This course offers you basic but valuable techniques used by a good translator in the translation between English and Chinese. We’ll discuss what is translation, what is good translation, and learn about how to produce good translations. All the examples used in this course are taken from the course instructor's own translations of various genres and topics of writing. These examples are elaborated on to show you how to understand the idea, style and tone of the writer, the historical and cultural context of the writing, as well as the explicit and implied meanings of words, the grammatical structures of sentences, and the logic of sentences and paragraphs in order to achieve faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance in the translation. After completing this course, you will know what makes a qualified professional translator and acquire the abilities and skills that such a translator needs
Changing the Word Order
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Do curso por Nanjing University
Translation in Practice
10 classificações
Na lição
Sentence Translation: Word Order, Division, and Combination
This module discusses the techniques often used in the translation of sentences: keeping/changing the original word order and dividing/combining sentences.
Conheça os instrutores
Yuan YaoAssociate Professor
English and Chinese sentences have different structures and different word orders.
The translator often has to decide whether to
keep the original word order or to change it,
to divide a long sentence into two or more shorter ones,
or to combine two or more shorter sentences into a longer one.
First of all, let's talk about changing the word order.
I'd like to show you a translation and a comment on this translation.
As you can see in the picture,
Table of Contents, is translated into [FOREIGN].
This is the comment. This is wrong.
It should be [FOREIGN] because
the English word order should be reversed when translated into Chinese.
The translation is a joke.
The comment is a joke, too.
The problem is not with the word order,
but I'm glad that this student at least
knows that English word order and Chinese word order are different,
and word order often needs to be changed in translation.
Word order refers to the order in which components of a sentence are arranged.
This order reflects the grammar, usage,
and ways of thinking adopted by users of the language.
English speakers and Chinese speakers have
different habits in using their respective languages.
Although the order of the subject, the predicate,
and the object is basically the same in English and in Chinese,
the positions of the attributes,
adverbials, and other components are often different.
Different language users also have different ways of
thinking which results in different logic in different languages.
The translator may need to change the word order according to
the way of expression that the target language readers are accustomed to.
In this lesson, we're going to look at some examples of changing the word order.
The first example, "Even Lind Archer,
the new school teacher,
who had come late that afternoon all the way from Yellow Post
with the Indian mail carrier and must be hungry, was waiting."
The main clause of this long sentence is,
"Even Lind Archer was waiting."
Between the subject and the object are two attributive clauses,
the first of which is very long.
If we keep the word order,
the translation would be like this,
[FOREIGN].
This Chinese sentence is not grammatically correct.
What modified the subject are two clauses.
You can change the clauses into attributes and move them before
the subject like this, [FOREIGN].
I couldn't breathe reading it.
The attributes are super long and awkward,
although this time, the grammar is correct.
Maybe we can try putting the two clauses between dashes or parenthesis, like this
[FOREIGN].
This translation is better.
but it reads a bit foreign,
and the subject is too far away from the object.
We can also consider changing the word order and translate
the sentence like this, [FOREIGN].
We translate the main clause first and then the subordinate clauses.
This sentence is correct in grammar,
clear in meaning, and idiomatic in expression.
The second example, "He also names successors to Charles Wheeler,
'the young lions and lionesses,
the energy you see from Matt Frei or Robert Preston,
Mark Mardell, John Simpson, Nick Robinson."
In this sentence, "young lions and lionesses" refer to Matt Frei,
Robert Preston, and others who are mentioned later.
This sentence says that from them,
we can see energy.
Now that we're clear about the grammar and logic of that sentence,
we can translate the examples first and then translate the summary of what is
common in all these people,
[FOREIGN].
Because the Chinese readers may not be
familiar with these people mentioned in the sentence,
the translator uses a technique of addition and adds their positions.
The translation also adds, [FOREIGN],
to connect the terms, [FOREIGN],
and the examples that follow.
The third example, "He found it most beautiful,
felt most comfortable at this hour when they often saw raccoons pausing on steps,
seemingly tamed, as if owning the territory of the porch."
Like the first example,
this sentence has a long subordinate clause which will
be awkward to be translated as the adverbial of time.
[FOREIGN].
When we read the sentence carefully,
we notice that the subordinate clause tells
when he feels comfortable and also what makes him feel comfortable.
We can translate facts first,
and then the conclusion.
[FOREIGN]
The fourth example,
"In Europe, human trafficking has reached epidemic proportions,
spurred on by the collapse of communism,
enlargement of the European Union and implementation of Shengen agreement,
which relaxed the border controls in 25 countries."
This sentence tells us this result first and then talks about the three causes.
We can keep the original word order and translate the sentence into [FOREIGN].
We can also translate this sentence according to the Chinese habit,
that is, we tell the causes first and then the result.
[FOREIGN]
The fifth example,
eight days after the January 12 earthquake in Haiti, Dunic,
a Green Beret and a veteran of 9/11 knew
that time was running out for any survivors still clinging to life under the ruins.
Without changing the word order,
the translation is: [FOREIGN]
This translation makes sense,
but it is not closely knit,
and it doesn't flow well.
The part that modifies Dunic, [FOREIGN],
is a bit too long,
and inserted between the subject,
Dunic and the prodicate,
knew, forms a gap between them.
Such is also the case with time and running.
We need to change the word order to tighten the structure
of the Chinese translation. Let's try this.
[FOREIGN]
in this translation,
we tell who Dunic, the rescuer is,
and then tell how he assesses the situation according to his experience.
All relevant information is put together,
the meaning is very clear,
the language is fluent.
We also notice some additions in the translation.
The Chinese readers may not know what Green Beret is,
so the translator adds an explanation in a parenthesis.
The meaning of [FOREIGN],
a direct translation of a veteran of 9/11, is not very clear.
So the translator translates it into [FOREIGN] to make the meaning explicit.
One more addition is made to, time was running out.
The original translation, [FOREIGN],
is correct and clear.
But the revised version, [FOREIGN],
emphasizes the rescuer's feeling of helplessness when they know that time is running out,
for the survivors were dying because they cannot find them.
Reading this sentence, we feel as if we were looking at the hands of
the clock moving slowly but irretrievably,
as if life is leaving the people buried under the debri.
In many cases, we change the word order because the sentence is long,
and the many components are not arranged in
the same way as the counterparts would be in a Chinese sentence.
However, it is not only in the translation of
long sentences that may involve the technique of changing the word order.
We may need to use this technique when translating some short sentences too.
For example: He reveled in this room,
the tiny desks, the smell of books.
We can translate the sentence into [FOREIGN].
[FOREIGN] Is a commonly used Chinese expression.
In the translation, the part that follows the expression is a bit too long.
We can change the word order so that the Chinese sentence becomes, [FOREIGN].
In this translation, we talk about what he reveled in first.
Add the word [FOREIGN] to sum up the list of things,
and then say, [FOREIGN].
Thus, this sentence is balanced.
Let's look at one more example.
[FOREIGN].
This example comprises two sentences.
The first of which is very long.
It's analyzed to two sentences before we translate them.
The first sentence makes two points.
First, the inscriptions on the stele were written by Zhu Di himself.
Second, the inscription are important for the study of the Grand Baoen Temple.
Why are they important?
The reason is given in the second sentence,
that is, they were the last imprint of Zhu Di on the Temple.
Why were they his last imprint?
The reason is given in the first sentence,
that is, he died soon after he wrote them.
After this analysis, we are clear about two things.
First, although no words are used in a source language to
review the logical relationship between the different parts of the sentences,
the cause and effect relationship is clearly there.
Second, the effect is given in the first sentence,
but the causes that lead to the effect are scattered in
two sentences so that the cause and effect chain is broken.
In our translation therefore,
we can change the word order to make clear
the logical relationship and to rearrange the cause and effect chain.
This is the English translation.
The inscriptions on the stele on the left,
erected in February 1424,
were written by Zhu Di himself.
They explain that the Grand Baoen Temple
was built to express his gratitude to his parents.
He died on the punitive expedition against
the Mongolians five months after he wrote the words.
These words were the last imprints of Zhu Di on the Temple and are
important information for the study of the Temple.
Now we have known the technique,
changing the word order.
In the next lesson, we're going to look at examples of keeping the word order.
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