八、英语多引申,汉语多推理
英语有两句俗话:一是You know a word by the company it keeps.(要知义怎样,关键看词伙),二是Words do not have meaning, but people have meaning for them.(词本无义,义随人生)。这说明词典对词的定义和解释是死的,而实际运用中的语言是活的。从原文角度来说,这种活用是词义和用法的引申,翻译的时候要准确理解这种引申,译者就需要进行推理。
例如:While there are almost as many definitions of history as there are historians, modern practice most closely conforms to one that sees history as the attempt to recreate and explain the significant events of the past.
译文:尽管关于历史的定义几乎和历史学家一样多,现代实践最符合这样一种定义,即把历史看作是对过去重大历史事件的再现和解释。
"recreate"根据构词法和一般词典上解释都是“重新创造”,而考研英语大纲词汇表中只有名词"recreation",所给词义为"娱乐、消遣",在这种情况下,考生很容易把recreate译成“重新创造”或者“娱乐”。仔细观察recreate不难发现它带有宾语the significant events of the part,从逻辑上来讲,"过去的重大历史事件"是不能"重新创造"的,作者显然对recreate一词的词义进行了引申。做翻译的人经常会有这样一种感受:某个词明明认识,可就是不知道该怎样表达。这其实就是词的引申和推理在起作用。
九、英语多省略,汉语多补充
英语一方面十分注重句子结构,另一方面又喜欢使用省略。英语省略的类型很多,有名词的省略,动词的省略,有句法方面的省略,也有情景方面的省略。在并列结构中,英语往往省略前面已出现过的词语,而汉语则往往重复这些省略了的词。
例如:①Ambition is the mother of destruction as well as of evil.
野心不仅是罪恶的根源,同时也是毁灭的根源。
②Reading exercises one's eyes; Speaking, one's tongue; while writing, one's mind.
阅读训练人的眼睛,说话训练人的口齿,写作训练人的思维。
④One boy is a boy, two boys half a boy, three boys no boy.
在考研英译汉中,省略是一种很常见现象。例如:
Whether to use tests, other kinds of information, or both in a particular situation depends, therefore, upon the evidence from experience concerning comparative validity and upon such factors as cost and availability.
译文:因此,究竟是使用测试,其它种类的信息,还是在特定的情况下两者都使用,取决于关于相对效度的来自经验的证据,同时还取决于成本和可获得性这样的因素。
whether...or...是并列连词,or前面省略了不定式to use, and upon中间省了动词depends。
十、英语多前重心,汉语多后重心
在表达多逻辑思维时,英语往往是判断或结论等在前,事实或描写等在后,即重心在前;汉语则是由因到果、由假设到推论、由事实到结论,即重心在后。
比较:I was all the more delighted when, as a result of the initiative of your Government it proved possible to reinstate the visit so quickly.
译文:由于贵国政府的提议,才得以这样快地重新实现访问。这使我感到特别高兴。
The assertion that it was difficult, if not impossible, for a people to enjoy its basic rights unless it was able to determine freely its political status and to ensure freely its economic, social and cultural development was now scarcely (不足地,不充分地;一定不,绝不)contested (斗争;比赛).
译文:如果一个民族不能自由地决定其政治地位,不能自由地保证其经济、社会和文化的发展,要享受其基本权利,即使不是不可能,也是不容易的。这一论断几乎是无可置辩的了。