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1、习语及习语的汉英翻译On Idioms and Their Translation from Chinese into EnglishAbstractIdioms are just like incomparably resplendent bight pearls emitting dazzling rays in the palace of literature. Throughout the ages, they animate the works of countless men of literature and writing. Idioms have fixed patterns
2、 and abundant connotations. Their vivid images explicitly convey incisive meanings. Chinese idioms are part of the essence of Chinese culture with a history of thousands of years. In this thesis, the English translation of Chinese idioms will be discussed on the foundation of simply introducing the
3、definitions, origins, features, and classifications of idioms, and a series of principles and methods of idiom translation will be put forward, mainly involving the translation of the Chinese idioms which have similar and dissimilar implications in English.Key wordsChinese idioms； similarity；dissimi
4、larity 摘要习语犹如文学殿堂里一颗璀璨无比的明珠放射着历久不衰的光芒， 古往今来，无数文人墨客的笔下都闪耀着它的异彩。它结构固定而涵义深刻，用生动的形象明确地表达着深刻的思想。汉语习语是几千年华夏文化的精髓之一。本文在简单介绍习语就的定义，来源，特点及分类的基础上，研究汉语习语的英语翻译并提出一系列的汉语习语英译的翻译原则和翻译方法,其中主要涉及对似和非对似汉语习语的英语翻译。关键词汉语习语； 对似性； 非对似性 IntroductionLanguage is the most important communicative tool of all human beings. It pl
5、ays its role as not only the carrier and form of culture but also the most vital element of transmission and inheritance of culture. Language of any kind is the crystallization of the culture of its own nation. As the cream of the culture, the idiom is a kind of widespread set phrases or sentences,
6、with specific implications, abstracted from the spoken language and experience of the people and the classical works. Due to its vivid image and profound connotation, the idiom is deeply loved by the masses, as a member with fine expressible ability in the family of language. Idioms frequently appea
7、r in the spoken language and literary works. Chinese idioms have a solid cultural base to take root, develop and flourish now that the Chinese nation has broad and profound culture.Nowadays, the international status of China is upgrading gradually. People all over the world take delight in acquainti
8、ng themselves with Chinese culture. As the essence of Chinese culture and the crystallization of the wisdom of the common Chinese people, idioms are bound to become an important part to promote the Chinese culture to the knowledge of people of all the other countries. The idiom is a contact point of
9、 the knowledge of the Chinese culture for people all over the world. To sum up, in order to make the western peoples know Chinese culture thoroughly, the study of the English translation of Chinese idioms is quite necessary and of far-reaching significance. Section OneIntroduction to IdiomsIdioms ar
10、e those set phrases or short sentences abstracted from the spoken language or classical works, and the like. They were passed down from generation to generation for centuries. Idioms are scientific summary of peoples experience and the crystallization of peoples wisdom. After thousands of years accu
11、mulation, idioms are provided with vivid images, profound implications and exquisite rhythms.Idioms could mirror the local customs and practices of different regions, the living style of the people, the natural environment and so on. We could see that the idiom has a very strong color of its nation.
12、 Therefore, to understand and study the idiom is supposed to start from its definition, origin, features, and classifications.I. Definition of IdiomsAs for the definition of idioms, there are various versions according to different dictionaries and scholars. I picked out some of those definitions fr
13、om some authoritative dictionaries as follows:(1) An idiom is an expression which functions as a single unit and whose meaning cannot be worded out from its separate parts (Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics, 1985) and (2) An idiom is a phrase, construction or expression that is recognized as
14、 a unit in the usage of a given language and either differs from the usual syntactic patterns or has a meaning that differs from the literal meaning of its parts taken together. (Websters New World College Dictionary 3rd Edition, 1996)Some experts, who have been engaged in the study of idioms for ma
15、ny years, also have opinions of the definition of idioms.(1) Weinreich held the view that a phraseological unit involving at least two polysemous constituents, and in which there is a reciprocal contextual selection of subsenses will be called and idiom.(2) Schweigert and Moates have the idea that i
16、dioms are common expressions used in colloquial speech with accepted, figurative meanings that differ from their present-day literal meanings. These above are from dictionaries and experts or scholars. To sum up, we may come to the conclusion that idioms are those concise and incisive set phrase or
17、short sentences, which mean something different from the literal meaning of the individual words, refined from peoples long-term employment, whose elements cannot be changed at random with simple words producing profound truth, thus widely spread among the common people.II. Origins of IdiomsThe form
18、ation of idioms is on intimate terms with the culture of the nation which its language relies on. In a sense, the culture gives birth to the idioms. On the contrary, the idioms reflect all the features of the culture. Each nation has its own national culture which owns a distinctive style and tradit
19、ion that come into being in the course of their work and life, including history, language, custom, life style, ways of thinking, and so on . Idioms, a kind of language form used by the people for a very long time, to a great extent, rely more on the specific social cultural connotations than the co
20、mmon words.Idioms, having an extremely strong color of a nation are one of the marks differentiating one language from another.Thus, the origin of the idioms may be quite varied.(1) The Experience of the Common PeopleFor thousands of years, people drew lessons and experience from their daily life, a
21、nd then wrote them down to tell their offspring what they had got from their experiences. As a result, most of the idioms could invariably mirror almost everything related to the life of the common people. Take those reflecting the geographic environment of peoples inhabitations as example, Britain
22、is a country with small land area but a long coast line; so many English idioms are relevant to the ocean. People in Britain always compare fish to the people. For example, they use cold fish to describe a person who is indifferent to something and feel like a fish out of water to express a feeling
23、that is uncomfortable and unnatural. People always wrote down the lessons they got from their experience, just as the idiom who has never tasted bitter knows not what is sweet telling the people if you dont undergo hardships, you will never know what happiness is.At the beginning of human society, o
24、wing to the low productivity and lack of further knowledge of most common phenomena of the society at certain stage, people always held a kind of belief in some imaginary things or power. People believed that there existed another world in the heaven where the immortals lived and to which their ance
25、stors would go after death. They regarded it as a carefree place where happiness lives permanently. Thus, when they were in trouble or suffered from hardships, they would rely their hope to good fortune on going to the carefree place or afterlife which they firmly believed to exist. So many idioms a
26、re about peoples religions or beliefs. For instance, there is an idiom man proposes, god disposes. Because people in the western countries consider that God is almighty, and human beings are paltry before God. As poor as church mouse indicates that somebody is as poor as the mouse in the church wher
27、e everything had been washed clean.(2) Myths and FablesIn any nation, of any culture, there exist plenty of myths. At the first birth of the nation, its culture began to come into prosperity as well. A large mass of myths were produced orally and in the written form. Those myths were passed down to
28、next generation for centuries and were read by the people in each period of time. Hence those myths left a deep impression on peoples mind. Nearly everyone in a nation has an intimate knowledge of those myths. From generation to generation, lots of symbolic idioms stand out from those myths and are
29、employed to convey some special or specific and regular meanings. Take the idioms from the Greek- Roman myths as examples, people constantly use Achilles heel to indicate the crucial and strategic point or fatal weakness (Achilles is the hero in the Trojan War), and apply Pandoras box to signify the
30、 root of the disaster (Pandora, a beauty who brought the disasters down to the world). Chinese myths also generate numerous idioms, such as, Baxianguohai, gexianshentong which originated from the myth about the eight immortals, it shows us the denotation that Eight Immortals crossing the sea, each o
31、ne showing hisher special prowess. Therefore, people always apply this idiom to deliver the figurative meaning that several outstanding persons try to outshine each other.Fables are a sort of literary form, in which the animals or things are often personified to teach people a lesson or truth, with
32、satiric and admonitory feature and is widely spread for its short form, vivid image, appropriate comparison and profound message. For this reason, most of the fables are condensed and sublimated into idioms to be frequently used in peoples everyday life. The idioms coming from the fable lie in the f
33、ollowing examples, Zixiangmaodun from a Chinese fable, reveals its meaning that someone contradicts himself. Aesops fables, which are known well by the people not only in the western countries but also in China, give birth to numerous idioms. Such as, count ones chicken before they are hatched meani
34、ng resting ones hopes on the uncertain things. The idiom look before you leap is regularly applied to tell the people to give a matter the second thought or act with prudence.(3) Historical Events and AnecdotesIn any nation, any country, people once experienced periods of ups and downs. They not onl
35、y achieved brilliance but also suffered from miseries. In that way it maybe, those events, great or not, indeed had branded the history deeply. Theyre so innumerable that even the historians can hardly record thoroughly. Most of those events left deep impression on peoples mind and taught us many le
36、ssons, thus were often mentioned and later fixed in the form of idioms. As we all know that Waterloo is the place where Napoleon was defeated by the allied forces of Britain, Germany and Netherlands, etc, commanded by Duke of Willington. Therefore, meet ones Waterloo is employed to represent a crush
37、ing defeat.In the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476) in Chinese ancient times, GouJian, the king of the Yue kingdom, slept on brushwood and tasted gall after he was defeated by the Wu kingdom so as to undergo self-imposed hardships to remind himself never to forget the humiliation given by the king
38、of the Wu kingdom and go all out to make his country strong. So we Chinese people later make use of the Chinese idiom Woxinchangdan to sing a kind of a spirit if enduring tremendous hardships and humiliations to remind oneself to make a determined effort to accomplish some ambitions.There are also m
39、any idioms originated from anecdotes. For instance, eat crow, formed in the period of the war between Britain and America, was employed to give us the meaning that somebody is forced to confess the mistake he has made.(4) Classical Literary Works Literature is a kind of artistic form of language and
40、 also the constituent and carrier of the culture of a nation. Most classical literary works written by great masters of literature in every country are invariably appreciated by people all over the world. Thus, the words and sentences with profound meaning and enlightenment always form idioms, the e
41、ssence of the languages. Shakespeare, who is known as the greatest playwright in the world, is also a poet in the Renaissance in Britain. His works are greatly enjoyed by people all over the world from his time to the present. His works give birth to lots of idioms, Such as ones pound of flesh comin
42、g from The Merchant of Venice, which is used to describe a legal but unreasonable requirement. The Chinese idiom Yaquewusheng from the Chinese classical novel The Dream of the Red Mansions is employed to express a perfect silence.(5) Social Customs and HabitsEach nation has its own social customs an
43、d habits which are created by people of its own nation living together for a very long time. The formation of those customs and habits is closely linked with the natural condition, social environment, life style, tradition, etiquette and belief or even superstition. In Britain, where people like to
44、wear hats, when they greet somebody or extend their respects to others, they will take off their hats. Therefore, they employ take off ones hat to somebody to express the meaning that a person pays ones respects to somebody. In China, people take the red color as their favorite color since ancient t
45、imes; for they think the red color symbolizes happiness, flourish, brightness and success. For instance, people in China apply Hongyungaozhao to indicate that someone has good fortune on his side. On the contrary, people in the western countries always regard red as ill omen or violence. Thus, when
46、they describe an ill omen, they will use red for danger. So we could come to the conclusion from this phenomenon that different nation has different customs, habits and cultures.III. Features of IdiomsIdioms display its differentiation from other general expressions or structures in its own distinct
47、ive features.(1) Fixed StructureA specific idiom is a set phrase or accepted phrase. So the main feature is that it has fixed structure, which cannot be divided and split into small parts. For example, make haste (hurry up) cannot be separated as make him haste. Meanwhile, a complete idiom cannot be
48、 used separated in two different sentence or subordinate clauses. For instance, read the riot act (give a warning) cannot be used like it was the riot act that John read to me. The word in the idiom cannot be changed at random, even though the replacement of the synonyms will make the idiom lose its
49、 original meaning. Such as, smell a rat (be suspicious of something) cannot be changed into smell a mouse.Some of the structures of the idioms violate the normal grammatical rules, but we also cannot shift them into correct grammatical forms for the reason that it has a fixed structure. Give an example, as sure as eggs is eggs (absolutely true).All in all, the idioms have fixed structure, words, voice, order, forms of n
