文档介绍：Translation of English Onomatopoeic words into Chinese
I. Introduction

Onomatopoeia is a group of words that imitate the sound they represents. The abundant use of onomatopoeia in everyday English poses problems not only to foreigners trying to master the language, but also to teachers and translators of English. Onomatopoeia is often used to express an impression in a personal, emotional manner, and therefore considered indispensable not only in conversation. Are onomatopoeia expressions to be treated as any other vocabulary when translated? Of course, the answer is no. Because English onomatopoeia expressions are different from others.
Generally, linguistic theory considers the relation between sound and meaning to be arbitrary and onomatopoeia to be an exception to the rule. More and more researches, though, have been made on sound symbolism, which claims that there is a direct link between sound and meaning (Hinton 1994).
Some linguists use the broader term ‘sound symbolism’ to describe the Chinese onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia, she argues, are only sound words. In English, though, onomatopoeia is used both for mimesis words and those that describe non-audible states and actions by mimetic words.
This is a distinct difference between sound symbolism in English and Chinese. In English, sound symbolism is an important part of the language. It is a well-structured sound symbolic system, where it is easy for the native speaker to guess the meaning of a new word. In Chinese, on the other hand, sound symbolism is peripheral and based on consonant clusters. Many linguists state their different views.
Related Studies
Translating is the art of posing a work in another language without losing its original flavor. The topic of this article is onomatopoeia. Briefly speaking, onomatopoeia belongs to vocabulary and lexicology that deals with words. Words are the foundation and core of language. We know that without words, there would be no linguistics