摘要:英汉口译是通过口头表达,将信息由 英语 转(2)
2013-06-27 01:09
导读：We shall not go further into the relationship between language and culture. What needs to be stressed here is that the two interact, and that understanding of one requires understanding of the other.
We shall not go further into the relationship between language and culture. What needs to be stressed here is that the two interact, and that understanding of one requires understanding of the other.
What we call “cultural factor” refers to beliefs, customs, social systems, institutions, objects, techniques, ways of thinking, family patterns, etc that comprise the culture. The criteria of interpretation differs from person to person, which, in general sense, are quickness, exactness and fluency. E-C interpretation covers broad contents in which the transmission of cultural factor is not only important but also can’t be ignored.
2The transmission of the connotation of cultural factors
Just as we mentioned above, cultural factors refer to beliefs, customs, social systems, institutions, objects, techniques, ways of thinking, family patterns, etc that comprise the culture. So, it’s obvious that the transmission of the connotation of cultural factors is to pass on what comprise the culture stemmed from the English-speaking countries to the listeners in E-C interpretation.
(1)To be an interpreter, what he or she should convey in E-C interpretation? Maybe someone would say “I’ll interpret what he or she says” The answer to the above question may be right or wrong. For example, a foreigner says “How about having supper together tonight? Go Dutch.” If it is interpreted as:“今晚一起吃饭如何?去荷兰,”the Chinese listeners might think that you would invite him or her to have supper in Dutch or in a certain restaurant named Dutch. Here “Go Dutch” means “pay your bill yourself ‘not’ to have dinner in Dutch or a Dutch Restaurant.” The example reflects one kind of characteristics of culture. On the contrary, if someone in China invites you to have dinner with him or her, he/she will pay the bill. This phenomenon is called cultural difference. There are plenty of examples to show the cultural difference between English and Chinese. Chinese has a complex system of kinship terms. It distinguishes“外甥、侄子、堂兄、表兄、姑母、姨母、姑夫、舅父、姨夫、外祖母、外祖父”,While in English there are no counterparts. This is because the Chinese are more particular about these relation distinctions while the English people do not need to make these distinctions so often. Therefore, an interpreter has to pass profound knowledge about the cultural connotation of English-speaking countries. In this way and only in this way, he or she can convey the cultural connotation in E-C interpretation. This is the main point of cultural factor transmission.
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(2)The requirements of cultural factor transmission
The interpreter should have to interpret not only what the speaker says but also what he or she really means. Cultures differ from one another, and each culture is unique. Language is influenced and shaped by culture and it reflects culture. Different language backgrounds determine the form of language expression. For instance, “It was Greek to me” in one of Shakespeare’s plays “Julius Caesar” means “I know nothing about it.” It means“一窍不通”in Chinese. So the requirements of cultural factor transmission, in my opinion, are:
1)to convey the real meaning of culture
Some phrases and sentences in English have inner meaning. It’s difficult for our Chinese interpreters to grasp. What we must do is to put across the meaning(not every individual word in the given phrases or sentences)in the light of the context. For example:
“It’s very kind of you”→“您太客气了”
“That won’t be the end of the world”→“天塌不下来”
“He is braver than wise”→“他有勇无谋”
“Take care how you do so”→“千万别这样做”
“Pull sb’s legs”→“嘲弄某人”
Similarly, in interpreting this English sentence, “This piece of information has not been made public yet, so keep it under your hat”, we can grasp the real meaning of the sentence from the context and render it into.“这条消息尚未发表,因此你要保密。”
2)to transmit the attributes of culture
The term “attribute” here means “a quality or feature, especially one that is considered to be good or useful”(Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 1997).The attributes of a culture also refer to the good or useful parts of its language. To be a good interpreter, one should certainly interpret the good and useful parts of the target language. For instance. Some foreigners often speak coarse language, such as “Fuck” “Damn it” , which are better not to be interpreted for the listeners’ sake. Fortunately, some good expressions, such as “go and see” “Trust the future; trust the young” are widely accepted by Chinese people. With the development of science and technology, people in different countries will get to know each other better.
