英语论文开题报告优秀范文

英语专业翻译方向论文开题报告范文

以下是由我整理的.英语专业翻译方向论文的开题报告范文，供大家参考!

How to Deal with Ellipsis in English-Chinese Translation

I. Purpose and Significance

With the development of globalization, the world’s political, economic and cultural communications are becoming increasingly frequent. Therefore, the role of translation cannot be ignored. However, the differences between English and Chinese cultures that are reflected in the two languages pose considerable difficulty.

It is acknowledged that when doing translation one can not translate word for word, or sentence by sentence. Therefore, we must use some translation strategies such as amplification, ellipsis, conversion and so on. Ellipsis as one of the basic translation methods plays an essential role in English-Chinese rendition. Translators apply it in order to make their versions more coherent and understandable.

According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, ellipsis means leaving out a word or words from a sentence deliberately, when the meaning can be understood without them. Ellipsis in translation does not mean cutting some content from the original articles. What could be omitted are words that are useless in translated works or else they will make the versions redundant or disobey the manner of expression in another language.

Some words and phrases are useless in Chinese but necessary in English. Articles in English are the most significant phenomenon from this aspect. They are very important in English, but we can hardly see any reflection of this part in Chinese. Ellipsis is designed on the basis of faithfulness to the original text, making it more fluent, smooth, concise, thus conforming to idiomatic Chinese. The paper will explore ellipsis in English-Chinese translation from five aspects, which are ellipses of pronouns, conjunctions, articles, prepositions, modifications, so as to achieve smoother and clearer communications among China and English-speaking countries.

II. Literature Review

Long before, some people began to learn other countries’ languages to understand others cultures. In China, Xuanzang was the first translator who not only translated the Sanskrit sutras into Chinese, but introduced the first Chinese writings to foreign countries, making foreigners understand China’s ancient culture. Meanwhile, he was the first to translate Lao Tse's works into Sanskrit. Indian scholars had a high opinion of Xuanzang, "In China, there is no such great translator, and also in the human cultural history, we can only say that Xuanzang is the first great translator."(Ye Lang, 2008) We can say that it was Xuanzang who motivated people to know the different parts of the world, their cultures and the peoples who live there. Then, some big countries such as America, China, and so on became a melting pot.(Gu Zhengkun, 2000) People have imperceptibly spent thousands of years in knowing each other.

With China’s entry into WTO and its open-up policy, cross-cultural exchanges are increasingly frequent between this country and others. A lot of foreign tourists come to visit China. While traveling, these foreigners are not satisfied with the translations of the scenic spots. Sometimes, they even feel confused. A lot of problems exist in the translation, such as misuse of words, poor expression of meaning and so on. All of these poor translations do harm to our country’s international image, and cause a lot of inconveniences for the foreign visitors. (Ma Zuyi, 2000). I am fond of tourism and being a free tourist like the others who are good at enjoying their wonderful lives. The love of tourism makes me feel the need to improve the translation. But every time when I have a trip, many unsuitable translations of the names of those scenic spots will embarrass me. Tourism is part of intercultural communication, so proper translation of the scenic spots become more and more important to our country.

Communication plays a significant role in the globalized society. In order to know each other better, people from all over the world have tried a verity of ways. Of course, translation is one of them. All translators have done their best to make the translated works more consistent with the needs of people.(Gu Jinming, 1997) From my perspective, they really have done a great job. And I want to retrospect the cause of their development. After a thorough evaluation, I choose a branch of translation—ellipsis in translation from English to Chinese, then I did the following jobs.

I put all my researches and other stuffs together, and then I found that it is a common case in English and Chinese which draws much academic interest. In 1976, Halliday and Hsan classified ellipsis into nominal, verbal and clausal ellipsis. This classification exerts great influence in academic circle. Thereafter, ellipsis in Chinese and English has been studied according to this theory, which is based on different layers of structure. This kind of study underlines differentiations and similarities of ellipsis in Chinese and English.

Another famous theory to explain ellipsis is Economy Principle. Economy Principle was put forward by Chomsky (1991,1993, and 1995) in his Generate Crammer. It maintains that language and linguistic study follow Economy Principle, which means using the least effort to express the most information. This principle just coincides with ellipsis in function.

In this thesis, I think that brevity is the most obvious and common function of ellipsis, especially in daily language. And in both English and Chinese, people advocate brevity. Shakespeare once remarked, “brevity is the soul of wit”, and in Chinese there are numerous idioms like “yan jian yi gai” (meaning compendious). However, apart from the function of brevity, ellipsis embodies other functions which are also pretty common in the two languages but less noticed.(Hua Xianfa,2002)These functions distribute in both English and Chinese unevenly and represent great colorfulness of language. Exploring other functions of ellipsis and searching for functional recreation in translation will be of much benefit to both English to Chinese and Chinese to English translation.

I found that when Chinese authors try to analyse ellipsis in English to Chinese translation, they always initially put articles in the list. They consider that it is a common phenomenon that Chinese always leave out personal articles. While it is obviously different in English that almost every sentence has a subject, we can see articles fluently. That is because when we translate from English to Chinese, personal articles can be omitted, even though sometimes it may appear once, it can also be omitted if necessary. Furthermore, if the objects can be seen obviously, personal articles should also be omitted. However, it never happens in English. From this point, it is not only allowable but also necessary when we translate personal articles which are objects in sentences into Chinese.

In my point of view, the development of society has in some way has deliberately promoted the way of people’s thinking, translation system has become more and more perfect, people from all over the world have enjoyed the convenience. However, we can not neglect that there are still some problems in this field in China, and we have less influential Chinese translators in the world. Therefore, we still have a long way to go in translation.

III. Feasibility Analysis

This academic paper is a feasible project and the reasons are as follows:

have great interests in the way of English-Chinese translation.

have already studied translation methods and have been familiar with the functions and applications of ellipsis .

have collected enough references both Chinese and Western on ellipsis in

translation and do a scrupulous study of the relationship between them.

have a carefully planned schedule and have worked out a detailed outline of this thesis.

have acquainted myself with the correct format, a clear and complete structure required by the academic paper, and my adequate English competence will enable me to write in fluent and precise English.

instructor is a qualified translator who is familiar with the subject I havechosen.

IV. Problems of the research and solutions

1. Problems

Despite the references I have collected and read, a thorough study of ellipsis in English-Chinese translation from the point of freely using still needs far more. What’s more, owing to the limited ways of getting references in Xinjiang, I will have to make full use of my present resources. Also, this is the first time I have ever written such a serious academic paper. I am therefore a learner and lack the needed training and experience.

2. Solutions

(1) I shall make full use of my already acquired references which come from books, magazines and the Internet as well.

(2) I shall value my own original thoughts and mainly rely on detailed analysis that I have read from the books which have closely idea with my purpose.

(3) When I have difficulties in the writing process, I shall consult my instructor and seek for help.

V. Necessary conditions

1. Our university and school of foreign languages have provided the basic study and research conditions and facilities, including books and journals in the library and reading rooms.

2. The Internet is another source of information and on the campus we have easy access to the Internet.

3. I have been assigned an instructor to guide me through the whole process of planning and writing.

VI. Outline

I. Introduction

A. A Brief Introduction of Ellipsis in Translation

B. What Should We Pay Attention to When Dealing with Ellipsis

C. The Reason Why Ellipsis Is So Widely Used in Translation

1. Chinese Expressions Are Much Briefer Than That of English

2. English Grammar Is Wee-Knit and Complete in Sentence Structure

II. The Principles of Ellipsis

A. Omitted Words Must Be Useless And Unnecessary in the Translated Works

B. The Meaning of the Omitted Words Is Implied in the Test

C. Omitted Words Which Are Self-Evident

Ш. The Functions and Applications of Ellipsis

A. The Coherence of the Meaning of Expression

B. The Coincidence of the Manner of Expression

1. Ellipsis of Articles

a. Ellipsis of Definite Articles

b. Ellipsis of Indefinite Articles

2. Ellipsis of Prepositions

3. Ellipsis of Pronouns

a. Ellipsis of Personal and Impersonal Pronouns

b. Ellipsis of Indefinite Pronouns

c. Ellipsis of Relative Pronouns

4. Ellipsis of Conjunctions

a. Ellipsis of Coordinating Conjunctions

b. Ellipsis of Subordinate Conjunctions

5. Ellipsis of Rhetoric

a. Ellipsis of Repeated Words

b. Ellipsis of Synonyms

英语论文开题报告范文参考

下面是一篇由我为您整理的英语论文的开题报告范文，虽然不是特别好，但也反应了开题报告的格式和写法，有一定的.借鉴价值。

Function and Application of Descriptive Translation Studies

1 Introduction

The intention of this study is to explore possible advantages of Descriptive Translation Studies as in its application in translation practice and translation analysis.

Since early 20th century, translation studies gradually broke away from the marginal status within other related disciplines and established itself as an empirical science. From then on, schools of thought have kept coming out and each claims its legitimacy for existence. Among these schools is Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS).

DTS approaches translation from an empirical perspective. Translation is viewed to be a social activity having significant importance in the receiving culture and for the target community. Therefore, translation is dealt with beyond the linguistic realization and language comparison, and is incorporated in social and cultural context.

My attention was first directed to DTS by its peculiar characteristic of observation, description and explanation. The subject is whatever happens in translation practice, from the determination of prospective function of translation to the process of translator’s choice of strategies, brainstorming and the revision, to the final product making appearance in the target community.

The method of DTS is basically descriptive. The prescriptive tendency and the problem-solution pattern is abandoned. Translation phenomena are noted down. With accumulated data, some underlying truths about translation will come out which will prove to be instructive not only for theoretical probe but also for applied translation practice. I will apply this descriptive method in the case study of this thesis.

A convenient tool has been set up to conduct DTS. “Norm” is operative at every stage of description and explanation. Function, process and product and their relationship as well are skeletal structure of what constitute descriptive studies. Translation phenomena are accounted for with the help of norm.

The case taken in this thesis is the Chinese classic The Dream of Red Mansions. Two English versions translated respectively by Yang Hsien-yi and David Hawks are compared and observations are made in regard to their translation approaches.

In this regard, my observations are limited to several aspects, I hope in-depth observation and explanation will done in light of DTS.

2 Outline

Development and major concepts of DTS

In this part I will describe Holms’ basic map of DTS and the relationship between function, process and product. I will also discuss some important concepts such as pseudo-translation, multiple translation, translationese, norm etc.

Methodolgy

I will in this part discuss the methodology of DTS before I apply the same to the case study in this thesis with emphasis to be placed on semiotic approach and the concept norm.

DTS in contrast to other theories

A contrast study will be conducted here with the objective to find the difference of DTS from other theories such as equivalence theory and the Chinese Xin Da Ya criteria. Some advantage will possibly be shown in this study.

Case study

In this part, translation of The Dream of Red Mansions (also translated as The Story of The Stone) will be under investigation in light of DTS. Translation samples to be quoted here will be selected at random.

Conclusion

Based on the above elaboration of DTS and the case study, possible conclusion will be on the advantage of DTS in specific study of translation. Suggestions on further research efforts will be made also.

(Note: While the topic will remain the same, the above arrangement of contents is subject to change in the process of writing.)

附录1- 引文范例

“It is therefore pointless to try to make TC more scientific than is sensible in view of its complex subject-matter and available methods. Translating is a mental, multi-factorial activity which cannot exhaustively be investigated within a linguistic framework ignoring the person of the translator.”(Wilss, 1982: 217)

“噢，这就是恐水病吧?你们贵族圈子怎么流行起这种病来啦?真够呛的!费芬斯小姐，您喝点茶大概没关系吧!”’(张南峰，1990：59-60)

附录2- 参考文献范例

Wilss, Wolfram. The Science of Translation – Problems and Methods. Gunter Narr Verlag Tubingen,1982.

Newmark, Peter. A Textbook of Translation. New York: Prentice Hall, 1988.

Delabastita, Dirk. Translating Puns: A false Opposition in Translation Studies. Target, 1991(3:2):137-152.