A Study Of Chinese-English Translation Of Primary Chinese Textbooks

This article took “Kuai Le Han Yu”(Happy Chinese)published by People’s Education Press as a research object,comprehensively inspected the text,filtered and generalized the problems of Chinese-English translation in it.We are trying to provide some constructive suggestions for primary TCFL and the relevant material compilation by analyzing problems and exploring the source of it through the theory of the research of TCFL and Cognitive Linguistics.The first chapter is introduction.It introduces the development of TCFL textbook,the research findings of relevant Chinese-English translation problems,the applied theory basement and the methodology in the researches.The second chapter inspects the Chinese-English translation problems in “Kuai Le Han Yu”(Happy Chinese).The problems are classified into 4categories:1.paraphrase doesn’t fit context;2.unequivalence situation between translated words and their Chinese versions;3.inappropriate word choosing;4.wrong translation doesn’t fit basic English expressions.The third chapter explores the reasons caused these situations from the angle of TCFL theory and Cognitive Linguistics.The reasons are as follows by the angle of TCFL theory:1.negative transfer caused by mother tongue;2.the differences between Chinese and English expressions to the same concept;3.copy verb translation form of English dictionary without critical thinking caused semantic errors with a “to” in front of partial verb;4.the translators’ English level.By Cognitive Linguistics:1.the emphasis of cognition are different to the same concept with Chinese-English traditional different modes of thinking;2.the impact from past language learning experiences;3.different cultural backgrounds of eastern and western countries caused mistaken translations.The forth chapter comes up with suggestions for TCFL and textbook compilation based on the reasons analyzed in former chapter.The suggestions for textbook compilation are as follows:1.emphasizing context;2.pay attention to semantic qualification;3.attach importance to the research on the different cultural backgrounds of eastern and western countries.The suggestions for TCFL are as follows:1.teachersare supposed to make efforts to improve levels of both Chinese and English;2.teachers should digest the content when preparing classes,find out the translation problems,and prepare the appropriate paraphrases;3.teachers ought to regard the errors caused by wrong translation during teaching,giving correct paraphrases for students.The fifth chapter concludes the four chapters above,pointing out weak points.