On Idioms and Their Translation from Chinese into English2

1、本科畢業(yè)論文習語及習語的漢英翻譯 on idioms and their translation from chinese into englishcontentsabstractikey wordsi摘 要ii關鍵詞iiintroduction1section one: introduction to idioms2i. definition of idioms2ii. origins of idioms3(1)the experience of the common people3(2) myths and fables4(3) historical events and anecdote

2、s5(4) classical literary works5(5) social customs and habits6iii. features of idioms6(1)fixed structure6(2) abundant connotations7(3) distinct cultural feature7iv. classifications of idioms8section two: idioms with similar and dissimilar implications in chinese and english9i. idioms with similar imp

3、lications9ii. idioms with dissimilar implications9section three: translation of idioms with similar and dissimilar implications from chinese into english10 i. methods of english translation of chinese idioms with similar implications in english10 ii. principles for english translation of chinese idi

4、oms with dissimilar implications in english.12principle 1: translating chinese idioms into english in a correct and accurate way12principle 2: keeping chinese cultural colors13principle 3: making english readers understand the meaning in any possible way13conclusion15acknowledgements16bibliography17

5、abstractidioms 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 and abundant connotations. their vivid images explicitly convey in

6、cisive 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 definitions, origins, features, and classifications of idioms, and

7、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；dissimilarity17摘 要習語猶如文學殿堂里一顆璀璨無比的明珠放射著歷久不衰的光芒， 古往今來，無數(shù)文人墨客的筆下都閃耀著它的異彩。它結構

8、固定而涵義深刻，用生動的形象明確地表達著深刻的思想。漢語習語是幾千年華夏文化的精髓之一。本文在簡單介紹習語就的定義，來源，特點及分類的基礎上，研究漢語習語的英語翻譯并提出一系列的漢語習語英譯的翻譯原則和翻譯方法,其中主要涉及對似和非對似漢語習語的英語翻譯。關鍵詞漢語習語； 對似性； 非對似性introductionlanguage is the most important communicative tool of all human beings. it plays its role as not only the carrier and form of culture but also

9、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, with specific implications, abstracted from the spoken language an

10、d 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 appear in the spoken language and literary works. chinese idioms have a

11、 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 acquainting themselves with chinese culture. as the essence of chinese cult

12、ure 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 the knowledge of the chinese culture for people all over the worl

13、d. 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 are those set phrases or short sentences abstracted from the spoken l

14、anguage 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 accumulation, idioms are provided with vivid images, profound implicati

15、ons 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. therefore, to understand and study the idiom is supposed to start

16、 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 from some authoritative dictionaries as follows:(1) an idiom is an e

17、xpression 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 a unit in the usage of a given language and either differs from t

18、he 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 many years, also have opinions of the definition of idioms.(1) wein

19、reich 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 idioms are common expressions used in colloquial speech with accep

20、ted, 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 short sentences, which mean something different from the literal

21、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 formation of idioms is on intimate terms with the culture of the nati

22、on 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 tradition that come into being in the course of their work and life, in

23、cluding 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 common words.idioms, having an extremely strong color of a nation a

24、re 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, and then wrote them down to tell their offspring what they had go

25、t 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 is a country with small land area but a long coast line; so many

26、 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 that is uncomfortable and unnatural. people always wrote down th

27、e 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, owing to the low productivity and lack of further knowledge of mo

28、st 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 ancestors would go after death. they regarded it as a carefree place

29、 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 are about peoples religions or beliefs. for instance, there is an

30、 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 where everything had been washed clean.(2) myths and fablesin any na

31、tion, 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 next generation for centuries and were read by the people in eac

32、h 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 employed to convey some special or specific and regular meanings

33、. 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 root of the disaster (pandora, a beauty who brought the disaste

34、rs 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 one showing hisher special prowess. therefore, people always appl

35、y 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 satiric and admonitory feature and is widely spread for its shor

36、t 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 following examples, zixiangmaodun from a chinese fable, reveals i

37、ts 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 meaning resting ones hopes on the uncertain things. the idiom look be

38、fore 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 only achieved brilliance but also suffered from miseries. in that w

39、ay 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 lessons, thus were often mentioned and later fixed in the form of

40、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 crushing defeat.in the spring and autumn period (770-476) in chinese

41、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 of the wu kingdom and go all out to make his country strong. so

42、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 many idioms originated from anecdotes. for instance, eat crow, fo

43、rmed 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 also the constituent and carrier of the culture of a nation. mo

44、st 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 essence of the languages. shakespeare, who is known as the greate

45、st 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 coming from the merchant of venice, which is used to describe a legal

46、 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 and habits which are created by people of its own nation living to

47、gether 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 wear hats, when they greet somebody or extend their respects to

48、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 times; for they think the red color symbolizes happiness, flouris

49、h, 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 they describe an ill omen, they will use red for danger. so we c

50、ould 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 distinctive features.(1) fixed structurea specific idiom is a set phrase

51、 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 used separated in two different sentence or subordinate clauses

52、. 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 original meaning. such as, smell a rat (be suspicious of someth

53、ing) 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 i

54、dioms have fixed structure, words, voice, order, forms of number and part of speech. all above mentioned cannot be altered. what we need to do is to employ the idioms directly not to transform them into any other forms.(2) abundant connotations seidl and mcmordie once said that meaning is the most i

55、mportant thing for the idiom. the abundant connotations of the idioms mainly lie in its figurative meaning. the idioms rich implications also depend on the fact that the words forming the idioms do not mean literally or not the addition of the simple meaning produced by each word. we must understand

56、 them on the whole or from their origins. for example, rain cats and dogs means rain heavily.many idioms have duality in meaning both literally and idiomatically. on most occasions, the literal meaning and idiomatical meaning of the idioms are totally unrelated. so we can simply judge its meaning by

57、 the context, which could help us a lot to figure out its connotation. moreover, through similes and metaphors, the idioms could express their meanings more vividly and specifically.even some of the idioms disobey the correct grammatical rules; it can also produce a special and specific meaning. by

58、contrast, the other common structures and forms cannot achieve such a purpose.(3) distinct cultural featureidioms are the gorgeous treasures glittering with the light of wisdom in the literary treasure-house of their own nation either in chinese or english. so the idiom is just as a mirror reflecting the distinguishing feature of a nation or culture. chinese and english nations are entirely different ones with respective characteristics in history, geography, culture, c