汉译英中英语谓语的选择——以《红楼梦》第三回的两个译本为例

On the choice of English predicate in C-E translation:A case study of the third chapter of Hong Lou Meng and its two English versions

本文以《红楼梦》原文及杨宪益和霍克斯两个译本的第三回为语料,运用对比和量化分析的方法,从词类、句法成分和句型3个角度来综合研究汉译英中英语谓语的选择。研究发现:英语谓语,从句法成分角度来说,主要来源于汉语的动词性谓语;从词类和句型角度来说,主要来源于汉语多动句的首个和最后一个动词;除此之外,由于汉语多流水句构成的话题链和英语完整主谓结构的特点,还可能来源于汉语中谓语动词省略的情况。之后,本文进一步解释了造成这些现象的原因,并在此基础上总结了一定的翻译规律。

Based on the third chapter of Hong Lou Meng and its two English versions,this article explores where English predicates come from in C-E translation from the aspects of parts of speech,syntactical components and sentence patterns with the methods of comparative and quantitative analyses. The study finds that in C-E translation,English predicates,mainly comes from Chinese verbal predicates from the perspective of syntactical components,and,mainly from the first or last verb of Chinese multi-verb sentences from the perspective( s) of parts of speech and /or sentence patterns. In addition,English predicates are added to meet the requirement of the English S-V structure in the position where the corresponding Chinese predicate verbs are omitted. As a result,some translation strategies are proposed accordingly with explanations to the findings above.