A Study Of Conversion In Chinese-english Translation

With the increasing exchanges between China and West in various fields,translation has been prosperous. Techniques and methods of translation andtranslation principles are endless, but as one of the most common and most importantskills, parts of speech conversion are indispensable in the process of translation fromChinese into English.The original text is the narrative descriptions of several representative figuresincluding birth, education, work, personal achievements and death events and causes,which are selected from the Local Records of Lotus County. As many classicalexpressions are used in the original text and the words are relatively neutral, so thetranslator should be loyal to the original content and emotion and the choices of wordsand sentences should be subject to repeated scrutiny.The purpose of the paper is to indicate the necessity of conversion inChinese-English translation by analyzing the language features of original text andcomparing the differences between source language and target language. Bysummarizing the influences of language features of original text and differencesbetween the two languages on the translation practice, the author cites conversionexamples encountered in her own translation practice to illustrate the importance ofconversion in translation. The parts of speech conversion is not determined by thetranslator’s wishes but by the characteristics of the original text, the features of sourceand target languages, context and expression habits of target language. The authorcites the conversion examples selected from her own translation practice to illustratethe necessity and reason of conversion in Chinese-English translation and segment theconversions of Chinese verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs. Only the skillful use ofconversion can make the translation be loyal to the original ideas, coincident to theexpression habits of target language and understandable to the readers.The paper is divided into four parts. The first part is about the introduction of theoriginal text, the purpose and meaning of the research and the definitions oftranslation and conversion. The second part discusses the conversion studies intranslation at home and abroad and the causes of parts of speech conversion. The thirdpart analyzes the conversions in translation of Historical Figures elected from theLocal Records of Lotus County and concretely analyzes the examples of Chinese verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs converted into English nouns, adjectives,adverbs and prepositions. The fourth part is the conclusion, succinctly summarizes theresearch purpose and achievements.