翻译心得及翻译实践.doc

翻译心得及翻译实践
摘要

本文旨在对两篇材料进行翻译，并从翻译实践中获得经验并撰写翻译心得。其中材料大学校训：《大学校训：一个无涉时代的场域》为汉译英，而材料《价格如何在政治中起作用：竞选广告的社会效应》为英译汉。
《大学校训：一个无涉时代的场域》一文从大学校训的发展过程及对其剖析，对大学校训的意义加以论述。阐述了大学校训的两大源头的状况、特征、特点及其雷同性，中国大学校训的国家道德主义及其本质和错误所在，阐述出大学校训的真正意义在于富于大学校训的自由发展的思想及其意义所在。
《价格如何在政治中起作用：竞选广告的社会效应》则主要通过大量的文献和数据的研究，指出了竞选支出对在职者和挑战者的作用。
翻译了以上的材料后，我得出了一些有关于英汉翻译的心得。主要从对翻译材料的描述、寻找背景信息、句子的处理、对词和词组的处理、结论这五个方面来进行总结。分别针对翻译中篇、句、词等方面容易出现的问题和难点进行分析，从而寻找有效的解决方法。对今后的翻译工作起到积累和指导的作用。
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Abstract

The main purpose of the article is to summarize the gains and experience after translating the two materials. The material The University Motto:An Ero of Free Field
has been translated from Chinese to English while the material How Prices Matter in Politics:the Returns to Campaign Advertising has been translated from English to Chinese.
The article The University Motto:An Ero of Free Field analyses the university motto novel from its development and interprets its meaning.It demonstrates the state、characteristics and its similarities of the two sources of the university motto .This article tells us the country moralism and its nature of the university motto and where the wrong of the country moralism of the university motto is. It shows that the real significance of the university motto is the thought of free development.
As for How Prices Matter in Politics:the Returns to Campaign Advertising , it tells us the function of campaign spending for incumbents and challengers by studying many works about it and data.
Having translated these two materials, I have gained a lot about the translation between Chinese and English. This article has been written from five parts which are “the description of the material for translating”, “searching for background information”, “dealing with sentences”, “words and phrases”, and “conclusion”. This article means to analyze problems and difficulties, which may happen in translating, on aspects such as passages, sentences, words and then to find out methods to solve those problems and difficulties. In this way, this article can be used as a kind of guide and accumulation in future translation works.

Contents

摘 要…………………………………………………………………… 1
Abstract…………………………………………………………………… 1
1. The Description of the Material for Translating…………………….… 1
2. Searching for Background Information……………………………… 1
3. Dealing with Sentences…………………………………………………… 2
3.1 Structure of Sentences……………………………………………………………… 2
3.2 Logic of Sentences………………………………………………………………… 2
5. Conclusion………………………………………………………………… 5
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………5
Translation (from English to Chinese）……………………………….
Translation (from Chinese to English)…………………………………

1. The Description of the Material for Translating

This time I have translates two articles—The University Motto:An Ero of Free Field and How Prices Matter in Politics:the Returns to Campaign Advertising.
The University Motto:An Ero of Free Field is an article that analyses the meaning of the university motto from a kind of new view point. It dissects the developments of its two sources and has showed us the thought of free development of the university motto.
How Prices Matter in Politics:the Returns to Campaign Advertising mainly analyses deals with the function of campaign spending for incumbents and challengers by studying many works about it and data.
Translation is a kind of work that can prove a person’s ability to use both the two languages. By translating the two articles, I have learned much about the skills and methods of translation. However, I faced several difficulties during the translation. And with great efforts I have found ways to handle those difficulties.

2. Seeking for Background Information
The first problem lying befor me was that I didn’t have enough background information about the contents of the two articles whichI needed to translate.
The first article The University Motto:An Ero of Free Field is about the true meaning of the university motto and the second shows us the function of campaign spending for incumbents and challengers.I am not very familiar with what the articles talk about, and this is a problem we always meet with when we need to translate an article. So,in order to translate the articles as exactly as possible and as quickly as possible, I search for materials concerning them and find out the mean ideas of them. In this way I come to know the gists of them, which makes great contribution to my translation.
In these works, I get to know that the first thing we must learn before we do the translation work is finding background information and knowledge concerning the materials we need to translate. Only in this way can we make a good beginning.

3. Dealing with Sentences

The second problem I have to solve is the Sentence-type. As we all know, English and Chinese are two languages which are quite different from each other. And the logic of sentences in these two languages is also quite different.
3.1 Structure of Sentences
Firstly, articles in English always consist of long sentences which usually have a main sentence and several clauses while Chinese articles are generally made up of short sentences which contain large amount of information. Thus, as we have been used to the type of sentences in Chinese, it is always not easy for us to understand the meanings of long sentences in English. For example, the sentence “The literature is filled with results that incumbents’ campaign spending either has no effect on outcomes or actually reduces their chances of winning (see ,for example,Jacobson 1978,1980,1985,1989;Feldman and Jondrow 1984;Ragsdale and Cook 1987;Abramowitz 1988,1991;Grier 1989;Ansolabehere and Gerber 1994;Coates 1998).” Such a long sentence contains several meanings. Thus, in order to make sentences clearer, I break this sentence into several shorter sentences, according to these three parts of meanings—The literature is filled with results ; that incumbents’ campaign spending either has no effect on outcomes or actually reduces their chances of winning ; (see ,for example,Jacobson 1978,1980,1985,1989;Feldman and Jondrow 1984;Ragsdale and Cook 1987;Abramowitz 1988,1991;Grier 1989;Ansolabehere and Gerber 1994;Coates 1998).I try to find the relations of those sentences. In this way the long sentence becomes easy to understand.
3.2 Logic of Sentences
Secondly, the logic of Chinese sentences is also different from that of English sentences. In Chinese people like to leave the most important part at the last of the talk or a sentence. And before that, Chinese people like to explain reasons, conditions, time, place or other things in term of coordinate clauses. As all the coordinate clauses look almost the same, it is always hard for an English speaker to find out the core of a Chinese sentence. On the contract, in English, a main clause will be used to explain core of the sentence, and all the other information will be given in the clauses or parenthesis, which decorate the main clause. Furthermore, there are always some marks in those clauses, such as the introductory word in attributive clauses and adverbial clauses. Thus, people can easily find out the main idea of the sentence. For this reason, we need to make the suitable change in logic when we translate a sentence from Chinese to English or from English to Chinese. For example, in the article How Prices Matter in Politics:the Returns to Campaign Advertising there is a sentence “The findings that some forms of advertising are effective cast doubt on the conclusions of studies that suggest no relationship between campaign spending and victory.” is an attributive clause which is used to decorate the main sentence. In this kind of situation, when we translate the sentence, we must pay attention to the core of the sentence, and the logic of the sentence.
On balance, in translation, coping with those complex sentences, we must pay great attention to the sentence-type especially the logic of those sentences. And the useful way I have caught sight of is to find the main part of the sentence first, thus we can understand what information the sentence wants to show us, and then we can translate and make up the new sentence according to the style and logic features of the language we need to translate the sentence into.
5. Conclusion
Having translated these two articles, I get to know that translation is not simply putting a passage of Chinese (English) into English (Chinese), but translating and exchanging the cultures. We should at first find background information and then make the purport and gist of the translating material clear.Meanwhile, choosing a right skill is very important,too. So we should combine skills and customs, and only in this way can we translate the material both correctly and exactly.

Bibliography
[1]王国炎，2007，《翻译探索》 [J]，《时代文学·理论学术版》第六期，22-23。
[2]张培基等，2004，《英语翻译教程》[M]，上海：外语教育出版社。

The University Motto:An Ero of Free Field
It is generally considered that motto is the atmostphere of a university.The expression motto comes from Japan.There was “Fillal piety and integrity” in Changsha Yuelu Academy and “This trip,careful in ordinary speech” in Wixi Donglin Academy and so on. But they didn’t call them motto then.Motto dates from from church-run university in our country.After that the word motto was introduced. Nowadays there are two styles of mottos in our country.One is motto of ancient times;the other vernacular .They originated from the beginning of the university.
First.Two sources of mottos and the similarities between them
The first universities that established mottos cover the church university、the public university and the private university and so forth. The church university motto is religious.For example: The motto in Saint Johns University is Light and Service.In Yangjing University it is Freedom Through Truth for Service.
The mottos in the universities established in our country are simple and elegant.They mainly came from the books of The Analects of Confucius、The Great Learning、The Doctrine of Mean、the Book of Changes、Han Shu、Meng Zi.For example,In 1921 Chen Jiageng founded Xiamen University and made the motto:Exert Oneself Constantly and Strive for Perfection. In 1923,Bejing Jiaotong University used Knowing and Doing as its motto.In 1924,Shun Zhongshan inscribed Deliberation、Learning、Honesty、Persistence as the motto of National Kwangtung University (Sun Yat-Sen University now) sponsored to start by Sun Yat-Sen himself.In 1932,Luo jialun took up the post of the Principal of Central University and proposed the motto Honest and Majestic.In 1934,on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of Nankai University the founder and principal Zhang Boling formally announced Selflessness and Hard-working as its motto.
In July of 1938,then Ministry of Education of the Nationalist Government pointed out that the whole national universities should make out their own mottos and university songs and presented them to the Ministry of Education to be checked and so a set of new mottos grew:one is in the Southwest Associated University and one is in the Northwest Associated University.The former is Faithful and Resolute and the latter is Honest and Simple.On 1rst of November,1938,The principal of Zhejiang University Zhu Kezhen brought forward Truth as its motto at the opening ceremony in Yishan in Guangxi province. During this period,all kinds of mottos were in bloom,different and meaningful.It is one of the university motto sources.
Meanwhile, the university mottos in the liberated areas were different : vernacular ,popular and easy to understand and fresh.Mao Zhedong raised the mottos of both Anti-Japanese Training School and LuXun College of Art:one is Be United,Alert,Earnest and Lively and the other is Be Nervous,Serious,Assiduous and With an Open Mind.North China University came into existence on 24th Augest ,1948.Loyalty, unity,simplicity,and modesty served as its motto.Thus vernacular mottos came into being.
This is the second source of China’s university mottos.Though the two types of mottos are different first, they became similar afterwards.In terms of the ancient-fashioned mottos,the new life movement in 1934 resulted in the similarities in them. In 1939, the ancient-fashioned mottos of their own features and profound meanings were forced into the unified pattern:propriety,righteousness,integrity and honor.Vernacular mottos mainly appeared in the liberated areas.The universities there were not influenced by the values of the western universities and actually inherited the bureaucratic modes of China’s traditional higher education and its brief tasks were to train cadres for the government in the liberated areas.For example,Yan’an University was directly in the charge of the Communist Party of China.Anti-Japanese University was administered by the military. Most other university’s administrative leaders and teaching staff all belonged to the officals in the liberated areas. In other words,the revolutionary era led to the singalness of the university’s aims.It appeared in the commons in the university mottos .
The two kinds of mottos processed to a new variety till now------the mixture of them. But numerous university mottos always makes us feel familiar with them.The mottos were almost the same now.We could easily found that the two sources of the university mottos framed the thinking of them and even framed their words.In the case of the ancient-fashion mottos,Tsinghua University,Xiamen University,Shanghai University and Northeastern University referred to Self-improvement as their mottos. University of Anhui,Southwest Politics and Law University,Zhongshan University and Huazhong Normal University employed Knowledge and Practice as their mottos. Thick Heart is Tsinghua University’s and National University of Defense Technology’s motto. Pleasant virtue is Liaoning University’s,University of Fuzhou’s and Huazhong University of Science and Technology’s.Correct virtue is Bejing Normal University’s.Virtue Establishment is Communication University of China’s.They all talk about virtue.As to the vernacular motto examples, being practical and realistic is both Tianjin University’s and Renmin University of China’s.University of Chongqing, Institutes of Technology Of South China, Beijing Institute of Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,  Xidian University, Agricultural University of Nanjing,Dalian University of Technology, Agricultural University of Shenyang and Changchun University of Science and Technology are all Unity, Hard work, Truth-seeking and Innovation.It is ironical------they all talk about innovation but their mottos are the same.That means the rejection of innovation.
Today the scale of our country’s higher education has taken the first in the world steadily.So There should be all kinds of scenes.But in the uni