Neologism And Its Translation English Language Essay
Scientific progress greatly promotes the emergence of English technical neologisms. However, there are many problems in the practice of EST neologism translation: multi-translated terms, abuse of transliteration, etc. It is urgent to standardize the practices of EST neologism translation. Most researches are focused on EST neologism translation strategies and most of the translators’ points of view are based more on their personal experiences and tastes than theory or reason. Current translation strategies are confined to transliteration and literal translation. These strategies are too general and the referential value is limited. In this research, EST neologisms are collected from various channels: books, newspapers, journals and Internet. This greatly increases the verification of materials and reduces the subjective inclination in selecting materials. This research tries to explore the translation of EST neologisms objectively.
On the basis of previous research, this thesis intends to conduct a tentative discussion and analysis of the translation of EST neologism, including its definition, production and various translation methods. Owing to the rapid emergence of EST neologisms and different cultural background, we should take various factors into account, including original meaning, situation and readers’ understanding. This thesis also probes into the difficulty in EST neologisms translation and its relevant solution.
Key words: EST neologism¼›translation¼›production¼›analysis
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Contents
Abstract 1
摘 è¦ 2
Contents 3
Chapter 1 Introduction 4
Chapter 2 Definition of EST Neologism 6
2.1 EST Neologism and English Neologism 6
2.2 Significance of EST Neologism 7
Chapter 3 Formation of EST Neologism 9
3.1 Coinage 9
3.1.1 Compounding 9
3.1.2 Affixation 10
3.1.3 Analogy 11
3.1.4 Blending 12
3.1.5 Shortening 12
3.2 Conversion 13
3.3 Borrowing 13
3.4 Old Words Putting on New Meaning 14
Chapter 4 Translation of EST Neologism 15
4.1 Literal Translaton 15
4. 2 Free Translation 16
4. 3 Transliteration 16
4. 4 Iconicity 17
Chapter 5 Conclusion 18
Bibliography 19
Acknowledgements 20
Chapter 1 Introduction
Our former translators would never imagine today’s world. Science and technology are developing in a striking high speed. It has been estimated that technological translation accounts for almost 90% of the world’s total translation every year. Nowadays new technical products enter into every corner of our daily life. What closely follows is the birth of science and technology neologisms. They are new words or new interpretations of old words to describe and explain reality in new ways. Language is one of the media of communication. Whether EST neologisms can be perfectly translated or not will have a great impact on the efficiency of international communication and the introduction of new science and technology to China. How to translate this kind of blooming neologism should draw translator’s attentions. Facing the increasing neologisms, translators have made some initial research and exploration, but insufficiency remains and problems occur. We can meet much in our daily life, such as multi-translated terms, abuse of transliteration, misunderstanding of borrowing and so on. For example, “Internet” can be translated as “å› ç‰¹ç½‘”, “国际互è”网”, “互è”网”, “å…¨çƒäº’è”网”, “交互网”, “国际电脑网络”, “国际计ç®-机互è”网” ç‰. The transliteration version for “Archie” is “阿奇”, most of the readers will be confused about what’s the meaning of translated term. Free translation version”æ-‡ä»¶æŸ¥è¯¢ç³»ç»Ÿ”are ready to be accepted.
Facing the existing problems, we believe that it is imperative to standardize the practices of EST neologisms translation. So far no specific EST neologisms translation criterion has been established and current translation strategies are confined to literal translation, free translation and transliteration. These strategies are too general and the referential value is limited. This research tries to explore the methods of EST neologisms translation. The methods should be used on the basis of thorough understanding of the essence of EST neologisms translation. In this research, the initial exploration on the essence of EST neologisms translation is carried out after I refer back to the new words in different books, newspapers and periodicals.
It has been mentioned that there are problems in EST neologisms translation: multi-translated terms, abuse of transliteration and misunderstanding of borrowing. In order to solve the current problems and insufficiency, a series of methods must be standardized in the practice of EST neologisms translation. We hope to explore the essence of EST neologisms translation, and then standardize EST neologisms translation methods accordingly. These methods can give much reference to translator in EST neologisms translation practice. Under the guide of these methods, practices of translating EST neologisms according to translators’ taste will be terminated. The author also hope the methods of EST neologisms translation can be used in other fields.
Chapter 2 Definition of EST Neologism
Before we analyse the methods and strategies of translation of EST neologism, we should have general knowledge of the definition of neologism and EST neologism.
2.1 EST Neologism and English Neologism
The definition of neologism in “OXFORD ADVANCED LEARNER’S ENGLISH-CHINESE DICTIONARY” is a newly-invented word, creating or using new words(Hornby, 2002: 986). Of course, new lexical information is available every day, in newspaper and other media texts, but we do not necessarily have the time to buy newspapers and to find it. The words have been identified as being new by dictionaries and Internet. According to our system, new words are those which have not occurred in previously processed newspaper text of the same type. They are therefore not all new coinages.
What’s more, vocabularies have a close relationship with the ages. So they can reflect the our history and every aspect of social changes very well. Meanwhile, the appearence of English neologisms is inevitably effected by the social development, customs and habits, values, thinking ways and so many other social factors. To have a detail knowledge of the semantic grounds, it is necessary for us to explore the social backgrounds which influence the creation of English neologisms, such as English for science and technology.
EST neologisms are the most conspicuous words among all the English neologisms because we can come into contact with them very often. The development of science and technology is the most important aspect for English neologisms. For example, launching the spaceship is a symbol which marks the advancement of technology, so many of the new words connected with the spaceship are widely used, such as space sickness(宇航ç-…), deep space(深空é-´). At the end of 2002, our country launched the ShenZhou Four Spaceship successfully, the foreign medium first used the word taikonaut(ä¸å›½å®‡èˆªå‘˜). After the launching of ShenZhou Five, this new word is appeared frequently in the medium of western countries. At the same time , the advanced Medical Science also brings a host of English new words¼Œ including medical terms, the names of newly developed medicine, and some of the new germ or virus. For example : test-tube baby(试管婴儿), anthrax(ç‚ç-½), mad-cow disease(ç-¯ç‰›ç-…), foot-and-mouth(å£è¹„ç-«), transsexual operation(å˜æ€æ‰‹æœ¯), cloning(克隆), SARS(éžå…¸åž‹æ€è‚ºç‚Ž), laparoscopy(腹腔镜手术), botox(肉毒æ†èŒ),etc. Of course, what we get in touch with most frequently is the neologism for computer. The development of computer technology leads to the emergence of a large number of the neologisms. In the cyberspace (网络ä¸-ç•Œ), you can see many of the pop-up advertisments(网上出现的弹å¼å¹¿å‘Š) ; you can go to any website to surf (网上冲浪)or browse(网上漫游) ; maybe you can sign up to be a netizen(网民); if you are tired, you can stay in cyberia(电脑å’-啡屋) to have a rest ; or you can go to E-cinema(电å影院) to log on a Drive-in Movie(上网看电影) ; you can have a unusual online love affair(网æ‹)with your net friend(网å‹), but don’t run into the hacker(黑客) and virus(ç-…毒).
2.2 Significance of EST Neologism
It’s time for us to realize the significance of EST neologisms. As we all know, English develops rapidly as well as science and technology, causing some difficulty in reading the news, or even causing some serious consequences due to misunderstanding of the neologisms. So it is imperative to make an analysis on the EST neologisms to facilitate understanding of them. According to the research of previous material, I can deeply feel that the current problems in misunderstanding EST neologisms should arouse our attention. Therefore, it is imperative for me to call on all people around the world to treat EST neologism seriously. Nowadys, neologisms of English for science and technolgy are of great importance in our daily life just as customs and tools to make our knowledge complete. No man is so old but that he may not learn. What should we learn? We should learn what we get in touch with most frequently in our life, which can help us to live better in this society. It is not only helpful for scholars to have a clear concept of EST neologism translation mechanism, but also valuable for the studies of neologism origin and development. The study in this field can also give much reference to language comparison and translation teaching. This research’s value is not confined to translation realm. It makes great contribution to academic exchange, international contact, technology introduction, science development or even modernization of our country. This research is carried out on the basis of objective observation, test, and case study. The new translation system is more practical and applicable. Under the guide of these translation methods, practices of translating EST neologism according to translators’ taste will be terminated. EST neologism translation can be practiced in a scientific and efficient way.
Chapter 3 Formation of EST Neologism
Like any other language in the world, English words have experienced the process of appearing and disappearing. New words and new meanings keep coming out, and clichés and words out of date vanish from the language. We can only keep in pace with English learning through tracking the development of English words. Neologisms that have become the basic English words have certain characteristics in their origin and development.
3.1 Coinage
Coinage means the creation of words, including compounding, affixation, analogy, blending, shortening and etc.
3.1.1 Compounding
When two free morphemes are joined together to make a new word, the result is called a compound word (Lin, 1985: 180). The most common way of compounding is to join a noun with a noun, such as Domain name(网域åç°), cable modem(电缆调制è£è°ƒå™¨), copy-protection(备份ä¿æŠ¤), Gene Discrimination(åŸºå› æè†). However, the compounded words can be further categorized into noun compounds, verb compounds, adjective compounds, etc. Compounding has been a source of new words in English, and is particularly common in present-day English. Compound words are written in various ways: solid, hyphenated, or open. For instance, Bluetooth (è“牙), front-end (å‰å°), and end-of-day glass (混色玻璃) are all compounds. The conventions of writing compounds in English are simply inconsistent. Compounds are not limited to 2 words. Compounds made up of more than two words are called group compounds. Group-compounds have a comparatively short history: it was probably not common even in early years, and is a characteristic of the modern period. Acronyms can also be part of a compound. For example, the acronym MIDI (音ä¹è®¾å¤‡æ•°å-接å£) (MIDI keyboards, MIDI devices, MIDI files, MIDI sequencer, MIDI channels, MIDI systems). Some typical and prevailing compounds in these days with the development of modern science and technology are as follows: ipod(pod)(苹果公å¸éŸ³ä¹æ’放器): iPod-friendly, iPod-compatible¼Œ iPod-cell phone¼Œ podcasts(personalized audio Web casts)¼Œ Podcasting¼Œ Pod jacking¼Œ iPod Nano,etc. The word “ipod” was the most popular word in the year 2003 and has been the very hot word in society. Ipod is the audio product of Apple company in USA, which succeeded in beating other products of the same kind (including Sony) in fierce competition and thus becomes the favourite device of young people both in United States and other countries, and is a symbol of audio products. And some words related to ipod appear and last for more than three years; some of them may be products related to ipod, like ipod-cellphone, ipod nano(the most recent version of the product, and this compound is formed by ipod and nano (nanotechnology纳米技术)), or may be words like “podcasts” (personalized audio Web casts), podcasting(æ’客). The term “podcasting” is a portmanteau of the words iPod and broadcasting. Although an iPod is currently the playback device of choice for many early adopters of podcasting, a portable music player is not required to take advantage of this method of content distribution. Podcasting is functionally similar to the use of timeshift-capable digital video recorders(DVRs), such as TiVo(硬盘数å-录åƒæœº), which let users record and store television programs for later viewing.
According to what we have discussed above, we can conclude that compounding is a main method of creating new words in English. Sometimes when one word carries different meanings, it can produce a large number of new words through combining with other words.
3.1.2 Affixation
Affixation is an effective way to increase the English vocabulary. “Affixation has played a positive role during the history of English development. Not only has it enlarged the pronunciational words, but also it has enriched the performative power of the language.” (Lu, 1983: 203) For affixes, there are prefixes and suffixes. Adding prefixes and suffixes is commonly found in English. English has its strength in creating new words on the basis of the existing word stock.Once the newly-invented words are absorbed in fix vocabulary, they are possessed with the capability of making new words by themselves. Since more and more people like to surf in cyberspace(网络空é-´), “cyber-” has come down to a most productive prefix and gradually comes to an individual word. In an age characterized by hi-tech brought about by computer science, the English vocabulary has been greatly influenced. In fact, computer is shaping the English language. At a recent meeting of the Southeastern Conference on Linguistics at the University of Georgia, Virginia McDavid in her plenary speech traced back to the words in dialectology and lexicography fifty years ago. During the question period, she was asked about the most prolific source of new words in present-day English. Without a moment’s hesitation she replied,”computers” (Wang, 2000: 8). Nowadays, words and phrases related to “cyber” are interfering into every walks of life and the number is hard to calculate.”cyber-“: of or about Internet. The prefix is from Greek Kubernan, meaning “control,dominance”. The first English word that begins with cyber- is cybernetics(æŽåˆ¶è®º), coined by Norbert Wiener in his book entitled Cybernetics published in 1948. With the appearance of computers, the prefix developed its original meaning to “controlled by computers”. In recent years, the popularity of Internet has made it a prefix standing for Internet. And lately, once again, the meaning of this prefix has been extended to be almost synonymous to electronic, i.e., cybercommerce(电å贸易). According to statistical data, words beginning with cyber- has amount to more than 200, most of which appear in scientific fictions, computer magazines¼Œperiodicals and newspapers. It is especially hard to keep up with cyber-forms. Indeed, we are nearly cybersick of them. Dozens of them are: cyberpunk(网际庞克), cybersex(虚拟æ€çˆ±), cyberculture(èµ›åšæ-‡åŒ-), cybernation(自动æŽåˆ¶), cyberphobia(电脑ææƒç-‡), cybersport(èµ›åšæ¸¸æˆ), cybernetics(æŽåˆ¶è®º), cybercrime(网络犯罪), cyberchat(网上èŠå¤©), cyber porn(网络色情), cyber-star(网络之心), cyber-tech(æ•°ç ç‘技), cyber-world(网络ä¸-ç•Œ), cyber-friend(网å‹), cybernaut(网客), cyberart(计ç®-机技术), cyberbrain(电åè„‘), cybercafé(网å), cybermedia(网络媒体), cyberspace(网络空é-´) (MySpace by MSN, QZONE by a Chinese company QQ, similar to blog).
3.1.3 Analogy
From the examples presented below, it will be seen that words of all formation types can produce new words by analogy. Compounds and blends are the most common types among others. In fact all the blends are formed by analogy. The reason may be that they have comparatively clear semantic and phonetic boundaries between the constituents. Derivatives can occasionally be the models for neologisms. Initials can also give rise to new words, like DJ/QJ, e-mail/v-mail. Analogy can be formed from many semantic perspectives and phonology is also involved in some cases. For example, we are familiar with the words: “I come, I conquer”. And in 2005, a new game called “Conker” has attracted many people’s attention, e.g.Graphically, Conker is played from an “over-the-shoulder” third-person perspective, which is effective considering the game looks and plays like an interactive cartoon, thanks to its meticulously drawn characters, lush environments and detailed in-game cut-scene sequences with convincing,real-time lip-synching. (July 15, 2005, CNN)
Analogy by Similarity in Situation
DJ-QJ ( [short for Queue Jockey] a telephone operator on a computer technical support number who plays music and informs callers how long they will wait for a technician.)
penpal-keypal (person one meets via the Internet)
couch potato-mouse potato (a computer couch potato; one who uses the computer obsessively, frequently, or for prolonged periods)
baby sitter-cyber sitter (young, underemployed, computer literates who “sit” with rich kids, teaching them how to surf the Internet and create multimedia graphics)
Silicon Valley-Silicon Alley (cluster of electronics companies in Glasgow, Scotland)
3.1.4 Blending
“A blend involves a telescoping of two or more separate forms into one. It usually contains overlapping and preserves some of the meaning of at least one of the source words, though sometimes so much of the roots are lost that a blend is unanalyzable”. Blends can be classified on the basis of the relationships between their elements in the same way as ordinary compounds (although uncertainties and ambiguities may be greater because of the missing elements), so it needs no more elaboration here. This section discusses the structure and formal characteristics of blends, and how they can give rise to new morphemes. What we meet most are those blending words of science and technology, e.g. Webliography (Web and bibliography网络数目), digiverse (digital and universe宇宙数ç ), Wi-Fi(wireless and fidelityæ- 线上网技术), WiMax (wireless and Maximumå…¨çƒå¾®æ³¢æŽ¥å…¥äº’æ“作æ€), systadmin (system and administrator系统管ç†å‘˜), WinTerm (Windows and Terminal系统终端), info-tech ( information and technologyä¿¡æ¯æŠ€æœ¯).
3.1.5 Shortening
Nowadays, people tend to get the most possible information in the shortest time. And this is reflected in the writing style of news, including those EST reports. The wording pays attention to using short and simple words. The standard to judge whether a newspaper is good or not, by Rudolf Flesch, is pretty much determined by the average length of the word and sentence, the best length for a word is one and a half syllable and a sentence, nineteen words. Now many neologisms are formed by shortening or acronyms. In 1987, The Acronyms, Initialisms& Abbreviations Dictionary (the 11th version) published by Gale Research Company had more than 400,000 shortenings of various kinds.
Initialisms are a usual way to form new words, such as IM(=Instant Messagingå³æ-¶é€šè®¯¼‰, third-generation(3G三代3G is a short term for third-generation wireless,and refers to near-future developments in personal and business wireless technology, especially mobile communications.), CRBT(=Color Ring Back Tone彩铃业务), MMS(=multi-media messaging多媒体çŸä¿¡æœåŠ¡service), FTP(=File Transfer Protocolæ-‡ä»¶ä¼ 输åè®®), P2P(peer to peer点对点技术), B2B(business to businessä¼ä¸šå¯¹ä¼ä¸šçš„电å商务模å¼), B2C(business to customerä¼ä¸šå¯¹å®¢æˆ·çš„电å商务模å¼). And there are also: DTH(Direct-To-Homeæ•°å-高清晰度直æ’电è†å«æ˜Ÿ), DVD(Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Discæ•°å-åŒ-è†å±å…³ç›˜), CNC(computernumerically controlled电脑数值æŽåˆ¶), etc.
Acronyms are increasing at an enormous rate due to the fact that they are easy to read and spell, e.g. DAT(=Digital Audio Tapeæ•°å-å¼å½•éŸ³å¸¦), ZIFT(=zygote intra fallopian transferåˆå输软管内ç»æ¤)¼Œ RAID(=Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disksç£ç›˜é˜µåˆ-), etc. These are good examples of initialisms.
3.2 Conversion
Conversion usually refers to the process whereby a word in one word class is converted into another word class without any change to the form of the word. A typical example is Google. The hot word Google is a misspelling of the word googol, which is a mathematical term with the meaning of a number, one hundred 0 after 1. The term was created by an American mathematician Milton Sirotta, nephew of Edward Kasner, and became popular with publication of the book “Mathematics and the Imagination”. Now the word google is the most popular search engine on the Internet, and 200 million people “google” every day to find information they need, so “google” is conversed to be a verb instead of a noun.
3.3 Borrowing
Borrowing means calques usually from classical or prestigious languages: Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Chinese, and French; now English is a contributed language to many others. Some languages are borrowed freely; others are not for their structure. Here we list several borrowed words: Taikonaut(It is half borrowed from Chinese pinyin “taikong”, which means space, plus the suffix -naut which means astronaut. The appearance of this word is mostly due to the rise of China’s space technology in recent years, including the successful launch of “Shenzhou â…¤” and “Shenzhou â…¥” in 2003 and 2005. ä¸å›½å®‡èˆªå‘˜), Tamagotchi( Most of young people around the world know that it is a kind of digital pet invented in Japan that feeds on music instead of food and is very popular among people around the world. 电åå® ç‰©), cybernoir (黑æš-èµ›åš), infobahn (It is fromGreman. ä¿¡æ¯é«˜é€Ÿå…¬è·¯), Shenzhouâ…¤, Shenzhouâ…¥.
3.4 Old Words Putting on New Meaning
Sometimes an old word takes on a new meaning. When computers were first being developed, some programmers found their computers were not working right. They finally traced the problem to a bug (a moth, actually) that had landed on the circuity. Now “bug” had become a common term for a programming problem, even when they are not talking about insects in the microchips. Actually, old words putting on new meaning is a common phenomenon in language. Things are changing in our modern world and words. Old words putting on new meaning is also a traditional method of create EST neologisms. The so-called old words putting on new meaning means that people give general vocabulary with new meaning to express new concepts, such as hit(打击)点击率¼Œlink(环)链接, memory(记忆)内å˜, bus(巴士)总线, cache(è´®è-所)高速缓冲å˜è´®å™¨, browser(游èˆè€…)æµèˆå™¨, virus(ç-…毒)ç ´åæ-‡ä»¶çš„电脑程åº, program(节目)程åº, boot(é•¿ç’é´)å¯åŠ¨æ“作系统, drive¼ˆé©±ä½¿¼‰é©±åŠ¨å™¨, library(图书馆)程åºåº“,ä¿¡æ¯åº“.
Chapter 4 Translation of EST Neologism
There is a bridge between source language and target language with the help of translation. In this paper, a bridge of translation between Chinese and English in the field of EST neologism is constructed. We all know that our task of translation is to learn the meaning of what the source language message express in the target language. The translation should give target language readers almost the same feeling as source language readers. We can judge whether the translation is successful or not with the help of reader’s feeling. If target language readers and source language readers had almost the same feeling after reading the translation, it was successful and the translator is capable of being proud of his achievement. If target language readers and source language readers had different feeling after reading the translation, it showed the translation was unqualified. From the perspective of translation, actually, the feeling of readers can judge a translation.
4.1 Literal Translaton
Among neologisms, there are many words containing exactly the same or corresponding meaning as Chinese. When we meet these word, we can easily understand their meaning by common translation. Literal translation means that we translate the words without ambiguity and preserve the original words’ meaning. What’s more, our readers can understand them clearly. So literal translation is applied for these special words. Preserving the original words’ meaning means preserving the words’ characteristics, cultural characteristic of original language, and amplifying the ability ftarget language expression. People with different culture own the same feelings of life experience and cognitive level of things, so we may claim that image is translatable. In different language, the same image has the corresponding expression. Therefore, the method of literal translation can be applied for this kind of EST words. This method can maintain the words’ image and convey information clearly and similar lenovo implication. Literal translation is namely translating the corresponding meaning of each morphemes in sequence, such as: superconductor超导体, antiballistic missileåå¼¹é“导弹, magnetohydrodynamicsç£æµä½“力å¦, atomic powered submarine原å动力潜水艇, cold punched hole冷冲å”, etc.
4. 2 Free Translation
Free translation is abandoning the original image and conveying the original meaning only. Due to the uneven phenomenon of the different concept of science and technology development between nations, there is inevitably corresponding vacancy and contradiction between source language and target language. Free translation is one of the shortcut to resolve this contradiction. In EST translation, some image is untranslatable. The so-called untranslatability is caused by the obvious different living environment, life experience, and different cognitive style in different nations. Therefore, we can not find the relevant words in another language. To translate this kind of neologisms, we can use free translation, which abandon the original image, but is faithful to the significance of the original version. Free translation expresses the general idea of the original according to the meaning of the original, and does not pay attention to the details. There is no need to give the exact equivalents in Chinese. But the translation should be fluent and natural, such as blood type (血型), blood bank (血库), blood heat ( It can not be translated into è¡€çƒ, then, corrsponding meaning should appear here. 人体血液æ£å¸¸æ¸©åº¦), microcomputer å¾®(型计ç®-)机, microprocessor 微处ç†å™¨, cutting-edge technology å‰æ²¿æŠ€æœ¯, videophone å¯è†ç”µè¯, high-tech sector 高ç‘技æ¿å-, guided missile 导弹, gramophone 留声机, etc.
4. 3 Transliteration
Transliteration is translating the words according to its pronunciation. Proper noun, such as names of people, place or things, etc., usually adopts the method of transliteration. In addition, when it is hard to find exact equivalent of some neologisms in Chinese language, or the versions of meanings of free translation are comparatively laborious to finish and are hardly accepted by Chinese readers, this kind of neologisms should be applied with transliteration. These EST neologisms include new materials, medicines, acronym. For example, EST neologisms, such as calorieå¡è·¯é‡Œ¼ˆçƒé‡å•ä½¼‰, sonar声纳(声波导航和测è·è®¾å¤‡), nylon尼龙, aspirin阿å¸åŒ¹æž-, hertz赫兹(频率å•ä½), hacker黑客(从网络ä¸æ“…自å˜å-的人), nanometer纳米(长度å•ä½10亿分之1ç±³), clone克隆(æ- æ€ç¹æ®-), modules模å-(组件), are all translated with the way of transliteration. Some words are with part of transliteration, such as AIDS(艾滋ç-…), topology(拓朴å¦).
4. 4 Iconicity
Iconicity is a semiotic notion in linguistics. The relationship between language forms and the object that share the resemblances is called iconicity. Iconicity is a primary instrument of thought and communication in the field of EST neologism translation, because many innovative words in English are spelled in an abstract way and it is not possible to translate these words directly or find similar meaning in Chinese. In this situation, apart from transliteration, we should use the method of iconicity. In translation, iconicity is the method of translating words in accordance with the shape of the object. What’s more, the orginal word is usually expressed by a letter to manifest some shape, such as T-square(Tå-å°º), A-bedplate(A形底åº), D-valve(D形阀), M-wing(M形机翼), A-frame(A形架), I-section(å·¥å-å½¢å‰-é¢), V-belt(三è’形皮带), T-track(锤形径迹), Twist drill(麻花钻), U-shaped magnet(马蹄形ç£é“), S-wrench(S形扳手), Z-crank(Z形曲柄), U-bend(马蹄形弯头) and so on. What we must pay attention to is, in English vocabulary for science and technology translation, that people still use letters to convey a concept rather than one shape. For example, L-electron means L层电å, P-region means P区(å³ç”µåä¸è¶³åŒº), Q-band means Q波段, FORTRAN means FORTRANè¯è¨€.
Chapter 5 Conclusion
With the rapid development of science and technology and the wide international communication, translation for science and technology has been brought under limelight. On the basis of previous research, this thesis conducts a tentative discussion and analysis of the translation of EST neologism, including its definition, production and various translation methods.
Although free translation, literal translation, transliteration, iconicity work effectively, I think the most important thing in translation is to satisfy our readers. In order to make most readers understand EST neologisms naturally, we should respect the meaning of the original words and find the original sources of these words. From where I stand, when a neologism is translated with the help of its original sentence and follows the original meaning of the word, the translation methods of EST neologisms will make readers fully satisfied.
I believe that the further exploration in this field will play an important role on Enlgish itself. I also expect the thesis to be of some help for further research in this field, and stimulate English learners’ interest in studying EST.
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