汉英双语公示语的翻译规律和策略

Translation Rules and Strategies in Chinese-English Public Signs

公示语是一种特殊文本,翻译时需将译语读者置于中心地位且关注其对译文的理解和反应,强调的不是形式的对应而是信息的再现,这就要求译者对源语的形式和语义做出一定调整,使译语和源语达到交际层面的“等值”。这与语言库藏类型学的思想有相通之处。该理论对语言类型差异具有很强的解释力,可以此归纳汉英公示语的译写规律和策略:(1)汉语是动词型语言,英语是名词型语言,词类显赫度的差异造成两种语言句法构造的不同,故可将汉语的动词性结构转换为英语的名词性结构;(2)汉语是话题凸显型语言,英语是主语凸显型语言,故可将汉语的话题结构转换为英语的主谓结构、动宾结构、介词结构等;(3)英语对于并列结构的限制远低于汉语,且并列结构在英语中是显赫范畴,故可用英语的并列结构来表达汉语的动宾结构、小句,甚至紧缩复句;(4)汉语是连动显赫的语言,而英语几乎没有典型的连动式,故汉语连动式应该用英语的其他手段来表达。

In China,the provision of foreign languages alongside Chinese texts has long been an endeavour in provincial as well as central government in managing public signs,yet the quality of translation on signs is hardly perfect.Drawing upon data randomly collected from urban public signs in China,this paper examines the principles and techniques of rendering proper translations for the public sign.As established in Linguistic Inventory Typology,Chinese and English are two languages with remarkable typological diff erences,which need to be taken into account in translation practice.Their typological diff erences include at least four aspects.First,Chinese is a verby language,whereas English is a nouny language.The diff erent prominence tendency in the two languages suggests that the verbal structures in Chinese often correspond to noun structures in English.Second,Chinese is a topic-prominent language while English is a subject-prominent language.In light of this diff erence,the topic-prominent structures in Chinese can be translated into other constructions in English such as subject-predicate structures,predicate-object structures and prepositional structures.Third,the coordinate structures in English,as a mighty category,are less restrictive in grammar than those in Chinese.Such English structures are thus often transformed to predicate-object structures,small clauses,or even complex sentences in Chinese expressions.Lastly,due to the fact that serial verb constructions(SVCs)in Chinese constitute a mighty category vis-à-vis their English counterparts,Chinese SVCs can be translated into some other constructions in English such as prepositional constructions and small clauses.This paper contends that these grammatical correspondences in Chinese and English derived from Linguistic Inventory Typology would be helpful for the translation practice in managing public signs.