Comments on Nigel Wiseman s A Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine(Ⅰ)——On the“Word-for-word”Literal Approach to Translation

Comments were made on the ＂word-for-word＂ literal translation method used by Mr. Nigel Wiseman in A Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine. He believes that only literal translation can reflect Chinese medical concepts accurately. The so-called ＂word-for-word＂ translation is actually ＂English-word-for- Chinese-character＂ translation. First, the authors of the dictionary made a list of Single Characters with English Equivalents, and then they gave each character of the medical term an English equivalent according to the list. Finally, they made some minor modifications to make the rendering grammatically smoother. Many English terms thus produced are confusing. The defect of the word-for-word literal translation stems from the erroneous idea that a single character constitutes the basic element of meaning corresponding to the notion of ＂word＂ in English, and the meaning of a disyllabic or polysyllabic Chinese word is the simple addition of the constituent characters. Another big mistake is the negligence of the polysemy of Chinese characters. One or two English equivalents can by no means cover all the various meanings of a single character which is a polysemous monosyllabic word. Various examples were cited from this dictionary to illustrate the mistakes.

Literal Translation plus Explanation in Translating Political Words

Political words are closely related to the current situations and affairs of China, which is often dependent on China's culture and history. Therefore it is not uncommon that there are some words with background knowledge known to the source language readers, but unknown to the target language readers. Literal translation plus explanation is particularly useful in translating these words with particular background and cultural connotations.

On Peter Newmark's View of Literal Translation

This paper is based on Peter Newmark's view of literal translation as the basic translation method. The author expands it by discussing three situations in which literal translation can be applied as the best translation method, including one provided by Peter Newmark, as well as its advantages over other translation methods.

Literal or Free Translation in English-Chinese Film Translation-A Case Study of Pride and Prejudice

As a method of bridging language and culture, translation has played a significant part in connecting the ideas of people all over the world and accelerating the communication in politics, economy, culture, education, science and technology. China has increased cultural exchanges with many other countries, and a great number of foreign films have flooded into our country. Thus, how to appropriately translate the foreign films becomes an urgent issue. In the process of translating English films to Chinese ones, the translator should use a method to attend to the content of the movie itself, especially recreational artistic features, as well as tremendous differences between English language and Chinese language culture. This paper attempts to compare the different film versions of Pride and Prejudice (edition 1995), and analyzes the examples of literal translation and free translation in order to reveal the difficulty of which translation method to choose in film translation. Thus, based on the comparison, we could get a tentative result that which kind of film version is more accepted by most audiences so that we can provide the film translators some new train of thought.

The Importance of Literal Translation in Transmitting Culture

The paper studies the importance of literal translation in transmitting culture. At first, this paper has a brief discussion of translation and culture, exploring the origin, development and function of translation and the relationship among culture, language and translation. This includes an analysis of the cultural elements that cause differences in cultural images, including history, custom and religion. At lasu, the paper explores the reasons why literal translation is important in transmitting culture.

A Dialectical Way between Literal and Free Translation:Taking the Translation of English Similes as an Exemplar

Simile,as an important figure of speech,is widely used in various texts.And it has its own feature and different subtypes,which require that the translation methods-literal translation and free translation should be adopted dialectically in accordance with the content or form of the similes.Actually,free translation based on literal translation is much better even though adding some extensions or footnotes is employed,too.

Literal and Free Translation of Chinese-English Brand Names

The present paper is intended to describe the two normal methods—free and literal translation used in translating brand names; in the meantime, some common mistakes are discussed in the process of translation. As to the free and literal translation, the paper discusses some common approaches, or techniques used in the process, which affect the effects of the brand names a lot and have direct influence on the results of the target brand names. In view of the common mistakes, the paper points out some customs, habits, religious beliefs, living environment and cultural factors, which may lead to failures in translating brand names.

Literal Translation and Free Translation

How to use literal translation and free translation in words and expressions, idiom-s ,sentences ,rhetoric ,news reports and literary works.

Blended Literal Communication in Translation

There is a natural tension between Literal and Communication translation methods and has been going on now for two millenniums. We must be faithful to the original meaning of the source language (SL) and accurate in our translation but flexible enough to communicate naturally to the target language (TL) readers. While it may seem hopeless to truly communicate with all languages and cultures, with the growing global economy and the more interdependent we become, it is even more important that we continue to try to blend our thoughts and hearts together. So with foolish confidence and wise trepidation, this paper will wade into the age long discussion on the practice of translation and teaching, attempting to reconcile the theories of literal or semantic and free or communication translation theories.

The Application of Literal Translation in Movie English——A Case Study of Downton Abbey

In recent years, a large number of overseas TV dramas appear in domestic screens. Downton Abbey, as the most popular English drama in the recent ten years, manifests the numerous aspects of the world of English upper nobles and their servants under the severe hierarchy. It is praised by the whole world. This thesis attempts to analyze the application of literal translation in Downton Abbey from the aspect of formal equivalence and meaning equivalence so as to explore the suitability and effectiveness of literal translation and find out if a literal translation can be applied to the English film's translation. The thesis first reviews the research status of movie English and points out the significance of learning it from the side of literal translation.And it gives literary translation and general introduction to key concepts that can be used in later analysis. Then, it analyzes the application of literal translation in subtitle translation of Downton Abbey from formal equivalence and meaning equivalence in order to find out the usability and validity of literal translation in movie English. Finally, it sums up the findings and limitations of the thesis.

The Application of Literal Translation with the Annotation in Translation of Idioms

Idioms contain most of the rich cultural background and cultural identity,especially those formed by the historical allusions idioms and phrases.English and Chinese idioms are closely related to culture and convey different cultural features and messages of their own nation,reflecting their own rich culture.Translator should try their best to translate these differences in idiom translation.

Literal Translation and Free Translation

There are many kinds of ways and skills about translation, especially literal translation, free translation.

On the Translation of Chinese Four-Character Idioms in Selected Modern Chinese Essays 1

Chinese idioms are vivid and meaningful,which are the essence of national language.However,due to the great differences between Chinese and western cultures,the translation of Chinese idioms is an extremely complex task.In view of the importance and complexity of its translation,with the translation of Chinese four-character idioms in Selected Modern Chinese Essays 1 as its theme,the paper aims to investigate the application of different translation methods in C-E translation,and adopts Yan Fu’s theory of“faithfulness,expressiveness,and elegance”to judge the translation effects.Through a summary and study of the form and translation effect of idioms,the paper finds that literal translation is often used for straightforward idioms,while free translation is often used for idioms with an extended meaning,and context should be considered when selecting translation methods.

Translation of Idioms in Chinese Literature

This paper explains two approaches to the translation of idioms in Chinese literature: free translation and literal translation.Chinese idioms,in its broad sense including set phrases,proverbs and two-part allegorical,have the specific features and rich in their content.By analyzing the basic principles of translation,we can better understand how to make full use of various translation methods,which can lay a good foundation for the translation of Chinese idioms.

A Study on the Principle of Chinese Antithetical Couplet Translation

As the quintessence of Chinese culture,Chinese antithetical couplets enjoy a long history and have unique styles.Due to the linguistic and cultural elements,it is difficult to translate Chinese antithetical couplet.This paper discusses the literal and free translation principle in Chinese antithetical couplet translation.

A Study on the Application of Functional Equivalence in English Idiom Translation

Both Chinese and English are rich in idioms, which contain abundant cultural information.There are many similarities between English and Chinese language, which make English idiom translation possible. However,due to their totally different linguistic and cultural systems, idioms used in Chinese and English differ considerably, which make English idiom translation difficult.This paper focuses on the study ofEnglish idiomtranslation under the guidance offunctional equivalence theory. The purpose of this study is to point out what should be considered in the process of English idiom translationby summarizingthe translation principles and skills.

On the Translation of English-Chinese Idioms

The idiomatic phrase is equal to the phrase that people use frequently language in the world that had long and splendid history all contains large quantities of idiom. They form regular phrases and short sentences through long use and refinement in the development of language. The idiomatic phrases contain varied cultural information, embody a lot of cultural feature, and cultural background. The idiomatic phrases display distinct image and figure of speech, and they also have bright national characteristic and regional (local) color. The paper includes four parts. The first chapter is to introduce the generalization of idioms and translation, and the second part is to list four different definitions of idiom according to some translational experts, next step leads in classification and sources of idiom. The third chapter introduces some common strategies of idiomatic translation such as literal translation, literal translation plus notes, free translation, and the combination of literal and free translation. At last sum up the paper.

Numerals Between English and Chinese and Strategies for Translation on Numerals

This dissertation describes four types of different usages of numerals between English and Chinese and three strategies for translation on numerals, namely, literal translation, free translation and explanatory translation.

On Dryden's 3 types of translation

This paper aims at analyzing and comprising the similarities and differences between metaphase and literal translation,paraphrase and free translation.

Brief Introduction to ldiom and lt's translation

An idiom is a phrase or sentence,which means something differe nt from the meaning of separate words. Idioms come from long-time use. Connected with the background of economy、geographical conditions,customs,state of mind,etc,idioms reflect the real life. Different people have both similar and different idioms. Idioms have their own features. There are many methods in translating idioms. Literal translation,synonym translation and free translation are the main three.