On Business Translation Compensation.doc

毕业论文（设计）On Business Translation Compensation1. Introduction12. Problems aroused by different cultural backgrounds22.1 Definition of culture32.2The zero of equivalent word32.3 Cultural difference and business translation42.4 Interpretation of cultural difference in business translation53. Translation93.1 Theory of translation93.2 Definition of translation93.3 Principle of translation104. Business translation compensation114.1 Outward compensation124.2 Inward compensation144.3 Naturalization175. Conclusion19References201. IntroductionSociolinguistics and Ethnology study shows that language is a kind of culture activity, a cultural mirror, which reflects all kinds of meanings of culture; however, Culture is a dynamic, multidimensional, complex, and all-pervasive phenomenon. It is clear that there is no shortage in existence of definitions of this concept. But we should also keep in mind that the key part of culture at the base of the iceberg that is deeply rooted in a nations tradition and ideology resisting to any changes. Its this kind of relative stability of the core aspect of culture that makes each culture unique, and that makes it possible to discuss the varieties of culture. Different value orientations exert great impact on communication.Cultural differences are absolutely and universally existed. Any contacts among different cultures need to overcome the foreign countries cultural obstacle to accomplish the purpose of communication. As we all known, English has become the best communicational media of the international business. To be the global business language, English has a character for its variety and mutability, which lead to English language existing in many forms and varieties with different cultural backgrounds. In the other words, English grows up with the contact of the other languages, which becomes a kind of mixed language and rapidly evolutes constantly to satisfy the needs of culture and communication. Therefore, the international business translators want to fully understand the differences of their own culture and foreign cultures, as well as the English semantic information and cultural informations differences in different cultural background, they try their best to make cultural information reach information equivalence as far as possible. Aim at these differences; we usually have to do some translation compensation while doing translation.2. Problems aroused by different cultural backgroundsOnce, an American was visiting the home of a Chinese. as the visitor saw the hosts wife, he said, “your wife is very beautiful.” The host smiled and said, “Where? Where?-which caused the Americans surprise, but still he answer: “Eyes, hair, nose.”an answer that the host found a bit puzzling. The surprising was caused by different cultures. “ Where? Where? Meaning “ 哪里！哪里！” inChinese is of humble saying. But the American understood it as “Which parts of the body are beautiful?” So, the reason for both sides misunderstandings was differences in customs and habits. Each was expressing and understanding what the other said according to his or her culture.2.1 Definition of cultureThe word “CULTURE” originates from German “kulture”, meaning the reclamation of the land and the cultivation of the plants. Later it means the training of peoples body and spirit, especially the training of the ability of arts and moral. Since the founder of cultural anthropology, the British scholar E.B.Tylor, gave a definition of culture in 1871. In his opinion, culture is a complex integrity, which includes knowledge, belief, art, moral, law, custom and any other ability and habit which people obtain as the member of the society. Other scholars have studied the concept from different angles. Nowadays, when we talk about culture, we usually definite it in two ways. In narrow sense, culture means intellectual and conceptual culture, which in a broad material and spiritual products, ways of thinking, and so on.2.2The zero of equivalent wordThe zero of equivalent word, means the phrase plants a root in particular cultural background reflecting particular cultural contents. As for person of non- native language speakers, because of the concept, person, object expressed by these phrases is in this clan culture nonentity, their concepts meaning is unfamiliar for native speakers, often they let native speakers confused. Their concept lexicalized in one language does not have a corresponding lexical unit in another language and thus presents a translation difficulty. This kind of phenomenon is called "the language lack an item"(lexical gaps) or "the vocabulary is empty to lack"(the zero of equivalent word).In order to reduce the nonequivalent phenomenon, in this thesis, translation compensation, the method of translation, is introduced to bridge the gaps in translation.2.3 Cultural difference and business translationCulture is very complex; it includes knowledge, belief, and rich traditional culture, the people of two nations receiving different educations, different religion beliefs and traditional customs. So there will be lots of cultural differences. These differences will also reflect to language.Language is a kind of culture and the most primary culture as well. However, the language is merely a part of culture, an aspect of culture, not the whole part. Language as well as the means of using the language cannot solely determine the nations custom and tradition. The development of culture can promote that of language, and vice versa. So it is said that language is the carrier of culture, and like a mirror, it reflects the characteristics of the nations culture, culture plays an important role in translation. Language exchange is not only the occasion of the exchange of languages, but the exchange of two kinds of cultures. Culture in Translation is the important factor that can not be ignored.Doing business is a kind of communication. While international communication is a kind of process of cross-cultural communication, different nations have different historical backgrounds, customs, traditions, cultural traditions, and, therefore, the translators who engaged in international business must take appropriate ways to strengthen the understanding and integration, and to master its own and exotic cultural differences, to strive to have these differences disappeared in the course of interpretation, and to find accurate words in the target language, meanwhile, the source words to be reproduced in the target language.With the world shrinking to one global village, economic cooperation of people from different cultural backgrounds becomes increasingly frequent. In order to enhance cultural understanding, overcome cultural conflict and strengthen business cooperation, business translation becomes very important.2.4 Interpretation of cultural difference in business translationBecause of the objective existence of the cultural difference, the thoughts of the people in native language social intercourse to be recognized as the obvious cultural information, but for the readers who come from other countries, they usually feel it beyond their comprehension. Therefore, in the cross-cultural social intercourse, the circumstance usually appeared like this: the inputted language signal can't activated the empty that should be activated, as a result it can't activate a more complete diagram type, or cant form a diagram type at all, even there is no basically related diagram type providing for use in the memory. Please look at the following example, and catch the keywords idea what is holy tax grail.1. Bushs decision to lay his partys holy tax grail on the table was not so much the product of an epiphany as it was incremental dawning that something must be done. (Gloria Borger)A questionnaire survey has been done on this question: “What is the holy tax grail?” The respondents were ten masters who came from Southwest Finance and Economics University, three of them were the masters of business English. Survey results are as follows: Answer Number不知道 1看不懂 1神圣的税收政策 3神圣的税收法规 2神圣的税收著作 0神圣的税收减让 2神圣的不增加税收的承诺 1The right answer is “神圣的不增加税收的承诺”, The rate of correct answer is 10 percent. The master who has done the right answer majors in west economics. The three Business English master answer were: “不知道”，“看不懂”和“神圣的税收政策”。From questionnaire survey, almost all of the readers didnt know the correct meaning of holy tax grail.There is a certain language difficulty, but not on thigh level, the test-receiver also means that the reason they can not work out of the answer wasn't because of language problem, however, at last, they can not catch the right answer after having seen quite a few times. Obviously, these readers are not in the original reader's scope belonging to the authors intention. The Chinese reader's does not understand this sentence, the key is that they dont know the cultural phrase (cultural terms)"holy grail" in the western culture, and can't take President Bush, his party, table, decision and holy grail into a diagram.“Holy grail” in the sentence means "圣杯"in Chinese, is a cup. According to the legend, this cup belongs to Crisp who used it to drink alcohol in "the dinner of end", afterwards, Crisp is nailed in the cross, his disciple once used this cup to receive Crisps blood. After that, this cup passed down to England and disappeared before long. As the legend goes, the Holy Grail has uncommon mysterious strength, so looking for Holy Grail is equal to pursue saint boon; The Holy Grail became the Middle Ages knights target to search for, at the time, it become a plot runs through the King Arthur's legend.Bush once made a promise that the government will never increase revenue from tax toward the votes while campaigning president, this was a sacred target that Bush pursued unremittingly in the tenure, “holy grail” means president Bushs promise that he will never increase the revenue from tax in this example, the parable association of thought is known by the women and children in the Christianity society; but while translating in Chinese language, it have to adopt transcription, translating imagery definitely. Therefore, that can be translated as follow: 布什决定将其共和党认为神圣的决不增加税收的承诺提到桌面上来，这项决定并非一时心血来潮，而是他逐渐意识到的，采取行动已是势在必行。With the increasing international communication in the world economy, translation will play a more and more important role in the international business. However, in the course of translating, translators have to deal with a very practical problem: how to effectively overcome various difficulties to make all the source texts translatable. Translation is a mutual transference of alien language between one language to other and sometimes there are cultural blanks in translation among different cultures. In order to overcoming this latent error, translators want to strengthen the research and study that toward the source language culture, raising an ability to identify the phrases which full of culture meaning, on the other hand, for the semantic deviation phenomenon in the article, translators can't dispose of it recklessly, or can in no way be subjective to guess or transliterate with blindness, they also want to build up a set of reasonable operation rules in technology. "The fundamental task of methodology of translation is how to take the advantages of the receiver language to have the original implication mood full expressed, and at the same time keep the translation readable, faithful to the original both in essence and in form.(周方珠，2002), In order to have this goal fully won, The translator bear responsibility for taking necessary and appropriate way to solve the problem-cultural gap.3. Translation3.1 Theory of translation Every translator makes use of translation theory consciously or unconsciously, as the translation theory is a guide and a rule to translation. In fact, the translation theory is the body of knowledge that we have and will be having about the process of translating. Translation theorys main concern is to determine appropriate translation methods for the widest possible range of texts and to evaluate the translation and a background for solving problem. Translators first task is to understand the text, often to analyze, or at least make some generalizations about his text. He selects an appropriate translation method, so it is the task of translation theory to suggest criteria and properties for the translators analysis. 3.2 Definition of translation Translation is the convert abilities between different language systems, and also a tool of international communication. The word “TRANSLATION” includes the oral translation and written translation, which means the messages were conveyed between different languages. (1) 把一种语言所表达的思维内容用另一种语言准确而完整地表达出来的语言活动。（张培基1983年）(2) A translation may be defined as a presentation of a text in a language other than that in which it was originally written. (Ian F. Finlay: Teach Yourself Books, translating, 1971) (3) Translating consists of reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning, and second in terms of styles.( Nida and Taber: The Theory and Practice of Translation, 1969) These expressions about the translation definition are different, but about the translation essential are correspond. That is, what you are really wanted to translation was the message, the translated text must be close to the source text, at the same time, the translated text must be natural and acceptable.3.3 Principle of translationAlthough the cultural differences constitute the obstacle to the translation, it should also abide by these principles and some other principles should also be paid attention to. First, faithfulness of translation is important in dealing with the problems in cultural differences. Strictly speaking, faithfulness is the generalization of the three principles of translation-faithfulness, expressiveness and closeness. True translation demands that the translators be faithful to the content, language and style of the original at the same time.Second, information equivalency and information transmissions are the most important principles in dealing with the problems in cultural differences. Because the source language may differ greatly from the target language due to the cultural difference, the efforts should be made to the information, the preciseness of the meaning of source words, and the nature of the grammatical form of receptor language. Translation works are inter carriers that transfer information from