英语情态动词的语义分析及翻译研究-以奥巴马就职演说为例_英语论文

Semantic Analysis of Modal Verbs in Obama’s Inaugural Address and its Chinese Translation

摘要

情态动词作为表达态度与语气的重要手段之一，不论在口语还是书面语中都有广泛应用。本文在Palmer和易仲良等人对英汉情态动词语义分析的基础上，基于美国总统奥巴马2013就职演说的文稿，探究英译汉文本中情态动词的语义特征和翻译难点，试图分析文本中英汉情态动词语义上存在的不对应及其给翻译带来的困难与挑战，并由此给出一些可行的翻译策略和方法。研究结论：一、在原文与英译汉文本中，英汉情态动词在语义上存在不对应；二、针对文中情态动词的语义对比分析，本文提出了4种翻译策略：句子结构的转换，情态值的转化，情态取向的转化，句子结构与语义的结合。总之，情态动词的翻译首先要忠实，在英汉情态动词不对应的情形下，我们可以采用隐性翻译策略使得英汉情态动词在翻译时达到动态平衡。

关键词：情态动词；语义分析；英译汉；翻译策略

Abstract

Modal verbs, as one of the important means of expressing modality, are widely used in both spoken and written languages. Based on the semantic analysis of the modal verbs of English and Chinese by Palmer and Prof. Yi Zhongliang, this paper attempts to conduct a research on the semantic classification and translation features of modal verbs in Obama’s 2013 Inaugural Address. Then we try to analyze the difficulties and challenges in translating English modal verbs into Chinese due to the non-corresponding semantics of those in English and Chinese texts, for which some feasible translation strategies and methods will be suggested. This paper intends to find out the corresponding or non-corresponding modal verbs’ examples in English and Chinese translation texts and carry on comparative analyses of the common modal verbs appearing in the original and the translation texts. Considering the fact that the English modal verbs may not always have its corresponding Chinese equivalents in the English to Chinese translation texts, four English to Chinese translation strategies of the modal verbs are discussed: transformation of the sentence pattern, change of the modal values, change of the modal orientation and integration of sentence pattern and semantics.  

Key words: modal verbs; semantic analysis; English to Chinese translation; translation strategies

Contents

1 Introduction.1

2 Literature review.2

3 Political speeches and the text under study.4

4 Semantic analyses of modal verbs in the text5

4.1 Halliday’s three modal values and its application5

4.2 Semantic analyses of English modal verbs in the speech.6

4.2.1 Positive grade modal verb CAN7

4.2.2 Inclining grade modal verb WILL.8

4.2.3 Necessitating grade modal verb MUST.9

4.3 Contrastive analyses of English and Chinese modal verbs10

5 E-C translation strategies of modal verbs.14

6 Conclusion15

References17

Appendix.18