English Ambiguity And The Translating Strategies In English-Chinese Translation

As we all know, language is an art. Language is delivered from the sender to the receiver, by speaking or writing. It is hard to say whether the background knowledge of the sender and receiver is different or the same in this delivering process. It is unavoidable that they make the same mistakes even they have the same background knowledge. The mistakes they have made will make the informative, interpersonal, emotive and recreational functions of the language cannot be performed. As for English, this happens mainly because of the English ambiguity. Ambiguity refers to certain language unit which has more than one meaning, so that the understanding of it by the receiver becomes varied and uncertain. In brief, Ambiguity is a language structure has multiple meanings. Some words, phrases or sentences have two or more explanations. If they are not put in certain language situation or are strayed away from the context, they become vague and misleading. This is called ambiguity. In syntax, ambiguity adheres to the language rules, and in semantics, it accords with the general rule of logic. However, in deep structure, it includes two or more meanings.Translation is not only a science, but also an art. Translation is a medium--people of different language and cultural background communicate with each other, exchange their opinions and then promote the mutual understanding. Each language has its own characteristics. Translation deals with not only the source language and the target language, but also more than one social culture. Therefore, ambiguity is unavoidable during translation. What's more, translating ambiguity well is no easy task. Translators must know the above knowledge and convey the ideology, standpoint and style of the source text completely and appropriately. Only in this way, can they aim for the perfection of translation.At the early age, universal attention has been paid to ambiguity by linguists and language teaching instructors. Some of the ambiguities are common, but some are unique in certain language. As a translator, he or she should firstly recognize different ambiguities, and then grasp some methods of disambiguating, and at last, he or she can adopt appropriate translating skills according to co-text and context to get a satisfied translation effect. In fact, translators must have a good mastery of the source language and target language, which includes the structure, usage and cultural background knowledge of them. And they must be careful to avoid misinterpreting words through taking them too literally. In addition, they must analyze the pragmatic effect of ambiguities, that is, the rhetoric function in a discourse. As we all know, some of the ambiguities appear because of language itself and others are adopted by the speakers or the writers on purpose. Only by knowing all these rules, can the translators choose a more suitable translating method.As to English-Chinese translation, more and more efforts have been devoted to the English ambiguities. The features and classifications of English ambiguity will be discussed in this paper, and emphasis will be put on its translating strategies, too. It is hoped that translators and related researchers pay more attention to English ambiguity and its translation and do more research on this, and delve further into the translation of English ambiguity.Limited to the author's level of understanding and doing research, the thesis cannot be a better one. Anyway, if only this paper could cast a brick to attract jade. In that case, the communication of English and Chinese becomes smooth. And the nations can enforce the mutual understanding and promote the cooperation.