English Nominalization And Its Translation Into Chinese

In the course of language evolution and development, great emphasis has been frequently laid on nouns. Nominalization, a primary process in which nouns and language structures functioning as nouns are formed, has also received universal attention. The formation of nominalization reflects the fact that"human cognition is advancing in the direction of thingness"(Halliday, 1996, p. 44) Being a grammatical process, nominalization includes two aspects in this thesis, namely, lexical nominalization and syntactical nominalization. Lexical nominalizations are formed by adding derivative affixes to words of other parts of speech (mostly verbs and adjectives) or through conversion, while syntactical nominalization is the substitution of nominal expressions for verbal structures, adjective structures or clauses. Nominalization is one of the most common characteristics of human languages. Studies on nominalization can trace back to Plato and Aristotle of the ancient Greece. Since then, various linguistic schools and scholars have discussed nominalization from different perspectives, arriving at diverse conclusions, which definitely contributes to the deepening of people's understanding of this language category. However, these are mostly drescriptive studies carried out on a linguistic basis, concerning the causes, formation process, features and functions of nominalization. There are some discussions in China dealing with the translation of nominalization into Chinese, which are not systematic and specific enough, with no appropriate attention on the reproduction of the functions of English nominalized structures in the target language.As an inflected language, English provides the convenience and necessity for the application of nominalized expressions, and those structures are playing an irreplaceable part in this language. To start with, nominalization serves grammatical roles and indicates semantic relations in clauses. Secondly, via the process of nominalization, original English expressions could be"packaged"into more concise language structures including more information. Moreover, the objectiveness of English discourses would be increased as a result of the omission of the doer of actions or the finite elements when nominalization is applied. The functions of nominalization are not confined to what have been mentioned above and still need to be further explored. When it comes to the translation of English nominalization into Chinese, those essential functions should never be ignored.With the purpose of reproducing the functions of English nominalized structures in the target language, the thesis adopts three major theories to explore the most efficient strategies for the translation of English nominalization into Chinese, namely, the theory of functional equivalence advocated by Nida, limits of translatability and compensation strategies.Translation equivalence is one of the most classic theories, widely employed in the translation practice of various languages and language styles, with the aim of achieving equivalence between the source language and the target language to the largest extent. Many scholars have put forward their views on translation equivalence, among whom Nida is the most influential. Nida's theory of translation equivalence has witnessed constant improvements and finally developed into the theory of functional equivalence. As for the translation of English nominalization into Chinese, absolute equivalence is impossible, considering the characteristics of the English language and English nominalization. Given the prominent functions that nominalization realizes in English discourses, the theory of functional equivalence should be taken as the guiding principle in the translation process. Nevertheless, in the course of pursuing the maximal level of functional equivalence, translators are usually confronted with the obstacle of untranslatability, which requires translators to come up with proper translation strategies in a flexible manner so as to reproduce the charm of the original and achieve the maximal level of equivalence. This is where compensation strategies are applied.To add to the specificity and thoroughness of the research, major attention is laid on the most fundamental stylistic function of English nominalized structures: formalness. An analysis of the relationship between the formalness of English nominalization and register is conducted in this thesis. From the angle of field, nominalization often appears in formal practical discourses; for tenor, professionals, educated adults employ nominalization more frequently than children, lay-man or the illiterate; in terms of tenor, the frequency of nominalization in written language is higher than that in spoken language.English is an inflected language featuring the preponderance of nouns over verbs while Chinese is more isolated with a tendency of applying more verbs. Therefore, with regard to the translation of English nominalized structures, the transformation of the source message is inevitable for a rendering that conforms to the Chinese way of expression and reflects the function of the original. Four compensation methods are tentatively recommended in this thesis, which are respectively the application of specialized and technical terms, the application of written Chinese disyllabic vocabularies, the application of Chinese four-character phrases and the application of Chinese classical sentence patterns. No matter which specific translation strategy is chosen, the ultimate purpose is to transmit the original information as much as possible, achieving semantic correspondence and functional similarity to the full extent.To sum up, the thesis takes functional equivalence, limits of translatability and compensation strategies as its theoretical guidance, exploring the efficient methods to translate English nominalization into Chinese. Based on the researches conducted by previous scholars, stress is put on the ways to realize in the target language the stylistic function of formalness that nominalization exerts in English, aiming at contributing to the studies on the translation of nominalizations.