从英译汉的实例分析看英汉思维方式差异
来源：岁月联盟
时间：2010-10-06
[Key Words] comparison; mode of thought; languages; English; Chinese
[摘 要] 根源于不同的文化渊源,英汉两族人民形成了他们各自的思维模式。这种思维模式的差异深深地影响了他们的各种生活方式, 尤其体现在语言上。思维模式是一个非常复杂抽象的概念,与密切相关。在这篇中我将主要阐释英民族的个体性思维和汉民族的整体性思维,因为它们之间的差异是思维模式中最突出的一面。英民族偏爱个体性思维,这使他们在认识世界时惯于将认知对象划分为小个体。然而,汉民族偏爱整体性思维,将世界看成一个整体。语言深刻地反映了思维模式的这种差异,因此就形成了的形合特征和汉语的意合特征。这篇论文侧重阐述语言中的形合和意合特征以及它们各种的形成原因----思维模式。英语民族的人民惯于利用形合标志连接句子成分,而汉民族却常常应用自身的直觉来体会世界。这篇论文将通过英译汉的翻译和统计数据来证实此观点。
[关 键 词] 英汉思维；对比；语言；英语；汉语
1. Introduction
The famous Whorf hypothesis thinks that languages have determining effects on modes of thought, which is formed relatively to languages and different languages will bring on different thinking patterns.[1]p35 Liu Miqing(刘宓庆) holds the opinion that modes of thought has controlled over languages [2]p35, and languages are the concrete manifestation of modes of thought. In my opinion, modes of thought decide the use of languages, and the reasons how languages are influenced by modes of thought should be examined from their relationship.
Modes of thought and languages influence and reflect each other closely. “Thinking patterns, thought characteristics and thinking styles are the philosophical mechanism of language production. Language actually attaches closely to the thought that is the profound mechanism.”[3] p166 Thinking patterns are the deep-rooted mechanism of the forming and developing of languages, and on the other hand languages help to promote the forming and developing of modes of thought. Language is the carrier of thinking and abstraction of reality, and mode of thought is the conscious activity in which people’s minds reflect and realize the objective reality.[4]p36 The differences between thinking patterns are the main reasons that result in the differences of language forms, so I think the study of the features, the transition and the relationship of languages should be started with the study of modes of thought which connect closely with the cultures and the languages. English-Chinese modes of thought have their own characteristics in thinking core, thinking pattern, cognition habits and thinking principles. As a tool for communication the basic attribute of English and Chinese are the same, so there are many similarities during the description and thinking with the two languages. But because of the influence of their own cultures, there are many differences between the two languages, and based on different comparison foundation there are many different kinds of results.
In this paper English-Chinese translation will be given and analyzed in details in order to understand the differences of the modes of thought between English and Chinese through their language manifestations. Statistics will be given to explain the differences of English and Chinese, which is the foundation for my analyzing of the differences of their own thinking patterns. As we know, there are many differences between the two languages, such as hypotaxis and parataxis, passive and active, static and dynamic, imperson and person. But in this passage, I will only mainly discuss from one point which is hypotaxis and parataxis. As Nida states in his book that study from linguistics, the most important different characteristic between Chinese and English is the difference of parataxis and hypotaxis.[5]P13 LiuMiqing holds the opinion that hypotaxis and parataxis are the “unique characteristic” for English and Chinese.[6]P13 The comparison of the difference will be described through statistical description and the deep-rooted reasons of thinking patterns will also be given to explain the forming of the language difference.
2. The example of the English to Chinese translation
2.1 English original
We know that clean energy technologies have great appeal to the developing world beyond the value we in the developed world attach to their capacity to limit climate change. Africa, for example, barely accounts for 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It’s not surprising then that our partners on this continent are more concerned with the development potential of sustainable energy. The price volatility of Africa’s hydrocarbon imports has played havoc with each state’s economy over recent decades and stymied progress. REEEP (Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership)’s support for proven renewable technologies, such as solar water heating and co-generation ---which of course rely on local products which don’t need to be imported---will greatly increase the reliability of Africa’s energy supply, and thereby help spur development.
The creating of a more even distribution of energy supply will, in turn, fuel new employment and commercial opportunities, particularly in rural areas. Renewable sources then will help to address the social inequality across the globe that we see in the currently marked and unacceptable difference between rich and poor nations in terms of access to and use of energy supplies. [7]P269
2.2 The Chinese translation
清洁性能源技术因为能够缓解气候变化而受到我们发达国家的青睐。同样，这种技术对家也有巨大的吸引力，但其价值却不止于此。例如，非洲的温室效应排放量勉强占世界总量的1%。因此，我们在本大陆的伙伴更加关注可持续性能源的发展潜能也就不足为奇了。最近几十年来非洲烃进口价格的不稳定性已经给各国造成了巨大破坏并妨碍了发展。再生性能源与能源效率合作组织（PEEEP）对已证实的再生性能源技术的资助，如太阳能热水器和热电联产技术—当然，这只依赖本地产品，不必进口—将大大增加非洲能源供应的可靠性，从而促进发展。
反过来，建立更均衡的能源供应可以提供新的就业和商业机会，尤其是在地区。在能源供应的选择与使用方面，我们看到富国与贫国之间存在着今人难以接受的显著差距，再生性能源将有助于消除这种全球性的社会不公。[8]P274-275
3. The main aspect of the differences ---hypotaxis and parataxis
Resulted from different thinking patterns there are so many different characteristics between English and Chinese. The complete study of the language characteristics surely will require many effects and time, so based on my own limited knowledge, I will only try to explain the characteristics of hypotaxis and parataxis and their forming results.
In my own opinion the characteristics of hypotaxis and parataxis are the most important differences, and the analysis of them can let us better understand the two languages and their own modes of thought.
3.1 The definitions of the two concepts
The differences of hypotaxis and parataxis should be examined based on the theory, and next I will first give a description of their concepts and combine them to the English-Chinese translation analyzing some sentences in details.
3.1.1 The definition of hypotaxis
The so called hypotaxis refers to the case that the component parts of a sentence are joined together by using definite connectives, such as preposition, relative pronouns, conjunction, affixes, etc.[9]P35
3.1.2 The definition of parataxis
Parataxis means that the component parts of the sentence are placed in a definite order to indicate their relationship without any connectives in between. So, the syntactic structure appears to be somewhat loose, but rather concise and expressive. [10]P36
3.2 Example
(1) English original:
We know that clean energy technologies have great appeal to the developing world beyond the value we in the developed world attach to their capacity to limit climate change.
Chinese version:
清洁性能源技术因为能够缓解气候变化而受到我们发达国家的青睐。同样，这种技术对发展中国家也有巨大的吸引力，但其价值却不止于此。
3.3 The analysis based on this example
In this example the words in the italics are the markers of hypotaxis. From the sentences we can see that there are nine hypotactic markers in the English version, while in its Chinese version only five markers.
The connective “that”is the marker of objective clause to show that the clause after “that” is what “We know”, but in its Chinese version the phrase “We know that” is not translated literally. In English the phrase “We know that” is the hypotactic marker to show that what stated later is the common knowledge for us, and what the author want to say should be marked in the language forms. While in Chinese the phrase is not needed to be translated because Chinese is a kind of paratactic language and it places the emphasis on logical procedure, function and meaning. In Chinese sense overweigh structure, so the readers can understand the meanings by themselves.
Also there are four propositions in the English original version, which show the relationship between the phrases before and after these propositions. While in Chinese version there are only one proposition, which is “对”.
What is more, the “-ing” and “-ed” are also the hypotactic markers, which show the different degree of the states making the relationship between the components very clear, while in Chinese there is not any this kind of affixes to show their relationship.
3.4 The description of the two concepts in more details
Jia Dejiang (贾德江) states in his book of English-Chinese comparative study and translation that the cohesive ties including three kinds, which are: relative words and conjunctions, prepositions and other means to show the changing of the language forms. [10]p78
And next I will give a simple classification to the hypotactic markers in order to better analyze the translation.
3.4.1 The relative words and conjunction words
The relative words including relative pronoun, relative adverb, connective pronoun and connective adverb such as: who, whom, whose, that, which, what, when, where, why, how etc. They are used to connect principal subjective clause and attributive clause, subjective clause, objective clause and predicative clause.
The conjunction words include coordinative and subordinate conjunction such as: and, or, but, while, as, since, until, so…that…, unless, lest etc. which are used to connect words, phrases, and clause. When we are writing English sentences, these conjunction words are commonly used and cannot be neglected. But in Chinese these words are seldom used. [11] p102
(2) Example two:
English original:
It’s not surprising then that our partners on this continent are more concerned with the development potential of sustainable energy.
Chinese version:
因此，我们在本大陆的伙伴更加关注可持续性能源的发展潜能也就不足为奇了。
The English version belongs to the “It + be” sentence structure. According to the Cardiff Grammar by Huang Guowen(黄国文)and Fawcett, this kind of sentence structure is called “enhanced theme construction”.[12] p27
According to what is stated by Peng Xuanwei (彭宣维), there are three kinds of enhanced theme construction. “…there are three kinds of enhanced theme construction, which are experiential, evaluative and existential”. “… the so called experiential is the cleft sentences，which is called predicated themes by Halliday” [13]p27
So according to the theory above I think the phrase “It is” is not the thematic build-up.
Besides “it” is also a typical hypotactic marker in English, which stands for subjective clause. In English such kind of sentences is commonly used for their special functions. Such structure can avoid presenting all the important massage at the beginning of the passage, and it takes the function to make the sentence better understood.
The conjunction word “then” after “not surprising” is the second hypotactic marker in the sentence, which means “so” in the sentence. It is rightly translated to “因此” to show the close relationship between this sentence and the following ones. In Chinese the word“因此” is used to be the first word in the sentence ,which clearly predicate its relationship with the content above.
The word“that” is the third hypotactic marker that follows. “not surprising” is the identified, so the word “that” clearly marks that the content after it will be the object that the identifier refers to. As for the Chinese version though it is a kind of paratactic language, there are also many hypotactic markers in the first paragraph. I think the reason is that the passage selected is scientific exposition instead of essay. We know that in scientific exposition the logic is required strictly, for the authors should clearly state the relationship between the details.
Below I will select a short sentence from an essay to show the paratactic characteristics of Chinese.
(3) For example:
Chinese original:
不必说碧绿的菜畦，光滑的石井栏，高大的皂荚树，紫红的桑葚……
English version:
I need not speak of the green vegetable plots, the slippery stone coping round the well, the tall honey locust trees, or the purple mulberries.[14]p154
From the comparison between the Chinese sentence and its translation, we can also see the features of parataxis and hypotaxis. In Chinese, there are no conjunctions, and phases are connected by meanings.
For its English translation, with the use of hypotaxis, subject structures are decided to be the center of sentence pattern, so “I”, the subject, is added. So we may see from the example that for Chinese parallel structures their paratactic meaning can be translated into hypotactic connection according to the English habits.
From the comparison above we may see that English and Chinese form different sentence structures. When making sentences, Chinese people prefer the method of taxis, while western people prefer construction method. In English sentences, many conjunction words are used to link sentence components around the subject and predicate, so we may see the sentences are expended from the core words. From this we may see that Chinese is a paratactic language that contains many implied meanings between the lines. Only in simple sentences can the author express abundant meanings with artistic conceptions.
3.4.2 Preposition
The preposition includes simple ones such as: with, in, of etc. and the compound ones such as: inside, onto, upon, within etc. and phrasal preposition such as: according to, along with and apart from etc. According to the statistic by G.. Curme there are about 286 prepositions in English totally. Preposition is the most active word class in English language, which is the main means to connect the words, phrases and clauses. [15]102
R.Bander has pointed out that “…Over ninety percent of preposition usage involves these nine preposition: with, to, from, at, in, of, by, for and on.” The preposition is ineluctability in English language, but is seldom used in Chinese.[16]102
The number of preposition in this translation is as followings:
the first paragraph the second paragraph
NO. in English 20 12
NO. in Chinese 4 4
So from the table above we may see that there are totally 32 prepositions in English to show the slight relationships, which are more than that in Chinese.
But in the Chinese version there are only 8 prepositions, most of which are transferred from verbs. Gao Mingkai(高名凯) once pointed out that the Chinese people don’t like to use too many empty words without basic meanings, and they just dispose of the things and meanings in order to lead the readers to understand the connections between them. Most of the Chinese prepositions are “borrowed” from verbs, and strictly speaking, for the so-called European-oriented preposition indeed most of them are not the truly preposition.[17] p18 As a matter of fact Chinese prepositions are influenced by western languages and seem to have the characteristic of proposition. In Chinese some propositions are originally verbs such as “在”、“向”、“进”、“到”、“沿”、“拿” etc. These propositions are always omitted especially in spoken language.
(4) For example:
English original:
Renewable sources then will help to address the social inequality across the globe that we see in the currently marked and unacceptable difference between rich and poor nations in terms of access to and use of energy supplies.
Chinese version:
在能源供应的选择与使用方面，我们看到富国与贫国之间存在着今人难以接受的显著差距，再生性能源将有助于消除这种全球性的社会不公。
In the English original the prepositions are :to, across, in, between, in, of, to and of one by one, while for the Chinese version there are only three prepositions, which are 在……方面, 与……之间, 于. Prepositions -- the hypotactic markers which are more commonly used in English can be clearly seen from this comparison example.
But this doesn’t mean that the Chinese people speak without logical reasons, for without the proposition we can also understand the meaning implied in them. In the Chinese version without any conjunctions and many prepositions the author only simply connects three phrases without any hypotactic mark between them, but we can also fully understand what the author wants to express, for the reason that Chinese is a kind of paratactic language.
3.4.3 Other connective means
The third classification of so-called other connective means refers to morphological changing forms, such as the morphological changing forms of affix, gender, number, style, tense, voice, comparative form and personal pronoun. etc. [18]104
(5) For example:
English original:
The price volatility of Africa’s hydrocarbon imports has played havoc with each state’s economy over recent decades and stymied progress.
Chinese version:
最近几十年来非洲烃进口价格的不稳定性已经给各国造成了巨大破坏并妨碍了。
From the English original version we may see that “ ’s, s, -ed ” are the morphological changing forms, which are totally seven. While in the Chinese version, the only morphological changing forms are “的”and“了”. Chinese is a kind of language without too many morphological changing forms and the substitute words such as “it”and“there”. In a word, Chinese try to omit the unnecessary formal decorations emphasizing parataxis, and there are less hypotactic usages in Chinese than those in English.
3.5 The concluded statistical results
We can have a clear view of the great differences between English and Chinese from the comparison of the above translation, from which we may see that English is a kind of synthetic language. And the synthetic characteristic is to use the morphological changing forms to express the grammar relationships. The definition given by Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary is: A synthetic language is “characterized by frequent and systematic use of inflected forms to express grammatical relationships.”[19]p1 ( Here synthetic nearly means hypotaxis, which is my own interpretation. As for the details I will have to neglect for conciseness.)
From the Chinese translation version and the form above, we may see that the Chinese sentences seldom use the formal language connecting forms. Chinese places the attention on covert coherence.
4. The influence of thinking patterns on languages especially, hypotaxis and parataxis
From the comparisons I present above we may see that the differences between hypotaxis and parataxis have resulted in the different sentence structures and language expression forms. The forming of these differences, in my opinion must be traced back to the diversity of their thinking patterns, for they are closely connected with the way to recognize the world and to judge what is the most important.
4.1 The main different characteristics of English and Chinese
The differences between hypotaxis and parataxis have helped to form the two languages their own styles.
In the comparisons and theory stated above we have known that English uses many conjunctions, prepositions and other connective means to make links between phrases and words, because of which the language is more logical and better organized. So Mao Ronggui holds the opinion that English is a kind of language that is full of virile qualities, for the character of linear logic, organization and ration, which has led it to be “masculinity”.[20]p420
On the other hand, Chinese has got its own beauty, which doesn’t pay too much attention to logical description of the objective reality. Further more, it is not clinging with the criterion of the language structure. Chinese is a kind of language that shows the character of “femininity”, and the charming of it lies in its loose structure. [21]p420
4.2 The example used
(6) For example:
English original:
Renewable sources then will help to address the social inequality across the globe that we see in the currently marked and unacceptable difference between rich and poor nations in terms of access to and use of energy supplies.
Chinese version:
在能源供应的选择与使用方面，我们看到富国与贫国之间存在着今人难以接受的显著差距，再生性能源将有助于消除这种全球性的社会不公。
4.3 The difference of mode of thought
Regarding to this, the reasons must be examined from the different thinking patterns and their forming reasons.
The differences of philosophy and cultural background between English and Chinese have resulted in the rethinking of the Han nationality as an entirety thinking country and the English people individual characteristics of thinking.
4.3.1 Chinese thinking pattern ---- Entirety
The Chinese people are concerned more with their own bodies in expressing emotions, so intuition thinking is the main feature of their mode of thought, for which people study objects as a whole and emphasize entirety. Chinese philosophy is systematical naturalism. [22]p420
4.3.2 English thinking pattern ----Individualism
The English people link their own emotion to planetary influence and the natural elements, so they prefer analytical logic thinking. Target objects are subordinated into small parts in order to be scrutinized, which, of course, may lead them to place the components before the whole when they try to know something. [23]p420
4.4 Using the theory to analyze the English-Chinese translation
In the English original the sentence components are as the followings:
Subject Renewable sources
Predicate will help to address
Object the social inequality
The most commonly used word order for English is the strict SVO. English sentences take verbs as their cores, which are their center controlling all the relationships between the sentence components. Except the predicate verb all the verbs take the form of indefinite form to make difference from the predicate verb, and many prepositions and conjunctions are used to connect the phrases contained. For Chinese it usually makes good use of verbs together in one sentence to present the things one by one according to the time when the things happened. [24] P57
Structuralism linguistics promotes the theory of constituent incision, which means to separate the sentences to phrase unities. [25]p31 Moreover they prefer the constituent analysis, which means to connect all of the language components to others when they are analyzed. This kind of method will change the English to the recognized objects from structures.
From the English-Chinese comparison above we may see that besides the basic components ----subject, object and predicate there are also many other component attached closely, which I will list them bellow.
Small components:
across the globe
that we see
in the currently marked
and unacceptable difference
between rich and poor nations
in terms of access to
and use
of energy supplies.
According to the theory I stated above we may know that for English the target objects are subordinated into small parts in order to be scrutinized, which, of course, may lead them to place the components before the whole when they try to know something. So we may see that the author forms in their mind the details of their recognition and then connect them together using the language forms --- hypotactic markers. For the small components listed there are at less a hypotactic marker to link it with the components behind, so the description is more delicate.
The Chinese is intuitional, which is to say the Chinese sentences express the meanings by personal intuition and lead the readers to apperceive the deep meanings by logic analysis and the connecting context. Comparing with English, Chinese is more compact and faintness. In intuitional thinking people study objects as a whole and emphasize entirety. So when people are organizing or understanding language, they prefer to start from the entirety and get the whole feeling first.
In the Chinese version there are three phrases, which are placed directly together without clear conjunctions. The phrases “我们看到富国与贫国之间存在着今人难以接受的显著差距” and “再生性能源将有助于消除这种全球性的社会不公” are unique sentences in Chinese, but can be directly placed together, which is unacceptable in English. But though there is not any conjunction to link them it can also be clearly understood. So the readers could not judge the relationship from the language expression just like that in English. In order to understand the meanings implied in the phrases the readers must judge from a higher degree ----intuition. In a word, based on visualized mode of thought, Chinese tends to express abstract concept using paratactic forms that contains many implied meanings between the lines. Only in simple sentences can the author express abundant meanings with artistic conceptions.
As what I said above the strict SVO sentence structure is commonly used word order in English, while the sentence structure for Chinese is not so strictly required. Usually several SVO structures can be placed one by one to express some things in one sentence only. In my own opinion the SVO phrase is perfectly used to connect the small components together, and the detailed components are where the English people start their thinking. In this condition I would like to assimilate the predicate verb to the trunk of the grape that combines all the grapes together. While for the Chinese the whole intuition is formed at first and then the phrases are placed one by one without using too many connecting forms just like the bamboo joints which grow one by one.
Wang ying（王寅） the famous professor once said that some linguistics lively compare English structure as “grape structure”, for the main trunk of the grape is very short with many fruit attached on it to form very long sentences. Different from that, the Chinese sentences are shorter. The phrases are usually placed one by one to express the author’s meanings. Chinese information structures are just like the bamboo joints, with the joints connected one end by one end, so Chinese is called “bamboo structure”. [26]p2
5.Conclusion
From the comparison of the English-Chinese languages and their modes of thought, we may see that they are of one thing but two aspects. Resulted from different cultural background, the differences of their modes of thought have greatly determined their own languages. On the other hand, the languages also reflect and influenced their thinking patterns. So in order to learn English well and better master the two languages the thinking patterns should be studied deeply. In my own opinion, the study of languages from the degree of thinking pattern will greatly benefit the learners. For example, it will give the guide to the teaching of second language and the writing of composition. Of course mode of thought belongs to philosophy. So it is a very complicated concept, and to go deep into it will need a very long time and also requires many efforts.
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