文档介绍：英汉词语的翻译技巧
朱云汉
2012-10
1. 判断词义
英语词义灵活多变,一词多义(Polysemy)现象十分普遍。
“词本无义,义随人生(Words do not have meanings; people have meanings for them.)”,
“词义随上下文而变(Each word when used in a new context is a new word.)”。
《红楼梦》的译者David Hawks把卜世仁英译成Hardly Human,他很巧妙地创造了一个英文姓,译出了声音,又暗含“不是人”的隐义,实在难得。,题为Two or Three Graces,说是有个叫Grace的女人,嫁了三次,三次改变其性格,某高手将其译为“二三其德”,也是妙笔。
——摘自宋献春《词语的翻译》
来确定词义
What you have always wanted until now has been a set, steady, constant purpose. I therefore exhort you to persevere in a thorough determination to do whatever you have to do as well as you can do it. I was not so old as you are now when I first had to win my food, and do this out of this determination, and I have never slackened in it since.
Wanted---根据《英汉大词典》Want 作及物动词的释义包括:
;想要;希望;2. 缺少,缺乏;3. (主英)需要;4. 想见,要求(某人)到来,想与(某人)谈话,想用(某人);,追捕;6. 感到缺少;7. <口>(后接不定式)应该。
[参考译文]直到当前为止,你所缺乏的一直是确定的,持续不变的目标。因此我极力劝告你,以坚定的决心去做你必须要做以及你能够做的事情,并坚持到底。我初次必须自食其力(自谋生计)时,年岁还不及你大。我即借着此种决心,迄今从未松懈。
、句群的语法结构来判断词义
词语在句子中受到前后词语的约束,其意义范围缩小了许多。句子的语法结构通常可以作为分析词义的一个依据,例如:
He took charge of his failing father and after a time obtained permission for his sister to live with him. Her malady frequently returned, but always with due warning, when brother and sister would be seen walking together to the asylum, both weeping bitterly.
Few expected to see so large a man: he is gigantic, a six feet four at least; few expected to see so old a person; his hair appears to have kept silvery record over fifty years; and then there was a notion in the minds of many that there must be something dashing and “fast” in his appearance, whereas his costume was perfectly plain, the expression of his face grave and earnest, his address perfectly unaffected and such as we might expect to meet with in a well-bred man somewhat advanced in years.
[参考译文]很少人预料见到如此高大的一个人:他身材魁梧,身高至少也有六呎四吋。很少人预料见到年纪如此大的一个人,他的头发看起来已花白了五十多年。此外,在很多人的心目中,他的外表必定有些时髦和“放荡”的样子,但是,相反的是他衣着十分朴素,面部的表情严肃而诚挚,他的演讲十分自然,他具有我们可能遇到的年高德劭者的特征。