Translation strategies in Anglo-American novels translated into Chinese, with special reference to terms of address
Corpus studies in the area of translation constitute a new, exciting and rapidly expanding area of research. This study focuses on the design of a specific corpus for the analysis of specific linguistic features that relate to translator behaviour. Thus a parallel English-Chinese corpus is built with source texts in English, that is, classic Anglo-American novels, and two types of target texts: translations of those same novels from the areas of Mainland China and Taiwan. This Corpus is then used to study specific linguistic elements that may reveal translation strategies employed by the translators in these two areas. The linguistic features under consideration are terms of address. Terms of address play a prominent role in daily communication and are linked to cultural idiosyncrasies and politeness norms. In the universe of discourse of a novel, terms of address are used by characters according to their degree of familiarity with their interlocutors and their general social standing. Since the translation of novels involves the general transfer of cultural values, the use of terms of address is bound to be affected by the values with which the target text may comply. The corpus designed here indeed helps
Hsu, Chu-ching
Translation strategies in Anglo-American novels translated into Chinese, with special reference to terms of address. Corpus studies in the area of translation constitute a new, exciting and rapidly expanding area of research. This study focuses on the design of a specific corpus for the analysis of specific linguistic features that relate to translator behaviour. Thus a parallel English-Chinese corpus is built with source texts in English, that is, classic Anglo-American novels, and two types of target texts: translations of those same novels from the areas of Mainland China and Taiwan. This Corpus is then used to study specific linguistic elements that may reveal translation strategies employed by the translators in these two areas. The linguistic features under consideration are terms of address. Terms of address play a prominent role in daily communication and are linked to cultural idiosyncrasies and politeness norms. In the universe of discourse of a novel, terms of address are used by characters according to their degree of familiarity with their interlocutors and their general social standing. Since the translation of novels involves the general transfer of cultural values, the use of terms of address is bound to be affected by the values with which the target text may comply. The corpus designed here indeed helps
translation_strategy anglo_american novel translate chinese special_reference term address corpus study_area translation constitute new rapidly expand area research study_focus design specific corpus_analysis specific_linguistic feature relate translator behaviour thus parallel english_chinese corpus build source_text english classic anglo_american novel two_type target_text translation_novel area mainland china taiwan corpus use study specific_linguistic element may reveal translation_strategy employ translator two_area linguistic_feature consideration term address terms address play_prominent role daily communication link cultural idiosyncrasy politeness norm universe discourse novel term address use character accord degree familiarity interlocutor general social_standing since translation_novel involve general transfer cultural_value use term address bound affected value target_text may comply corpus design indeed help