【英语专业毕业论文】文化意象的英汉对比与转换.doc

文化意象的英汉对比与转换摘要：随着中外文化交流的日益频繁，目前翻译研究的重点也逐渐转向语言外部。人们对翻译也提出了越来越高的要求：人们不仅要求译文优美流畅，更要求尽可能的完整、准确地传达原作特有的文化意象。而文化差异则成为翻译中的难题和障碍。本论文从文化意象的角度，对比并讨论了英汉的文化差异，以及文化意象的转换方式，即翻译时怎样处理文化意象与文化差异。关键词：文化差异；文化意向；转换；对比；Cultural  Images :Comparison and Transformation between Chinese and English    Abstract: At present ,the emphasis of translating study shifts to the external of the language as the  intercultural communication has become more and more frequent .People demand higher and higher translation .They expect that the translated text is not only elegant and  but also can  transform the cultural images of the original text as  correctly and completely as possible .And the cultural differences become the main obstacle in translation .This paper deals with the  cultural differences between  Chinese and  English and  the  transformation of  cultural images. That is how to deal with the cultural differences during the process of translating .Key words :cultural images;cultural differences ; transformation ;comparison ContentsI .Introuduction1II. Expressive Forms of  Cultural Images 1III. Comparison of  Cultural  Images between Chinese and English 2IV. Causes of Cultural Images differences between Chinese and  English6V. Transformation of Cultural  Images10VI. Conclusion 14VII. References16 I . Introuduction    Generally speaking ,cultural  images is  the combination of peoples wisdom and history culture .Among them  most cultural images have close relations with a peoples legend and its original totems .During the long process of history development ,those legend and totems appeared constantly in language ,literary and artistic works .Years and  years ,they developed into a kind of cultural semiotics ,and have relatively fixed unique cultural meaning .Some have colorful and far-reaching association.In the  same language community ,people can understand each other when they speakOf  those images .but in different language communities ,people may not understand each other because different language communities may have different cultural images which have different associative meanings . Of course it is difficult for translators to  translate the original text  into the target language .When we transform the cultural images ,we should pay attention to  the cultural differences between two languages .II.  Expressive Forms of Cultural ImagesCultural images have many different kinds of expressive forms . It can  be a kind of plant ,such  as pine ,plum blossom,bamboo,orchid,chrysanthemum in Chinese ,and oak ,olive tree,white birch ,rose ,tulip in  English .It can be an image of adjactive phrases,idioms ,proverbs and allusions,such as “蛇足”in “画蛇添足”,“诸葛亮”in “三个臭皮匠顶个诸葛亮”in Chinese , and “a  fifth wheel ”in “to  put  a  fifth  wheel  to  the coach ”, “Rome ”in “All roads lead to  Rome.”in  English .It can  also be  a kind of animal ,such as“乌鸦”“喜鹊”“龙”in  Chinese ,and “owl ” “lion”  “bear” in English .It can be a number，such as“三”and “八”In Chinese , “seven” and  “thirteen ” in English .In Chinese“三”not only means “three”, but “many”, e.g. “三思而后行” And “八”not only means “eight”, but “good luck and good fortune” because it is homophonic with“发”in Chinese .In English , “seven” has similar associative meaning  with “三” in  Chinese such as “at seven-league stride” .But in English “thirteen” implies unlucky meaning. III. Comparison of Cultural Images between Chinese and English East and west may have the same images ;but these images may have different associative meanings in English or Chinese .In this part , the paper deals with the cultural images from four aspects.1. Cultural images with same reference meanings, but with different associative meanings“dragon ”and “龙” refer to the same animal in legend. In Chinese “ ”has commendatory meaning. It is the representative of power, aristocrat and holy. “龙 ”in Chinese legend can control the forces of nature . It is mysterious and respectable. So it represents majesty and force in Chinese. And the phrases made by “ ” have caught the color of noble and holy. e.g. “真龙天子” “龙颜大怒” “龙的传人” “望子成龙”. But in English “dragon” is a fierce and cruel monster .It has derogative meaning. And it is a terrible symbol. So Chinese will be proud of being a descendant of dragon .But westerners will not feel any pride to be an offspring of dragon “Dog” and“狗”also refer to the same animal .In Chinese dog is a kind of derogative animal. It is always cursed and despised .Hence almost all phrases with“狗”have  derogative meaning , e.g. “狗胆包天”“狗急跳墙”“狗眼看人低”“狗嘴里吐不出象牙” etc. But in western society, dog is a good friend of people, e.g. “Youre a lucky dog.” “Im too old a dog to learn new tricks.” “Every dog has his day.” “Give a dog a bad name and hang him.” These sayings do not have any derogative meaning at all. People dont feel shameful to compare himself to a dog.   “Cricket” and “蟋蟀” refer to a small, brown, jumping insect which make a shrill noise by rubbing its front wings together. But English people regard cricket as a merry and hopeful image, such as “as merry as a cricket” in Shakespeares language. But Chinese people regard cricket as a sad and cold image, such as “独申旦而不寐兮，哀蟋蟀之宵征。”2). Cultural images with the same reference meanings, but with partly the same associative meanings   “Rose” and “玫瑰”, a beautiful sweet-smelling flower represent love both in Chinese and western culture. But in western culture rose has another associative meaning, such as  in “under the rose”, “rose” means keep secret and silent. There is an old custom that people should keep secret when a rose was hung over the meeting table.  In Chinese culture people often compare prickly rose to those beautiful girls but very restrained and not easy to approach.    “Owl” and “猫头鹰” have the same associative and reference meaning both in Chinese and English. It is often connected with death and bad fortune in English. In Shakespeares work, “Macbeth”, there is a piece of dialogue between Macbeth and his wife:   Macbeth: “I have done the deed. Dist thou not hear a noise?”  Lady Macbet: “I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.” From this dialogue, it shows that Lady Macbeth knew Denken had been dead. In Chinese culture, owl has the same associative meaning with English culture; it can bring bad luck.On the other hand, owl is also the representative of wisdom and cleverness in English. We may say “as wise as an owl” “A old owl lived in an oak.”etc.3). Cultural images with the same reference meaning , have colorful associative meaning in one language, but have no special associative meaning in another language   Take bamboo and daffodil for example. Bamboo grows in Chinese and it has close relation with Chinese Traditional culture. Chinese people often compare bamboo to ones character: persistence and honesty. We can see its lofty cultural meaning in poems, arts and idioms. e.g. “常爱凌寒竹，坚贞可喻人”，“竹死不变节，落花有余香”，“胸有成竹”，“势如破竹”。But for English, bamboo has no special associative cultural meaning; it is just a name of a plant.   In Chinese, daffodil is only a kind of flower. But in Britain, it is the representative of spring and pleasure. Poets and writers use daffodil to describe spring and their pleasant mood brought by it. In Shakespeares poem “song of Winter”, he wrote , “When daffodils begin to peer / with heights, the doxy over the dale / why, then comes in the sweet other year”4). Cultural images with different reference meaning but with the same or similar associative meanings   Each culture may have its own unique images which cant be found in another culture, such as “horse” in English and “cow” in Chinese, though these two images have the same associative meaning in English and Chinese, they are typical for each people. English people compare a hard-working person to a horse, while Chinese people compare a hard-working person to a cow.IV. Causes of Cultural images difference between Chinese and English    Each people has own unique culture and images which are different from other peoples cultural images because each nation has its own history ,geography custom and religion.1). History culture has caused different cultural images in a nation    Each nation has own history .And during the process of history development, each nation has formed his own history culture . History allusions are the important representatives of history culture . They have strong national color and distinctive cultural characteristics. “诸葛亮” is known for every Chinese . He is the  representative of wisdom. But foreigners may not know about him. Many idioms also have history persons which arenot known for by foreigners ,such as “叶公好龙” “ 毛遂自荐” “ 班门弄斧” “ 名落孙三” “项庄舞剑，意在沛公” “司马昭之心，路人皆知” “狗咬吕洞兵，不识好人心”, etc. Each idiom and allusion contains colorful Chinese history culture.  Western culture also has its own history . Idioms and allusions are frequently found in Bible and Shakespeares works. Now those idioms and allusions are quoted by writers and speakers.   e.g. Grammar is his heel of Archiles. Here “the heel of Archiles” is an  allusion coming from Greek mythology. Archiles is a  history person in Greek.   There is  such a sentence in Time, “Many took to gambling and got in over their heads, borrowing from Shalock to pay their debts.” Hence the writer cited Shalock from Shakespeares play “The merchant of Venice” for a usurer. Shalock is no more a person in the play but a history image now. for a Chinese , he may not know about Shalock.Other western cultural images with  colorful history information can also be found in idioms and allusions , such as “paint the lily”, “meet onss Waterloo”, “cut the Gordian knot”.2). Regional culture has caused different cultural images    Different geographical situations and natural conditions have caused different culture, that is the regional culture. This kind of cultural differences show especially in the direction and its corresponding things. In China north  is noble while south  humble. So Chinese say “南面为王，北面为朝”. Chines people are also accustomed to  say south before north ,such as “从南到北” “南来北往”. On the contrary ,English people say “从南到北”as “from north to south ”,and “北屋” as “a room with a southern exposure”.    “东风” and “west wind are the wind which blows from opposite direction . Chinese people like “东风” , but do not like west wind because in China “东风” (east wind ) represents the spring and warmth , it brings the spring with warmth wind. English people, on the contrary , like west wind, but do not like east wind because east wind blows from the north European continent and it is cold and unpleasant while west wind blows from the Atlantic ocean and it brings spring to the Britain. Sherleys “Ode to the west wind” has two famous sentence, “O, wind if winter comes, can spring be far behind?” These two sentences show his good longing for a bright future by using the west wind. 3). Religious culture has caused different cultural images   Religious culture refers to the culture caused by a peoples religious belief and ideology which are expressed in a nations warship and taboo differences. Confuciansm, Taoism and Buddhism are the three great religions in China and have deep influence on Chinese culture. So in our traditional culture, we have “yama, king of Hell” in Buddhism and “Dragon King ” in myth. Those cultural images will not be found in English culture.English people have their own cultural images in religion , such as God , because they believe Christianity . Chinese saying “成事在人，谋事在天” reflects the influence of Buddhism. And “Man proposes, God disposes.” Reflects the influence of Christianity.4. Customary culture has caused different cultural images   Customary culture refers to the culture which formed by a peoples custom and habits during the social life and communicative activities.   Chinese people regard the days of giving a birth, wedding and birthday as “red-letter day” and they celebrate these days to share their joy with others. English people also celebrate these happy days , but Chinese people also call the day of ones death a “happy ”day “white-letter day”. English people cant understand why. The understanding of color words also reflects the customary cultural differences. In the  western society, white represent purity and honesty. Brides on  the  wedding day wiil wear white dress.But in China only the  mourners wear white clothes on the funeral. Correspondingly, on the  Chinese traditional wedding ceremony , brides uaually wear red dresses in  order to  represent happiness and good luck  while red has bad associative meaning blood and death in English. Of course, as the cultural exchange is getting  more and more frequent, the customary differences have disappeared gradually.V. Transformation of cultural images   Scholars in China discuss the transformation of cultural images mainly  from three aspects . First, regard the transformation of cultural images as the problem of translating techniques. Second, discuss it from the psycholinguistic point of view. Third, discuss it from the cultural comparison point of view. Here he author discusses the transformation of images from the third one.   The transformation of cultural images involves the relationship between the cultures of source language and target language. Which language do we attach ,the source language or the target language ? That depends. But  generally speaking, we should understand the two cultures thoroughly, especially their difference before transforming the cultural images. We should also consider the readers of two languages, and the styles of two texts as well. I is not just the simple problem to replace the images that the readers are very familiar with.   There are many ways to transform the cultural images. Here the author will just propose four ways to discuss the transformation of cultural images.1).  To reproduce the imagesAs the readers contact with more foreign cultures , they are able to accept and understand foreign cultural images and they have keen interests in them. S o it is not necessary to replace the images with target cultural images. We can transform the images directly into target the language.e.g. At present ,the superpowers are armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, placing the people of the whole world under their nuclear threat. (目前，超级大国用核武器武装到了牙齿，把世界人民都至于他们的威胁之下。)  Here we transform the image “teeth” into Chinese “牙齿” without any change.  e.g. As poor as a mouse in the church. (穷得象教堂里的老鼠) We do not translate it as “穷得象叫花子”. Here it is not necessary to transform the image “mouse” into Chinese “老鼠”，not “叫花子” . Chines people are familiar with the image “叫花子” ,but we believe Chinese people can understand the image “a mouse in the church” as they h