英语论文网

he “trunk” of the sentence By “trunk”, we mean the main structure of the whole sentence. Zhang Yan hold the view that “Finding out the main structure of the sentence is quite important because this often helps the reader identify which clauses are used to modify which, and the function and relation of each clause. In a word, the main structure of sentence includes subject, verb and object (if there is any object in the sentence). A subject is always a noun, indicating the doer of the action of the verb; a verb always indicates an action; an object is used to indicate the bearer of the action. A typical English sentence must contain a subject and a verb, and the object can be omitted if not needed. What’s more, each English sentence should only contain one main structure.” [16]P121 (18)Each comment from her, which seemed quite disappointing to everyone else, made Tom, however, very exited. The main structure of this sentence is “each comment made Tom exited.” If readers can separate the main structure from the original sentence, then the meaning of this seemingly complex long English sentence becomes quite clear.” (ii). Analyze the meaning of important words After finding out the main structure, what the translator should do is to identify the correct meaning of the words that seem to have some different meanings. In English, there also exist some words that may have different meanings according to the context in which the words are used. Thus, the translator needs to identify the meaning of the words in the sentence. The most efficient way is to consult the dictionary to find out the different meanings a word may have and the different circumstances the word is used according to their meaning. This step is especially important in understanding the meaning of the important words in the sentences. (19)He heard a girl crying outside. In this sentence, the word which has two ways of understanding is the word “crying”. As we know, the word “cry” has two meanings: one being the action of shedding tears, and the other being the action of shouting. To find out which is the correct meaning of the word “cry” in this sentence, the reader needs to take the whole context into consideration because the specific meaning of a word depends on the whole context. (iii) Identify subordinate clause After finding out the main structure and meaning of the words in a sentence, subordinate clauses must also be identified to find out the relation between the subordinate clauses and the words and the main clause. As is known, each subordinate clause has its own function, either to modify a specific word, or to indicate its relation with the main clause. Whether a sentence is well and appropriately translated largely depends on whether the subordinate clause is thoroughly studied. (20)He opened the book that his father gave him as a gift at his thirteenth birthday. The main clause of this sentence is “he opened the book”, and that “his father gave him as a gift at his thirteenth birthday” is an attributive clause to modify the book. So the main clause should first be translated, and then the attributive clause should be translated in another clause or sentence to further introduce to the reader the source of the book. Thus, the sentence should be translated as followed. 他打开了那本书，那本书是他爸爸在他13岁生日时作为礼物送给她的。 (iv). Get the general idea of the sentence The reason why we don’t tend to change the main idea of the original sentence is that we don’t