英语论文网

I. Introduction Translation, no matter as a kind of cultural phenomenon, thinking movement, or as a sort of career, intellectual skill, will always have a close relationship with the background of our living time. Not only its idea and method but also its mode, criterion and genre, all of them advance with the times. After observing the practicing activities and theoretical research of international and internal translation, it comes to a conclusion that translation is one of the vigorous and penetrative areas in the cultural and ideological progress. Nowadays, most scholars in the scope of translation believe that literal translation and free translation are the two feasible ways when people translating, but both of them not only have differences but also have associations. At the same time, modern theoretical research of translation demonstrated that translation activity is not only a transformation of two different languages, but also a communication of different cultures. Thus, this paper aims at finding a proper and rational way in translation through the detailed description, analysis, judgment of literal and free translation, and the comparative research of translatability and untranslatability of language style. II. The Literal and Free Translation There always exist two different translation versions; one is translated by its literal meaning, and another version will not take much account of its original form. So, it causes an argument between literal and free translation. As is known to all, literal translation and free translation are two basic methods of English-Chinese translation. Then, after all, what is the literal translation and what is the free translation? 2.1 The Concepts of Literal and Free Translation 2.2.1 The Concept of Literal Translation Literal translation refers to translate a sentence originally, keeping the original message form, including construction of sentences, meaning of the original words, metaphors, national distinguishing features of the original texts and so on. It emphasizes the double compounding in content and form. That is to say, the translation should reflect the original more loyalty not only in content but in form. However, literal translation does not mean word-for-word translation. For example: Translators should not translate “Mr. Billings can not be deterred from his plan” into“比林斯先生不能被阻止去实行他的计划” in Chinese, and also do not translate “We saw an acrobat standing on his head” into“我们看见一个杂技演员正站在他的头上。” in Chinese。 Then, please look at the following examples in the literal translation ways: (1)But I hated Sakamoto and I had a feeling that he’d surely lead us to our ancestors. The Chinese meaning is“但是我恨坂本，并预感到他肯定会领着咱们去见祖先。” Here the “…he’d surly lead us to our ancestors” can be translated into “……他肯定会领着咱们去见祖先”, in Chinese literally. It not only expresses the original meaning but also keeps the metaphor of original text so that the translated text would be fluent and easy to be comprehended by target language readers. But if it is translated into“……他肯定会领着咱们去送死” in Chinese. It can express the content of original text, the translated text is also fluent but the original form has been lost. (2) Hitler was armed to the teeth when he launched the Second World War but in a few years he was completed defeated. The Chinese meaning is “希特勒在发动第二次世界大战时是武装到牙齿的，可是不过几年就被彻底击败了。” The “arm to the teeth” is a vivid idiom which always been translated into “武装到牙齿” in Chinese since