英语论文网

t, but folly leaves the worst for the day it comes.
聪明人防患于未然，愚蠢者临渴掘井。
[4] I hope my presence here tonight is further proof of the importance we British attach to relations with your great country.
我希望，今晚我到这里来可以进一步证明，我们英国人非常重视和你们伟大祖国的关系。
The words with underline in English sentences are all abstract nouns while their Chinese counterparts are all category words expressing concrete idea.
[5] 满树金花，芳香四溢的金桂；花白如雪，香气扑鼻的银桂；红里透黄，花多味香的紫砂桂；花色似银，季季有花的四季桂；竞相开放，争艳媲美。进入桂林公园，阵阵桂香扑鼻而来。
The above passage in Chinese describes a garden. Both the names of flowers and other nouns are very concrete descriptions. But quite some part of passage is vague of typical Chinese “hazy beautifulness”, thus hard to translate into English literally. Here is one of the versions offered:
The Guilin Park is full of various species of blooming osmanthus tress, whose flowers are vying in different colors and fragrance.
The English translation is short but it is enough to depict a beautiful picture in the English mind. Because English speaking people are more used to thinking in abstract notions and ideas, the distinction between concrete objects and things and generalized notions are very vague in English. Many abstract words in English can mean general ideas and concrete things at the same time. But to the Chinese mind, abstract notions and concrete things are quite different. As a result, in bi-directional E-C translation, the translator has to choose between the general idea and the concrete object.
4.3 Contrast on Subjects: Impersonal-Emphasis vs. Personal- Emphasis
Traditionally European philosophy strictly distinguishes the subjective from the objective, or the perceiver from the world. With an open way of thinking, Western people emphasize the effect of the objective world on one’s mind. Lian Shuneng once said “English is a language in which the writer and the reader are out of the picture, hiding them behind the impersonal language.” (连淑能,1993:76) Linguistics G. Leech and J. Svartvik also reported that the formal written language often goes with an impersonal style, that is to say, the pronouns “I, you, we” are always omitted in the sentence. Besides, some of the common features of impersonal language are passive and sentence with “It” or abstract nouns to begin the sentence. Therefore, English often uses impersonal subject, or inanimate subject. On the other hand, the Chinese take human beings as the center of the universe in their thinking, seeking the harmony between human and nature. To them, only human beings are able to possess conscious actions. So, the Chinese is prone to use personal subject, or animated subject. As the sentences follow:
[1] Too much water, like little water, will kill this plant.
According to the explanation of Chen Dezhang (2008: 143), Chinese readers may confuse that why water can kill a plant since in Chinese only man can kill any life. So the sentence can not be translated as 浇太多水像太少的水一样会杀死这种植物. But it would be much more natural to say 浇的水太多了或太少了，这种植物都会死。The subject in the original sentence is turned into an adverbial of condition, or by adding 浇 to form a clause, the idea becomes obviously different: The plant may die as the result of someone’s act.
[2] It has long been maintained that it was only during his Harvard graduate years that Eliot developed his interest in primitive cultures.
人们长期以来坚持认为，艾略特对原始文化的兴趣是他在哈佛读研究生的岁月里培养起来的。