基于语料库的中外农科期刊论文英文摘要对比研究
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摘要
如今,国际学术交流日趋频繁,重要学术期刊的论文都要求附有英文摘要,以简要说明文章的内容。好的英文摘要能迅速激发国外读者了解研究论文的兴趣。因此摘要翻译引起了国内外学者的广泛关注。目前有关摘要翻译的文章涉及各个专业领域,主要关注的是词,句子和语篇上的问题,以及在这些层面上的翻译策略和翻译原则。但是对于农业期刊学术论文摘要的系统的研究还不多见,而基于语料库的国内国际期刊论文摘要的对比研究也少之又少。随着描写翻译学的蓬勃发展,语料库研究的方法被不断的引入到翻译研究中,为翻译研究提供了新的视角。
基于上述研究背景,本文针对以下问题展开研究:农科论文摘要译文和非译文的不同表现在那些方面,(一个语言特点的出现频率和分布情况)以及是否存在显著性差异?译文的平均句长与原文相比是否存在长短差异?不同长短的句子的分布情况如何?本研究旨在使译者深刻认识中英语言的差异,从而创造出好的译作。
本研究采用彻尔斯曼(Chesterman)提出的翻译对比模式,即译文与非译文相似,作为基于语料库的对比研究的理论框架。选取国内农业基础学科最具权威的5种学术期刊中的30篇学术论文(各个期刊的前6篇)的英文摘要和以这些英文摘要的关键词为检索词得到的30篇国际期刊英文摘要,建成两个子语料库,并辅以Webcorp语料库来确证相关语料。
利用如上研究方法,通过语料库的对比研究发现:1)译文和非译文的不同表现在语言的各个层面。如在主题相同的情况下,非译文摘要的篇长要高于译文,而且译文倾向于达到字数标准200-400要求的下限,而非译文则倾向于超过规定字数小于250的上限;非译文比译文使用更多的缩略语;相比非译文介词“of”在译文中使用更加频繁;非译文的语步比译文的语步多;非译文比译文使用更多的语义衔接; 2)译文的平均句长要高于非译文。但两者都在结果语步讨论居多。
以上实证研究表明:译文和非译文差异的原因有:不同的国内国际学术环境和不同的刊物,不同的个人用词风格,以及译者相关专业知识的缺乏,英语语感的或缺,译者翻译目的不明确等。由此,本文认为摘要翻译首先要有明确的翻译目的,摘要翻译要有语步原则,语义衔接的手段要自然多样。实践表明相关专业的可比语料库是完善译文的最佳工具。
Nowadays, with the increasing communication among international academic field, all key journals require an attachment of English abstracts (EAs) to every research paper. Good abstracts are concise and could quickly arouse the interest of international researchers and introduce them to the main idea of the research content. Since EAs are so important, they gained worldwide attention. The previous research of English abstract translating was mainly conducted in lexical, syntactical and discourse level of various professional fields, which were usually concerned with translation strategies and rules. However, the systematic investigation into the agricultural journal paper abstracts has been seldom studied, especially studies base on the corpus made of international and domestic EAs. The fast development of descriptive translation study made it possible to introduce the methodology of corpus study to translation studies, gradually, which provides unique perspective for translation study.
Based on the research background above, this paper aims to investigate the following research questions: In what respects do translations tend to differ from non-translated texts? If there is a difference (for instance in the distribution or frequency of a given feature), is this difference indeed significant? Is the average sentence length of the translations shorter or longer than non-translated texts; the distribution of different sentence lengths about the same in the two groups of texts. The ultimate objective of this paper is to let the translators have an acute sense of the difference between two language systems, and give insight into translation practice.
To answer the research questions, the comparative model TT(translated text)≈NTT(non-translated text) which was put forward by Chesterman was used. It is an effective translation model, which provides a key theoretical framework for this study. Two subcorpora were constructed. The first 6 abstracts of the latest copy from 5 agricultural journals which are considered domestic authorities, totally 30 made up subcorpus TT; 30 EAs with the same key words as translated text were chosen from international agricultural journals made up subcorpus NTT. The study was conducted through the analysis of the two subcorpora. Webcorp is used as a supplementary tool to subcorpus NTT to confirm related item. Webcorp is an online corpus made by UK from which one can retrieve English language written by people from any country.
Through the study of comparable corpora, the major findings are: 1) The differences between TT and NTT represent in all levels. Under the same topic, the length of NTT is longer than TT. The average length of NTT goes over the maximum requirement of 250 ABSTRACT words by ISO. The average length of TT is close to the minimum requirement of 200 words by GB. TT uses fewer abbreviations than NTT; TT uses more“of,”less“moves”and semantic cohesion. 2) The average sentence length of TT is higher than NTT, but they both used more sentences for move 4-results.
The study results indicate the differences between translated abstracts and non-translated abstracts are caused by the following reasons: their different academic environment; from the perspective of translators, personal choice of words, stylistic preference, the inadequate knowledge, the lack of sense of English language and translation purpose of translators. Therefore, this paper recommends translators should have a clear translation purpose, adopt“5-move”structure in abstract translation and use various ways of semantic cohesion. Obviously, comparable corpus is an ideal tool to translators.
基于上述研究背景,本文针对以下问题展开研究:农科论文摘要译文和非译文的不同表现在那些方面,(一个语言特点的出现频率和分布情况)以及是否存在显著性差异?译文的平均句长与原文相比是否存在长短差异?不同长短的句子的分布情况如何?本研究旨在使译者深刻认识中英语言的差异,从而创造出好的译作。
本研究采用彻尔斯曼(Chesterman)提出的翻译对比模式,即译文与非译文相似,作为基于语料库的对比研究的理论框架。选取国内农业基础学科最具权威的5种学术期刊中的30篇学术论文(各个期刊的前6篇)的英文摘要和以这些英文摘要的关键词为检索词得到的30篇国际期刊英文摘要,建成两个子语料库,并辅以Webcorp语料库来确证相关语料。
利用如上研究方法,通过语料库的对比研究发现:1)译文和非译文的不同表现在语言的各个层面。如在主题相同的情况下,非译文摘要的篇长要高于译文,而且译文倾向于达到字数标准200-400要求的下限,而非译文则倾向于超过规定字数小于250的上限;非译文比译文使用更多的缩略语;相比非译文介词“of”在译文中使用更加频繁;非译文的语步比译文的语步多;非译文比译文使用更多的语义衔接; 2)译文的平均句长要高于非译文。但两者都在结果语步讨论居多。
以上实证研究表明:译文和非译文差异的原因有:不同的国内国际学术环境和不同的刊物,不同的个人用词风格,以及译者相关专业知识的缺乏,英语语感的或缺,译者翻译目的不明确等。由此,本文认为摘要翻译首先要有明确的翻译目的,摘要翻译要有语步原则,语义衔接的手段要自然多样。实践表明相关专业的可比语料库是完善译文的最佳工具。
Nowadays, with the increasing communication among international academic field, all key journals require an attachment of English abstracts (EAs) to every research paper. Good abstracts are concise and could quickly arouse the interest of international researchers and introduce them to the main idea of the research content. Since EAs are so important, they gained worldwide attention. The previous research of English abstract translating was mainly conducted in lexical, syntactical and discourse level of various professional fields, which were usually concerned with translation strategies and rules. However, the systematic investigation into the agricultural journal paper abstracts has been seldom studied, especially studies base on the corpus made of international and domestic EAs. The fast development of descriptive translation study made it possible to introduce the methodology of corpus study to translation studies, gradually, which provides unique perspective for translation study.
Based on the research background above, this paper aims to investigate the following research questions: In what respects do translations tend to differ from non-translated texts? If there is a difference (for instance in the distribution or frequency of a given feature), is this difference indeed significant? Is the average sentence length of the translations shorter or longer than non-translated texts; the distribution of different sentence lengths about the same in the two groups of texts. The ultimate objective of this paper is to let the translators have an acute sense of the difference between two language systems, and give insight into translation practice.
To answer the research questions, the comparative model TT(translated text)≈NTT(non-translated text) which was put forward by Chesterman was used. It is an effective translation model, which provides a key theoretical framework for this study. Two subcorpora were constructed. The first 6 abstracts of the latest copy from 5 agricultural journals which are considered domestic authorities, totally 30 made up subcorpus TT; 30 EAs with the same key words as translated text were chosen from international agricultural journals made up subcorpus NTT. The study was conducted through the analysis of the two subcorpora. Webcorp is used as a supplementary tool to subcorpus NTT to confirm related item. Webcorp is an online corpus made by UK from which one can retrieve English language written by people from any country.
Through the study of comparable corpora, the major findings are: 1) The differences between TT and NTT represent in all levels. Under the same topic, the length of NTT is longer than TT. The average length of NTT goes over the maximum requirement of 250 ABSTRACT words by ISO. The average length of TT is close to the minimum requirement of 200 words by GB. TT uses fewer abbreviations than NTT; TT uses more“of,”less“moves”and semantic cohesion. 2) The average sentence length of TT is higher than NTT, but they both used more sentences for move 4-results.
The study results indicate the differences between translated abstracts and non-translated abstracts are caused by the following reasons: their different academic environment; from the perspective of translators, personal choice of words, stylistic preference, the inadequate knowledge, the lack of sense of English language and translation purpose of translators. Therefore, this paper recommends translators should have a clear translation purpose, adopt“5-move”structure in abstract translation and use various ways of semantic cohesion. Obviously, comparable corpus is an ideal tool to translators.
引文
Baker M, 1993.“Corpus Linguistics and Translation Studies: Implications and Applications.”In Text and Technology: In Honor of John Sinclair, by G.Francis & E.Tognini-Bonellli M.Bake . Amsterdam Philadelphia: John Benjamin, pp. 233-250.
Baker M. 1996. Corpus-based translation studies: the challenges that lie ahead. In H. Somers (ed.). Terminology, LSP and Translation: Studies in Language Engineering, in Honour of Juan C. Sager. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Bhatia. 1993. Analysing genre– Language use in professional settings, Longman, London
Bayley L, Eldredge J. 2003. The structured abstract: an essential tool for researchers. http: //research. mlanet. org/ structured_ abstract. html [2010-11-2]
Chesterman A. 1998. Contrastive Functional Analysis. Amsterdam:John Benjamin’s Publishing Company Feak C, Swales J. 2006. Journal Article Abstracts. http: //turkey. usembassy. gov/ uploads/ images/ WX6duzqT06rI9geYcx3UrA/ FeakAbstracts_and_the_Writing_of_Abs [2010-10-01]
Brown G & Yule G. 2000 Discourse Analysis[M].北京:外语教学与研究出版:1
Halliday & Hasan. Cohesion in English [M].北京:外语教学与研究出版
Hartley J. 2004 Current findings from research on struc-tured abstracts [外文期刊] (03) Hyland K. 2001. Humble servants of the discipline--Self-mention in research articles. English for Specific Purposes, (20): 207-226.
Ines-A, Busch-Lauder. 1995. Abstracts in German medical journals: a linguistic analysis [J].Information Processing & Management,(5):769-776
Jin Guangsa. 2008. The Comparable Corpus-Based Chinese-English Translation: A Case Study of City Introduction. http://accurapid.com/Journal/46corpus.htm [2010-10-01]
Kennedy G. 2000. An Introduction to Corpus Linguistics.北京:外语教学与研究出版社.
Klaudy Kinga. 1998. "Explicitation." In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, by M.Baker (Ed.). London & New York: Routledge, 80-84.
Melander B, Swales J, Fredrickson K. 1997 .Journal abstracts from three academic fields in the United States and Sweden: national or disciplinary proclivities[A].In Duszak A.(ed.),Intellectual Styles and Cross-cultural Communication[C]. Berlin:Mouton De Gruyter,
Nord Christiane. 2001. Translation as a Purposeful Activity—Functionalist Approaches Explained [M]. Shanghai:Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press:
Nwogu K. 1997. The medical research paper: structure and functions [ J ]. English for Specific Purposes, (2): 119 - 138.
Olohan M. 2004. Introducing Corpora in Translation Studies[M]. London and New York: Routledge Pinkham Joan. 2000. The Translator’s Guide to Chinglish[M].北京:外语教学与研究出版社. 1-143
Reiss K,Vermeer H. 1984 Groundwork for a General Theory of Translation[M].Tubingen,Niemeyer:101. Salager-Meyer. 1992.Text-type and Move Analysis Study of Verb Tense and Modality Distribution in Medical English Abstracts[J]. English for Specific Purposes, (11):93-113
Santos M B 1996. The textual organization of research paper abstracts in applied linguistics [ J ]. Text, (4): 481-499
Swales J M. 1990. Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Toury Gideon. 1995. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Translation Library.
Williams J, Chesterman A. The Map: A Beginner’s Guide to Doing Research in Translation Studies [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2004.
邓小莉. 2004.语义翻译与交际翻译看科技论文摘要的汉译英[D].[硕士学位论文].重庆:重庆大学
方丽青,吴伟根. 1990.林业科技论文摘要汉译英误译例析[J].浙江林学院学报.(3): 35
何瑞清. 2004.中外科技期刊英文摘要比较_语态分布和_头重脚轻_句的使用频率[ J ].上海科技翻译,(1):16-18
何瑞清. 2008.中英文摘要一定要一致吗_谈摘要变译[ J ].外语艺术教育研究,(1): 3-7
侯广旭,秦嘉. 2009.利用语料库方法认识农业英语的特点.考试周刊[J]. (40): 132-133
侯雪英. 2006.借鉴语篇分析发探讨学术期刊摘要翻译[D]. [硕士学位论文].广州:广东外语外贸大学
胡志清. 2007.基于语料库的中外英语科技期刊论文语篇建构对比研究[D]. [博士学位论文].武汉:华中科技大学
黄国文. 1987.语篇分析概要[M].湖南:湖南教育出版社:90
黄忠廉. 2006.翻译研究的三个充分----翻译研究方法论思考.外语研究[J], (5): 58-64
姜秋霞,杨平. 2005.翻译研究实证方法评析-翻译学方法论之二[J ].中国翻译.(1): 24
李长栓. 2004.非文学翻译理论与实践[M].北京:中国对外翻译出版公司:153
李小祥,李喜安,郑书彦,张惠霞. 2006试论水土保持科技论文摘要的英译.水土保持研究[J]. (4): 268-270
林国栋,蒋元霖. 2003.农科学术论文英文摘要中常见近义词剖析[ J ].编辑学报.(6)424-425:
林克难.2001.翻译研究:从规范走向描写[J].中国翻译. (6):
林伟,杨玉晨. 2007.英语语篇分析[M].上海:上海复旦大学出版社: 78-116
马金龙.2001.试论摘要的写作与翻译标准化[J ].石油工业技术监督,(10) : 26-28.
石雷. 2008.法学论文摘要翻译――-以语篇为视角[D]. [硕士学位论文].成都:西南政法大学
时亚丽. 1989.科技论文英文摘要写作浅谈[J].西北大学学报. (3):33
滕真如,谭万成. 2004.英文摘要的时态、语态问题中国科技翻译[J], (1): 5-6
吴伟根. 1991.科技论文摘要汉译英探讨[J].浙江林学院学报,(1):35
杨园园. 2009.从主述位角度看汉英语篇对比[D]. [硕士学位论文].重庆:重庆大学
尹富林,胡元江2010.基于语料库的英汉科技语篇衔接机制比较与翻译[J].外语研究. (3): 87-92
于建平. 1999.科技论文英文摘要的写作与翻译剖析[J ].中国翻译,(5): 33
张春芳. 2009.摘要撰写标准新解.标准科学[J]: (5): 59
赵宏展. 2007.小型翻译语料库的DIY[J].中国科技翻译, (2):31-35
Baker M. 1996. Corpus-based translation studies: the challenges that lie ahead. In H. Somers (ed.). Terminology, LSP and Translation: Studies in Language Engineering, in Honour of Juan C. Sager. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Bhatia. 1993. Analysing genre– Language use in professional settings, Longman, London
Bayley L, Eldredge J. 2003. The structured abstract: an essential tool for researchers. http: //research. mlanet. org/ structured_ abstract. html [2010-11-2]
Chesterman A. 1998. Contrastive Functional Analysis. Amsterdam:John Benjamin’s Publishing Company Feak C, Swales J. 2006. Journal Article Abstracts. http: //turkey. usembassy. gov/ uploads/ images/ WX6duzqT06rI9geYcx3UrA/ FeakAbstracts_and_the_Writing_of_Abs [2010-10-01]
Brown G & Yule G. 2000 Discourse Analysis[M].北京:外语教学与研究出版:1
Halliday & Hasan. Cohesion in English [M].北京:外语教学与研究出版
Hartley J. 2004 Current findings from research on struc-tured abstracts [外文期刊] (03) Hyland K. 2001. Humble servants of the discipline--Self-mention in research articles. English for Specific Purposes, (20): 207-226.
Ines-A, Busch-Lauder. 1995. Abstracts in German medical journals: a linguistic analysis [J].Information Processing & Management,(5):769-776
Jin Guangsa. 2008. The Comparable Corpus-Based Chinese-English Translation: A Case Study of City Introduction. http://accurapid.com/Journal/46corpus.htm [2010-10-01]
Kennedy G. 2000. An Introduction to Corpus Linguistics.北京:外语教学与研究出版社.
Klaudy Kinga. 1998. "Explicitation." In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, by M.Baker (Ed.). London & New York: Routledge, 80-84.
Melander B, Swales J, Fredrickson K. 1997 .Journal abstracts from three academic fields in the United States and Sweden: national or disciplinary proclivities[A].In Duszak A.(ed.),Intellectual Styles and Cross-cultural Communication[C]. Berlin:Mouton De Gruyter,
Nord Christiane. 2001. Translation as a Purposeful Activity—Functionalist Approaches Explained [M]. Shanghai:Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press:
Nwogu K. 1997. The medical research paper: structure and functions [ J ]. English for Specific Purposes, (2): 119 - 138.
Olohan M. 2004. Introducing Corpora in Translation Studies[M]. London and New York: Routledge Pinkham Joan. 2000. The Translator’s Guide to Chinglish[M].北京:外语教学与研究出版社. 1-143
Reiss K,Vermeer H. 1984 Groundwork for a General Theory of Translation[M].Tubingen,Niemeyer:101. Salager-Meyer. 1992.Text-type and Move Analysis Study of Verb Tense and Modality Distribution in Medical English Abstracts[J]. English for Specific Purposes, (11):93-113
Santos M B 1996. The textual organization of research paper abstracts in applied linguistics [ J ]. Text, (4): 481-499
Swales J M. 1990. Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Toury Gideon. 1995. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Translation Library.
Williams J, Chesterman A. The Map: A Beginner’s Guide to Doing Research in Translation Studies [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2004.
邓小莉. 2004.语义翻译与交际翻译看科技论文摘要的汉译英[D].[硕士学位论文].重庆:重庆大学
方丽青,吴伟根. 1990.林业科技论文摘要汉译英误译例析[J].浙江林学院学报.(3): 35
何瑞清. 2004.中外科技期刊英文摘要比较_语态分布和_头重脚轻_句的使用频率[ J ].上海科技翻译,(1):16-18
何瑞清. 2008.中英文摘要一定要一致吗_谈摘要变译[ J ].外语艺术教育研究,(1): 3-7
侯广旭,秦嘉. 2009.利用语料库方法认识农业英语的特点.考试周刊[J]. (40): 132-133
侯雪英. 2006.借鉴语篇分析发探讨学术期刊摘要翻译[D]. [硕士学位论文].广州:广东外语外贸大学
胡志清. 2007.基于语料库的中外英语科技期刊论文语篇建构对比研究[D]. [博士学位论文].武汉:华中科技大学
黄国文. 1987.语篇分析概要[M].湖南:湖南教育出版社:90
黄忠廉. 2006.翻译研究的三个充分----翻译研究方法论思考.外语研究[J], (5): 58-64
姜秋霞,杨平. 2005.翻译研究实证方法评析-翻译学方法论之二[J ].中国翻译.(1): 24
李长栓. 2004.非文学翻译理论与实践[M].北京:中国对外翻译出版公司:153
李小祥,李喜安,郑书彦,张惠霞. 2006试论水土保持科技论文摘要的英译.水土保持研究[J]. (4): 268-270
林国栋,蒋元霖. 2003.农科学术论文英文摘要中常见近义词剖析[ J ].编辑学报.(6)424-425:
林克难.2001.翻译研究:从规范走向描写[J].中国翻译. (6):
林伟,杨玉晨. 2007.英语语篇分析[M].上海:上海复旦大学出版社: 78-116
马金龙.2001.试论摘要的写作与翻译标准化[J ].石油工业技术监督,(10) : 26-28.
石雷. 2008.法学论文摘要翻译――-以语篇为视角[D]. [硕士学位论文].成都:西南政法大学
时亚丽. 1989.科技论文英文摘要写作浅谈[J].西北大学学报. (3):33
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