汉英时间意识和空间意识:翻译角度

Differences between Chinese and English Consciousnesses of Time and Space:A C-E Translation Perspective

传统认为,汉人重视时间,英人重视空间,或相反。我们认为这两种观点都是片面的。造成这种现象的主要原因是考察因素不够全面。本文认为,无论是时间意识还是空间意识,英人都强于汉人;英语的空间意识强,在于英语句子和篇章表现出更强的层次感;英语的时间意识强,在于英语句子和篇章的时间界限定位准确。由于汉英语言所表现出的时空意识差异,尤其是汉语的时空意识较弱,汉英翻译中译者,尤其是汉语为母语的译者,常常遇到困扰,这也进一步表明了我们的发现是合理的。

Chinese-speaking people were wrongly assumed to have stronger consciousness of time or space than English-speaking people,because of inadequate consideration of relevant factors.As a matter of fact,English-speaking people have stronger consciousness of both time and space,which is prominently reflected syntactically and textually.To be specific,verbs in an English sentence or text are prominently temporally and aspectually marked while not in Chinese;at the same time a sentence or text in English is hierarchically constructed with explicit subordination while not in Chinese.The findings are evidenced by the fact that Chinese-into-English translators,especially those whose mother tongue is Chinese,often encounter translation difficulties because of the differences between Chinese and English consciousnesses of time and space.