A Contrastive Analysis Of English And Chinese Demonstratives And Their Translation

Deixis is one of the basic subjects that have been much studied in Pragmatics.It mainly studies how to express the entities or ideas in context by using different language forms and how to understand discourse by analyzing context.Deixis is a common phenomenon in all human languages.There are language-specific means to indicate or refer to a certain element,making the discourse directly connected to a particular entity, space,time,etc.Generally speaking,deictic expressions can be divided into two types,i.e. proximal terms and distal terms.In speech communication,the choice of a demonstrative is not only influenced by the practical spatial and temporal distance,but also depends on some psychological factors.And this thesis mainly focuses on such elements affecting the choice of one demonstrative over another as focus attention,social distance,assumed familiarity,emotional factors,and narrative point of view which greatly influence the Chinese language.Scholars have made some contrastive studies between the demonstratives in Chinese &English.For example,Yuan Xiqun(苑锡群,1993)and Zhao Shikai(赵世开,1990)'s studies are made from the perspective of traditional grammar;Chen Ding'an(陈定安, 1998),Sun Shuyu and Jin Shenghua(孙述宇,金胜华,1975)'s studies are made from that of translation;and Qian Yuan(钱瑗,1983)'s study is made from that of functional grammar. Among them,Xu Yulong(许余龙,1989)'s study is a striking one in that for the first time, the concept of psychological distance is applied in the contrastive study of Chinese and English demonstratives.However,it is felt that he oversimplifies an actually fairly complicated phenomenon and there is still some room for further discussion of the factors which determine the choice of a demonstrative.Compared to prior studies,this thesis uses new language sources as the basis of analysis and only focuses on the contrastive study of the singular Chinese demonstratives这/那and the equivalent English demonstratives this/that,and excludes from our discussion the plural forms这些/那些in Chinese and these/those in English,and the use of这/那for time in Chinese(e.g.这时,那时,etc.). The thesis is done on the basis of English or Chinese texts and their translations as the source of analysis,and comprehensively and systematically studies the different uses of Chinese and English demonstratives这/那and this/that in both situational and linguistic context.Because of the differences in language itself and the culture in which a language is spoken,translation across languages without a loss of meaning is sometimes difficult.The aim of this thesis is to describe the similarities and differences between Chinese and English in their use of demonstratives and,on the basis of a contrastive analysis,to discuss the workable strategies for translating demonstratives across Chinese and English.The major similarities and differences between English and Chinese in their use of the demonstratives this/that and这/那are summarized as follows.This/这can both typically refer either anaphorically to something mentioned by the speaker,or to something that is in some way or other taken as psychologically "near".This/ ? can also refer cataphorically to something that is to be mentioned by an item in the following context.That/那can both be used to refer anaphorically to something that has been mentioned by the other speaker of communication,or to something that is taken as psychologically distant or viewed from the listener's point of view.Both English and Chinese choose a proximal demonstrative this and这to refer to a near future event or state.And the following are the differences between English and Chinese demonstratives.这is used to refer to something that has already been mentioned in the preceding text while in a similar situations that is often used in English.In Chinese the near demonstrative这is usually used to refer to something said or mentioned by the other side of a speaking interaction while in English that is normally used for the same effect.The biggest difference between Chinese and English in demonstrative reference is that in English there is the definite article the while in Chinese there is no item equivalent to the in English.The proximal form this is always used in English for either a near future situation or a distant future situation while in Chinese the proximal form这tends to be used for a near future situation and the distal form那for a not-near future situation.The ratio of the frequency of use of this to that of that is about 1:2.In Chinese the opposite is true.English and Chinese being different in their use of demonstratives,there is no one-to-one correspondence between this and这,and between that and那in E-C/C-E translation.Specifically,in E-C translation,that has to be translated in many cases into ? or the zero form in Chinese while in C-E translation,这is often realized into that English and这/那in many cases into the definite article the in English.