1) Auxiliary.
30、 Auxiliary word is the word between word and word, between phrase and phrase to present some relation and meaning.In Chinese auxiliary cannot build a sentence by themselves, they have to be with other parts. Especially be noted are “吗，呢，吧” etc, their equivalence in English are what, why, how, when.
31、When we do translation, we are expected to pay attention to it, which should be called a kind of transformation of part of speech.(2) Article. There is article in English, but none in Chinese, therefore when doing English-Chinese translation, avoiding translating article is the most commonly used sk
32、ill, which is all right in most of situation, but it creates problems on some occasions, so we have to handle it with great cautions. 2.3 The Requirement and Limitation upon Transformation(1)There are always some parts of speech in one language which cannot be found in another language, even though
33、they may have identical concept, there are also some words that cannot be found equivalent words, like article, auxiliary etc.(2) It may have both equivalent meaning of words and the same part of speech, but from sentences point of view, we can only use certain part of speech, e.g. in English, subje
34、ct can only be noun or noun phrase, which must not be verb, however it is always the case in Chinese.(3) English is hypostasis, Chinese is parataxis, the limitation, emphasis of the passage, and so on, and all contribute to the adjustment of part of speech.(4) In order to achieve a certain kind of e
35、ffect, sentence must be re-structured, which leads to the conversion of part of speech.(5) This point is affected by custom and environment, which is rather complex, it cannot be explained in one sentence.III. The Classification of Conversion of Part of SpeechBecause of different linguistic systems
36、which English and Chinese belong to, when we translate English to Chinese, it is hard to translate word to word without changing their sentence pattern but if we did, the translation must be awkward and not in compliance with the practice of the target language. According to the common usage of voca
37、bulary in magazines or newspapers, I simply classify transformation in the following groups. 3.1 The Conversion of Part of Speech of NounIn comparison with other languages, English is a materialized language, in which nouns are used more frequently, while Chinese are different, thus the conversion o
38、f word pattern is unavoidable. 3.1.1 Noun into Verb One of the characteristics of English words is that nouns accounts for a big proportion while in Chinese, verbs are more commonly used. That is why in English-spoken countries, people get used to abstract expression while Chinese prefer to use conc
39、rete expression. It is not surprising to find several verbs in Chinese sentence. While in English, every element in a sentence is played by words of particular part of speech. For example, Subject can only be a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase. However in Chinese, verb can be used in whatever position
40、in a sentence, even in the subject position without changing its word pattern. Experts predict that the trend of Chinese is to emphasize the advantage of verbs, thus this kind of conversion in translation is rather common. In English, noun includes concrete noun and abstract noun. Of course, common
41、nouns do not need to be converted into other parts of speech in translation e.g. man, woman, apple. While proper nouns may in the following situations: word itself implies a meaning of a motion or it is derived from a verb. Consider it in the following cases: For example: An increase in business req
42、uires an increase in the amount of money coming into general circulation. 交易增加，要求流通的货币量也增加。This example is very typical. In this sentence, three English nouns are converted into verbs in translation, otherwise, there will be many versions of translation but neither would be as easy as the above one.
43、 Lets see another example: For example:Rockets have found application for the exploration of the universe.火箭已用来探索宇宙。We can see “application” and “exploration” are switched into verbs. If we dont convert the parts of speech, it can be translated into: 火箭已经找到了宇宙探索的应用 which is rather wordy and difficul
44、t to say. From the above two examples, I can see the importance or conversion of parts of speech in translation. Because of the use of conversion of parts of speech, the translation is more simple and concise, as well as more informative. 3.1.2 Nouns into Adjective In English writing, there are some
45、 proper nouns which are derived from adjectives and without determiners, such as success whose part of speech need to be changed in translation into Chinese. Seen in this sentence: For example:The maiden voyage of the newly-built steam ship was a success. 那艘新建轮船的处女航是成功的。 If we translate it word by w
46、ord: 那艘轮船的处女航是个成功， it would be rather awkward. For example:He is a stranger to the operation of the electronic computer. 他对电子计算器的操作是陌生的。In this sentence “stranger” is the derivative of strange, part of speech of it is transformed into adjective. 3.1.3 The Conversion of Nouns into AdverbsFor example:
47、 I have the honor to inform you that your application has been accepted.我很荣幸的通知你，你的申请已经被接受。 Clearly we can see honor was converted into adverb. For example:When he catches a glimpse of a potential antagonist, his instinct is to win him over with charm!只要一发现有可能反对的人，他就本能地要用自己的魅力把此人争取过来。“Instinct” was
48、converted into a verb too. This kind of conversion is not common in translation, and general principle for this is 名词+地. 3.2 The Conversion of Part of Speech of Verbs Verbs are a group of very important words which are also often transformed into other parts of speech in translation. 3.2.1 Verbs int
49、o NounsIn translation from English to Chinese, there are many cases that verbs are converted into nouns. Usually this kind of verbs is derived from nouns by the addition of a prefix (like -fy, -ize) or simply use noun instead (just like the conversion of parts of speech in ancient Chinese). For example:The development of scientific research in China is characterized by the integrat
