汉语译文中习语与词簇的使用特征:基于语料库的研究

A Corpus-based Study of Idioms and Word Clusters in Translated Chinese

本文利用语料库研究了汉语译文中习语与词簇的使用特征。文章首先回顾了文献中的相关研究,主要是Baker(2007)基于翻译英语语料库的习语研究。Baker对翻译英语语料库与英语母语语料库中习语的用法所进行的对比研究,启发了我们对汉语译文与汉语母语文本中习语使用的比较研究。本文从英汉语习语的定义出发,通过对比分析汉语译文语料库(ZCTC)和汉语母语语料库(LCMC)中习语与词簇的使用情况,得出汉语母语文本倾向于多使用习语而词簇则在汉语译文中更为普遍这一结论。这一发现对目前的翻译共性研究具有重要意义。一方面,汉语译文中的习语的分布为翻译共性"规范化"假设提供了反证;另一方面,翻译文本中词簇的使用特征为翻译共性"集中化"或"整齐化"假设提供了新的佐证。

Enlightened by Mona Baker's corpus-based studies of idioms in translated English by comparing them with those in native English,this paper investigates idioms and word clusters,based on comparable balanced corpora of native Chinese(LCMC) and of translated Chinese(ZCTC).The findings include that idioms are more frequently used in native Chinese whereas word clusters are more obvious in translated Chinese.These are particularly relevant and important to translation universal(TU) research in that the distribution patterns of idioms in translated Chinese go against the TU hypothesis of normalization while the distributional properties of word clusters in translated Chinese provide fresh evidence in favor of the TU hypothesis of convergence or leveling out in translated versions.