A Contrastive Study Of The Social And Pragmatic Meanings Of English And Chinese Person Deixis And Its Application To C-E/E-C Translation

Person deixis can indicate a speaker's social status, position, and interpersonal relationship, etc. Numerous scholars have noticed the complexity of the person deixis in their conveyance of social and pragmatic meanings.The brilliant work of Brown and Gilman (1960) initiated the wave of the studies of person deixis. Adequate research has been done by numerous other scholars. Based on their researches, this thesis conducts a contrastive study of the social and pragmatic similarities and differences of the person deixis between English and Chinese. The results of the contrastive study are applied to E-C/C-E translation.The present thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter One is an introduction to the whole thesis, beginning with an introduction to the person deixis, and a literature review of related studies on person deixis in English and Chinese and ending in a statement of the aim and arrangement of the present thesis. Chapters Two and Three deal with the social and pragmatic meanings conveyed by the person deixis respectively in English and Chinese. On the basis of the analyses conducted in the previous two chapters, Chapter Four makes a contrastive study of the social and pragmatic meanings of the person deixis in English and Chinese and sums up the major similarities and differences between the two languages in this respect. Chapter Five deals exclusivelywith the application of the findings of the contrastive study to E-C/C-E translation. Chapter Six sums up the main ideas covered in the present thesis.The major similarities and differences concluded in the present study are summed up here as follows:As for the first person deixis, the plural forms in both English and Chinese have similar pragmatic meanings; an exclusive-of-addresser first person plural is used for the purpose of pragmatic empathy; in addition, a speaker tends to use a first person plural in self-reference for various pragmatic meanings such as uncertainty, modesty, objectivity, etc.. Apart from these similarities, differences also exist. With respect to the first person plural, a big difference lies in that Chinese has a $tii~\ vs.PQjf] contrast while English does not, "we" being the only item for the plural. Another difference is that a Chinese speaker of lower social class tends to use $tiU to refer to himself to show humbleness while in English "we" is used by a speaker, especially a royal member, to refer to himself to show power. And what's more, a first person plural in English can occasionally be used in reference to a third person singular, which use is absent in Chinese.When it comes to the 2nd person deixis, you and ifc exhibit similar properties in that both can be used as a vocative to express strong emotions. Besides, both you and ifc can be used to replace a first personsingular. The differences are described briefly as follows: you is only the item for an addressee or addressees regardless of age, social status, gender, etc. while Chinese has two different items for an addressee, {fc and M, the choice of one over the other illustrative of the social and pragmatic meanings in utterance. Chinese speakers sometimes use ifciH for jfc in an indirect criticism of an addressee. By contrast, this use is absent in English because English does not mark a singular vs plural contrast with you being the only one for both a singular and plural number.Finally, in terms of the 3rd personal deixis, a third person pronoun used for a speaker himself or a listener often gives rise to a special reading. However, there is a difference between English and Chinese in the frequency of using a third person pronoun for such special indications. Compared with Chinese, a third person pronoun is more frequently used in one's self-introduction or talk to children in English.A contrastive study of the similarities and differences between English and Chinese is followed by an application of the findings of the contrastive study to E-C/C-E translation. We conclude that in translating the person deixis we should keep in mind that a correct understanding and proper translation of personal pronouns cannot be achieved if context clues for the social and pragmatic meanings of the person deixis in a source language are not taken into consideration. At the same time adetailed discussion is made of E-C/C-E translation of the person deictic items which are expressive of social and pragmatic meanings.