天津外国语学院 翻译2004年考研真题
2004 A . Answer the following questions in English. You are encouraged to give an all -English answer but you may use Chinese in the bracket to explain the key terms only when you find it extremely difficult to accurately or fully express yourself. 1.The so-called “cultural turn” in the translation studies has attracted much attention from students and theorists of translation in China. Say anything you know about this new trend in translation studies and comment on this school of translation.(15%) 2. Xiao Qian (萧乾)in his article the Art of Translation (翻译的艺术) observes: “the need for adaptation of this nature (he is here referring to the translation of “sir” into “报告长官”) happens very often in translation of literary works and this is an essential part of the art of translation”. Do you agree with him or do you favor preserving foreignness in literary translation? Why? (You may cite other authors in fanyi xinlun as well to support your argument. )(15%) II.1 Translate the following passage into Chinese: (60%) I suppose there are studies that connect the ubiquitousness of takeout in Manhattan with the increase in two-job families or the supposed hatred of cooking by yuppies, some of whom are said to live in expensive apartments that have no kitchens. I have never act ually run across an independently confirmed case of yuppies living in an expensive apartment with no kitchen, although a friend from that generation told me that he once sought to use the oven belonging to someone with whom he’d become romantically involved and found that she was using it to store fashion magazines. It is also possible that the Manhattan restaurant industry simply came to realize that a city so compact that even prosperous families often do not own an automobile is an ideal place for developing a delivery business; literally thousands of customers live within a quick walk or a basketless bicycle ride from any restaurant. However it came about, it came gradually. When Abigail was born, in the late sixties, and her parents were thus sentenced for a while to a wearing but oddly pleasurable form of house arrest, the closest we got to takeout was for me to go to an accommodating Italian restaurant across the street and have them pack food in plastic containers that looked as if they were designed for some other purpose. (Here is the definition of some new words for your reference only. Do not translate: Ubiquitousness: the state of appearing , happening or done, etc. everywhere Yuppie; a young college-educated adult who is employed in a well-paying Profession and who lives and works in or near a big city) II.2 Translate the following passage into English (60%) 打电话给送水站，要一桶水。 半小时后，听到敲门声。打开防盗门，高个子的瘦男人肩上扛着满满的一桶水，客气地问，“你是不是刚刚要水的客人？” 回答的当儿，眼光向下，就看见了个头还不到男人腰际的小男孩儿，正仰着通红的小脸笑出来：“阿姨好!” 那是一个看起来大约只有5.6 岁的孩子，小脸上印着一边一块红红的颜色，那种非常乡土、一眼就能让人看出出身的颜色。 男人侧身进来，替我把空水桶搬下来，把满水桶安在饮水机上。孩子跟在他身边，一边看着男人忙碌，一边顺手把刚刚拆下来的塑料袋从地上捡起来，团成一团，钻在小小的手中，一团透明的塑料袋子马上覆盖了他的手----他还那么小的手啊。 也许是因为到了渴望做母亲的年龄，那一瞬间，我的心里充满了对小男孩儿的怜爱，忽然就想起小时候，当我不能完成一件事情，妈妈会很谅解地微笑着赶来帮忙，她总是说一句话：“三岁的小手不能系起五岁孩子的鞋带，宝贝儿你要慢慢来。”我鬼使神差地伸出手对孩子说：“把包装袋给阿姨，我替你扔掉。” 孩子咧开小嘴，一派天真：“不行啊 ，我爸说了，什么垃圾都不能留下给人家。” 她用双手握住那团废包装袋，仰着脸跟我说话。他太矮小了，仰着就好像要向后搞到过去。 这时候他父亲已经忙完了，歉意地笑笑，说：“这孩子不认生。跟阿姨再见。”孩子顺从地说了告别的话，跟父亲身后走出我的家。 偶然一次对邻居提起这对父子，邻居大妈忍不住多说了几句：“那孩子啊，可怜呢，懂事很多，他妈跟人跑了，扔下他和他爸。那时候孩子才
三岁。他爸给饭馆打工后来又到水站送水， 每天带着他，东家给一口饭，西家给一口菜，一转眼他也六岁了，能帮他爸干活了。”大妈说他们就住在楼对面的小平房里，孩子到了晚上，和吃烤羊肉串的人一起看电视。 2004 A . Answer the following questions in English. You are encouraged to give an all -English answer but you may use Chinese in the bracket to explain the key terms only when you find it extremely difficult to accurately or fully express yourself. 1.The so-called “cultural turn” in the translation studies has attracted much attention from students and theorists of translation in China. Say anything you know about this new trend in translation studies and comment on this school of translation.(15%) Answer 1. “Cultural turn” is a quite hot issue in recent translation studies. It has led to the point of view that translation can never be carried out without taking its wider situational and socio-cultural context into account. It has also revealed that translation is never innocent since its matter is discourse, which can be shaped and sculpted in various ways, depending on the subjectivity of the translator, the historical context and the interests weighing on the text. Most translation is sensitive to cultural as well as linguistic factors. Such sensitivity might take the form either of presenting TL recipients with a transparent text which informs them about elements of the source culture, or of finding target terms which may in some way be considered as culturally “equivalent” to the ST items they are translating. Thus a translator who takes “cultural turn” into consideration is simply recognizing that each language contains elements, which are derived from its culture (such as greetings, fixed expressions and realia), that every text is anchored in a specific culture, and that conventions of text production and reception vary form culture to culture. An awareness of such issue can at times make it more appropriate to think of translation as a process, which occurs between cultures rather than simply between languages. A translation involving “cultural turn” is one in which addition are made which cannot be directly derived from the original ST wording; these might take the form of ideas culturally foreign to ST, or even elements which are simply included to provide necessary background information. 2. Xiao Qian (萧乾)in his article the Art of Translation (翻译的艺术) observes: “the need for adaptation of this nature (he is here referring to the translation of “sir” into “报告长官”) happens very often in translation of literary works and this is an essential part of the art of translation”. Do you agree with him or do you favor preserving foreignness in literary translation? Why? (You may cite other authors in fanyi xinlun as well to support your argument. )(15%) Answer 2. Before getting down to the problem, I’d like to make clear two pairs of concepts: first, adaptation and alienation; second, localization and foreignization. The former pair emphasizes more strongly the formal and aesthetic aspects in translation, while the latter puts stress on the contents and ideas conveyed. Other than that, the two pairs are actually synonyms. Adaptation and localization refer to any TT in which a particularly free translation strategy has been adopted. The two terms also implies that considerable changes have been made in order to make the text more suitable for a specific audience or for a particular purpose behind the translation. However, the phenomenon had frequently been approached from a prescriptive point of view, and many comments have been pejorative. Some people think that an adaptation cannot be considered faithful. Others take a more flexible view of the subject and think that translation can be characterized by the relative proportion (or percentage) of adaptation. Alienation and foreignization refer to the techniques used in translation to deliberately break target conventions by retaining something of the foreignness of the original. In concrete terms such a strategy would entail not only a freedom form absolute obedience to target linguistic and textual constraints, but also where appropriate the selection of a non-fluent, opaque style and the deliberate inclusion of
SL realia or TL archaisms; the cumulative effect of such features would be to provide TL readers with an “alien reading experience”. However, since even the construction of the foreign depends on domestic cultural materials, some people think that foreignizing translations are equally partial as localizing translations in their interpretation of the foreign text, yet they tend to make explicit their partiality instead of concealing it. In my opinion, some texts should use the adaptation/localization approach and others may adopt the alienation/foreignization method, depending on the purpose of translation. If the translation is aimed to enable the TL readers to enjoy the same universal experience or feelings as the SL readers, then the adaptation approach is preferred. When the purpose of the translation is to introduce something new, be it ideas or ways of expression, then the alienation method is a better choice. Sometimes, alienation serves to prolong the process of appreciating the aesthetic beauty of the target text as long as it does not interfere with TL readers’ understanding of the basic meaning conveyed. To do this, the two seemingly opposing approaches have to be used in combination to complement and enhance each other. II.1 Translate the following passage into Chinese: (60%) I suppose there are studies that connect the ubiquitousness of takeout in Manhattan with the increase in two-job families or the supposed hatred of cooking by yuppies, some of whom are said to live in expensive apartments that have no kitchens. I have never actually run across an independently confirmed case of yuppies living in an expensive apartment with no kitchen, although a friend from that generation told me that he once sought to use the oven belonging to someone with whom he’d become romantically involved and found that she was using it to store fashion magazines. It is also possible that the Manhattan restaurant industry simply came to realize that a city so compact that even prosperous families often do not own an automobile is an ideal place for developing a delivery business; literally thousands of customers live within a quick walk or a basketless bicycle ride from any restaurant. However it came about, it came gradually. When Abigail was born, in the late sixties, and her parents were thus sentenced for a while to a wearing but oddly pleasurable form of house arrest, the closest we got to takeout was for me to go to an accommodating Italian restaurant across the street and have them pack food in plastic containers that looked as if they were designed for some other purpose. (Here is the definition of some new words for your reference only. Do not translate: Ubiquitousness: the state of appearing , happening or done, etc. everywhere Yuppie; a young college-educated adult who is employed in a well-paying Profession and who lives and works in or near a big city) 我想有些研究在探讨曼哈顿外卖的蓬勃发展时，把它和双职工家庭的增加或是和雅皮士所谓的厌恶自己做饭的情结联系起来。据说，有些雅皮士的高档公寓里没有厨房。我有个同属雅皮士一族的朋友，他告诉我，以前和一个女孩谈恋爱的时候，有一次他想用用她家的烤炉，却发现炉子装着时尚杂志。即便如此，我还从未碰到真有雅皮士住在不带厨房的高档公寓的例子。 也可能曼哈顿的餐饮业正好意识到，在这个拥挤的城市里，即便是有钱人家也不一定有自己的车，正是发展餐饮外送服务的理想之地。事实上，许多顾客住得离餐馆都不远。不论外卖是如何产生的，它都要经历一个逐渐发展的过程。我女儿阿比盖尔在六十年代未出世时，我和她妈妈因此不得不呆在家里照顾她一阵子，虽然很疲惫，但也非常快乐。离我们最近的外卖是马路对面一家不错的意大利餐馆，我让他们把吃的装在塑料袋里，好像是为了别的什么事情而准备的。 II.2 Translate the following passage into English (60%) 打电话给送水站，要一桶水。 半小时后，听到敲门声。打开防盗门，高个子的瘦男人肩上扛着满满的一桶水，客气地问，“你是不是刚刚要水的客人？” 回答的当儿，眼光向下，就看见了个头还不到男人腰际的小男孩儿，正仰着通红的小脸笑出来：“阿姨好!” 那是一个看起来大约只有5.6 岁的孩子，小脸上印着一边一块红红的颜色，那种
天津外国语学院 翻译2004年考研真题
