北京外国语大学814英汉互译（笔译）考研真题及辅导用书

考研真题

1. [电子书]北京外国语大学《814英汉互译（笔译）》历年考研真题

2. [电子书]全国名校英汉互译考研真题

考研指导书

1. [电子书]李长栓《非文学翻译理论与实践》（第2版新版）配套题库（含考研真题）

2. [电子书]孙致礼《新编英汉翻译教程》（第2版）配套题库（含考研真题）

北京外国语大学《814英汉互译（笔译）》历年考研真题AI讲解

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2011年北京外国语大学英语学院812英汉互译（笔译）真题及详解

I. Translate the following passages into Chinese
and write your translation on the answer sheet. (50 points, 25points each)

Passage 1

It is the
unanimous view of our committee that America today faces a serious and
intensifying challenge with regard to its future competitiveness and standard
of living. Further we appear to be on a losing path. We are here today hoping
both to elevate the nation’s awareness of this developing situation and to
propose constructive solutions.

The thrust of
our findings is straightforward. The standard of living of Americans in the
years ahead will depend to a very large degree on the quality of the jobs that
they are able to hold. Without quality jobs our citizens will not have the
purchasing power to support the standard of living which they seek, and to
which many have become accustomed; tax revenues will not be generated to
provide for strong national security and healthcare; and the lack of a vibrant
domestic consumer market will provide a disincentive for either U.S. or foreign
companies to invest in jobs in America.

What has brought
about the current situation? The answer is that the prosperity equation has a
new ingredient, an ingredient that some have referred to as “The Death of
Distance”. In the last century, breakthroughs in aviation created the
opportunity to move people and goods rapidly and efficiently over very great
distances. Bill Gates has referred to aviation as the “World Wide Web of the
twentieth century”. In the early part of the present century, we are
approaching the point where the communication, storage and processing of
information are nearly free. That is, we can now move not only physical items
efficiently over great distances, and we can also transport information in
large volumes and at little cost. (276 words, Rising Above the Gathering Storms)

【参考译文】

我们委员会一致认为今天的美国，其未来的竞争力和生活水平面临着严峻的挑战。未来我们似乎在往一条失败的道路上行进。所以我们今天在这里希望提高民族对这一发展形势的警惕，来寻求建设性的解决方案。

根据我们的调查结果，结论简单明了。美国生活水平在今后的几年中将很大程度上依靠人们能获得的工作的质量。若工作质量不高，公民将无法拥有足够的购买力来维持他们所希望的生活水平，或之前已经习惯了的生活水平；也不能产生税收收入，为国家安全及卫生保健提供强大的支持；而国内消费市场不景气的话，就不能激励美国或国外公司在美国投资，进而不能产生新的工作。

是什么导致了目前的形势？答案是因为繁荣方程式增加了一个新的因素，有些人把它叫做“距离消失”。在上个世纪，航海上的突破使远距离人和货物有效快速的移动成为了可能。比尔盖茨曾经把航海当做“二十世纪的万维网”。在本世纪早期，信息的沟通、存储和处理接近自由，现在，我们不仅能远距离有效的移动具体物件，还能实现低成本，大批量的信息运输。

Passage 2

Germany as a
whole is underemployed. Germans in work put in an average of 1,430 hours in
2006, the third-lowest rate in the OECD. Even after the labour-market reforms,
long-term unemployment remains well above the OECD average. More than half a
million immigrants cannot do the jobs for which they trained because Germany
does not recognize their qualifications, a case of credentialism gone wild. A
country in demographic decline cannot afford such waste. By 2035 Germany’s GDP
per person will fall by 8-15% relative to that in other rich European countries
and in America.

To head off such
relative decline, Germany needs to re-engineer not only the welfare state but
its attitudes towards immigrants, women and people over 60. Against its
conservative instincts it has made a start. In the past ten years it had done
more to integrate minorities than in the previous 40. When “guest workers” from
Turkey, Italy and Greece flooded in to alleviate labor shortages in the 1950s
and 60s, Germans thought they would eventually leave again; during the 1980s
the government tried to pay them to go. Now it accepts that Germany is an
“immigration country”. A citizenship law passed in 2000 which said that people
not born German could become so was followed in 2005 by an immigration law that
inched open the doors for skilled foreigners.

The government
has maintained a cautious momentum, balancing welcome with a demand that
immigrants adapt to German ways. Under a “national integration plan”
orchestrated by the grand coalition, language training for immigrants and their
children is being expanded and businesses have promised to create extra
training places for migrants. The coalition set up a standing “Islam
Conference” to negotiate relations between the religion and the state. Its main
successes were to establish that Muslims see no contradiction between their
faith and Germany’s constitution, and to agree in principle to teach Islam in
state schools, as Judaism and Christianity already are. (323 words)

【参考译文】

整体上德国就业不充分。在2006年，德国平均工作时间为1430个小时，在经济合作与发展组织中工作时间倒数第三。甚至在劳动市场改革后，长时间的失业率仍遥遥超出经济合作与发展组织的平均水平。超过五十万的移民因德国不承认其资格而不能从事他们已经受训的工作，文凭主义极度疯狂。这在一个人口不断减少的国家是实在再浪费不起的。到2035年德国的人均GDP将比其他富裕的欧洲国家和美国下降8—15%。

为了阻止这种相对下降，德国需要给其福利现状重新注入活力，改变对待移民妇女和60岁以上人群的态度。德国从其保守的本能起步，在过去的十年中，在融合少数群体上比前四十年做的还多。在19世纪五六十年代，当土耳其、意大利和希腊的客籍工人涌入德国，本可以缓解其劳动力缺乏的状况的时候，德国认为他们最终会离去。在19世纪八十年代，政府试图出钱让他们离开。现在，德国接受了其作为移民国家的事实。在2000年通过的公民法律中表明非德国本土出生的人可以成为德国公民，接连出台的2005年的移民法又规定大开对技术性国外工人的大门。

政府维护了一种谨慎的动态，既表示了对移民者的欢迎，又与要求他们适应德国方式平衡起来。根据大联盟安排的“民族融合计划”，针对移民及其后代的语言训练正在扩大，而商业方面也保证将为移民提供更多的接受工作训练的场所。大联盟还成立了长期的“伊斯兰会议”来协调宗教与国家的关系，其取得的最大成绩就是让穆斯林消除其信仰对德国宪法的矛盾，像犹太教和基督教一样，大体上赞成在公立学校教授伊斯兰教。

II. Translate the following passages into English
and write your translation on the answer sheet. (50 points, 25 points each)

Passage 1

美国公务员工资制度的建立，实质上还是由市场决定的，各种有关工资的法律制度是根据市场变化产生的。美国总统、州长、议员等公务员职务还有人去干，这说明他们接受那样的工资标准，因为没人强迫他们去当公务员，所以，现实中几乎听不到公务员抱怨自己的工资低。这好比体育比赛，运动员参加比赛就要遵守早已制定好的比赛规则，不能到了比赛场上，说规则对自己不利，要修改。

美国公务员工资虽然比私企低，但公务员的好处私企职工是无法比拟的，如名声好听、可以建立起人脉关系、假期多、工作清闲、压力小、比较稳定、失业几率小等。(245字《美国公务员工资制度精要及启示》)

【参考译文】

Wages system for
American civil servants, in fact, depends on market; all sorts of laws about
wages are based on the changes in market. Since such civil servant position as
American president, governor, congressmen and so on have someone who is willing
to do the job, the wages system is acceptable by them, for no one forces them
to be a civil servant. Thus, in reality, we cannot hear the civil servants
complaining the lowness of their wages. This is like a sports game; once the
sportsman has attended the game, they should obey all the regulated rules, and
they cannot ask for changing the rules after coming to the game by just saying
the rules is not good for them.

Although the
civil servants have no such high wages than in the private company, they can
get incomparable benefits that a worker in the private company cannot obtain,
such as reputation, good personal connections, various vacations, ease in work,
small work pressure, relatively stability and low unemployment rate.

Passage 2

诸佛典皆在天竺。天竺言语，与汉异音。云其书为天书，语为天语。名物不同，传实不易。始者维祗难出自天竺，以黄武三年来适武昌。仆从受此五百偈本，请其同道竺将炎为译。将炎虽善天竺语，未备晓汉。其所传言，或得胡语，或以义出音，近于质直。仆初嫌其词不雅。维祗难曰：“佛言，依其义不用饰，取其法不以严。其传经者当令易晓，勿失厥义，是则为善。”座中咸日：“老氏称：‘美言不信，信言不美。’仲尼亦云：‘书不尽言，言不尽意。’明圣人意，深邃无极。今传胡义，实宜径达。”是以自偈受译人口，因循本旨，不加文饰。(245字)

【参考译文】

Buddhist
scriptures come from India. The pronunciation of India’s language is different
from Chinese, thus, we regard the scriptures and the language they use as the
books and the language in heaven. With different events and names, to express
the original meaning through translation is very difficult.… The beginner Wei
Zhinan, who was from India, in the third year of Huang Wu emperor, came to Wu
Chang. From him I received five hundred Buddhist scriptures, so I invited his companion
Zhu Jiangyan to translate these scriptures with me. Jiangyan is good at India’s
language, but his Chinese is not good enough. When he interpreted the
scriptures, sometimes he used Hu language (a kind of language used by some
north minority nation in China) or some sounds which are created according to
the meaning, which made his interpretation very straight in meaning. At first, I
complained that his use of words was not graceful.

Wei Zhinan said,
“The translation of Buddhist scriptures should express their real meaning
without modification, and also should observe the philosophy of Buddhism
strictly. A good translator should ensure that the translation is not only
understood by others, but also conforms to the original meaning.” Then all the
people on the seat also said, “Lao Zi ever said, ‘Beautiful words are not
believable, the real believable words are not beautiful.’ We also have Confucius
saying ‘the book cannot say everything; if can, it will lose its original
meaning.’ These wise scholars’ words are deep and profound in meaning. Now Wei
Zhinan expresses the real meaning in Hu. He in fact has had an access to the
Buddhist scriptures.” From then on, when I listen to the interpretation of
Buddhist scriptures by others, I will observe to the original meaning without
modification in words.

III. Essay-writing: (50
points, 25 points each).

1 English writing:
Please read the passage and write all essay (no less than 300 words) based on
the following questions:

1) What is the
issue discussed in this passage?

2) Give one more
example to illustrate the author’s point of view.

3) How to
resolve the loss in translation? Why?

Once the
principle is accepted that sameness cannot exist between two languages, it
becomes possible to approach the question of loss and gain in the translation
process. It is again an indication of the low status of translation that so
much time should have been spent on discussing what is lost in the transfer of
a text from SL to TL whilst ignoring what can also be gained, for the
translator can at times enrich or clarify the SL text as a direct result of the
translation process. Moreover, what is often seen as ‘lost’ from the SL context
may be replaced in the TL context, as in the case of Wyatt and Surrey’s
translations of Petrarch.

Eugene Nida is a
rich source of information about the problems of loss in translation, in
particular about the difficulties encountered by the translator when faced with
terms or concepts in the SL that do not exist in the TL. He cites the case of
Guaica, a language of southern Venezuela, where there is little trouble in
finding satisfactory terms for the English murder, stealing, lying, etc., but
where the terms for good, bad, ugly and beautiful cover a very different area
of meaning. As an example, he points out that Guaica does not follow a
dichotomous classification of good and bad, but a trichotomous one as follows:

(1) Good
includes desirable food, killing enemies, chewing dope in moderation, putting
fire to one’s wife to teach her to obey, and stealing from anyone not belonging
to the same band.

(2) Bad includes
rotten fruit, any object with a blemish, murdering a person of the same band,
stealing from a member of the extended family and lying to anyone.

(3) Violating
taboo includes incest, being too close to one’s mother-in-law, a married woman’s
eating tapir before the birth of the first child, and a child’s eating rodents.
Nor is it necessary to look so far beyond Europe for examples of this kind of
differentiation. The large number of terms in Finnish for variations of snow,
in Arabic for aspects of camel behaviour, in English for light and water, in
French for types of bread, all present the translator with, on one level, an
untranslatable problem. Bible translators have documented the additional
difficulties involved in, for example, the concept of the Trinity or the social
significance of the parables in certain cultures. In addition to the lexical
problems, there are of course languages that do not have tense systems or
concepts of time that in any way correspond to Indo-European systems. Whorf’s comparison
(which may not be reliable, but is cited here as a theoretical example) between
a ‘temporal language’ (English) and a ‘timeless language’ (Hopi) serves to
illustrate this aspect.

【答案】

In this passage,
the issue of loss and gain in the translation process is introduced and
discussed. According to the author, due to the fact that some terms or concepts
in the SL do not have corresponding ones in the TL, or vice versa, it is
inevitable that some sense in the SL will be lost. However, on the other hand,
there will be also some gains when there are more expressions of one term or
concept in the TL than those in the SL. Take the terms of cooking in Chinese
and English as an example. In English, there is only one term for “fry”. However,
in Chinese, there are different terms for it: pan-frying, stir-frying,
quick-frying and deep-frying. If a Chinese cooking book is translated into English,
some meanings will be unavoidably lost. Of course, when something about English
cooking is translated into Chinese, then the ST will give a more detailed
interpretation.

From this case,
we can see that loss of meaning always occurs in the translation process. Then
how should we address this problem? Nida says that translator should strive for
functional as well as formal equivalence between the source text and the target
text. Therefore, the solution to addressing the problem of loss of meaning is
that the target text should be as close as the source test as much as possible.
In many cases, these two equivalences cannot be achieved at the same time. However,
as long as what the source text wants to convey is expressed, then the loss
produced in the translation process can be allowed. For instance, there are
plenty of four-character idioms in Chinese which are hard to translate
perfectly. When translating them, translators have to abandon some form or
sense while conveying the underlying meaning. In conclusion, translators should
make the target text close to the source text to the maximum extent. For a good
translation work, the unavoidable loss of meaning is allowed on the premise
that all the translatable information is delivered

2 中文写作：写一篇300字左右的小论文(中文)，对以下现象进行评析，可添加自己的例子进行论述。

This list
identifies three words useful in comparative culture studies whose obvious or
habitual translations in either direction (Chinese to English or vice versa) are
seriously misleading.

【参考范文】

在汉语和英语翻译中，我们常会碰到这样的问题：如果把汉语词汇字对字的翻译成英语，那么翻译过来的单词已经脱离了原文语义，造成误解。如“唯物主义”，若翻译成“materialism”，则把汉语中表示一种基本哲学概念的词偷换成了英语里令人鄙视的生活态度词汇。所以，看似翻译准确，实则不然。其实，在汉英或英汉翻译过程中这样的情况比比皆是。这种翻译属于望文生义，是由于译者并未对这两种语言的词汇含义真正理解所导致的误译。再举一例，如中国菜“四喜丸子”，如果翻译成“four happy balls”，则变成了“四个开心球”，完全不符原义，会贻笑大方。

为避免这样的问题，需要译者熟知汉英语言文化，有丰富的语言背景知识，能准确判断语义，找到真正与原文相符的译法。同时也要求译者要有严谨的态度，善于发现问题，进行查证和研究。总之，切不可自以为是，武断地认为译语就是符合原文语义的。要带着谨慎和批判的眼光认真对待每一处模糊的、可能出现错误的地方。

2012年北京外国语大学英语学院812英汉互译（笔译）真题及详解

I. Translate
the following passages into Chinese and write your translation on the answer
sheet. (50 points, 25 points each)

Passage 1

Tower
of Power: Miracle or Mirage?

In China, one
doesn’t have to look far to see the country’s commitment to renewable energy.
In cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, rooftops are now covered with solar
water heaters. On the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, towering white wind
turbines are popping up where only cattle, sheep and herders on horseback once
roamed. While coal consumption is expected to climb more than 3% annually for
the next two decades, the government has also required that electrical
companies add a significant amount of alternative energy to their portfolios.

Yet, some
overseas firms insist that China is simply repeating an economic development
strategy that has propelled the country’s rapid progress in many other
manufacturing sectors. The country has been able to use the lure of huge
potential markets to entice foreign companies to hand over technology and
know-how in exchange for lucrative deals, later using that knowledge to produce
competitive products cheaper than those of overseas originators. Foreign
companies built the generators for the first stage of the massive Three Gorges
hydroelectric dam, but the generator contracts required the foreign makers to
transfer technology to Chinese partners, who took the lead in later phases of
construction. A similar pattern appears to be playing out in alternative
energy. Foreign wind-turbine manufacturers held nearly 60% of the Chinese
market in 2006. By last year that position was reversed, with Chinese firms
taking 74% of new installations, says Jun Ying, chief China representative for
the consulting firm New Energy Finance. In fact, the number of Chinese turbine
manufacturers has expanded so rapidly that the government, fearing a glut,
warned in that applications for new factories might not be approved. (275
words)

【参考译文】

能源之塔：奇迹还是幻想？

在中国，不需远望就能看出这个国家发展再生能源的决心。在诸如北京、上海等城市，屋顶上遍布太阳能热水器。在中国内蒙古的草地上，高耸的白色风力涡轮机如雨后春笋般地出现在曾经只有牛、羊和骑马的牧人漫游的地方。虽然在接下来的二十年里，耗煤量每年会以超过3%的速度增长，但是政府已经要求电力公司大力发展再生能源。

然而，一些海外公司坚持认为中国仅仅是重复使用一种经济发展策略，而这种经济发展策略已经促进了这个国家其他许多制造部门的快速发展。中国已经能够通过利用潜在的巨大市场来吸引外国公司，以此来获得科技和技术进而获利。之后，中国会用交换来的知识来制造出具有竞争力的产品，而这些产品比原来海外生产者所制造的产品更加的便宜。在建设巨大的三峡大坝的第一阶段，发电机的建造是由外国公司完成，但是建造发电机的合同同时要求外国制造者把技术转让给中国合伙人。在大坝后阶段的建设中，中国合伙人会起带头作用。在再生能源开发方面，中国采取了一种相似的模式。在2006年，外国涡轮机生产商在中国几乎占据60%的市场。截止到去年，这种形式已经发生了扭转，74%的新发电机安装是由中国公司完成的，中国新能源金融咨询公司首席代表君莹说道。实际上，中国涡轮机生产商的数量增长的如此之快以至于担心供过于求的政府发出警告说可能不会再批准新工厂的建造申请。

Passage 2

What
is Liberal Education?

As education
aims to perfect gentlemanship, to human excellence, liberal education consists
in reminding oneself of human excellence, of human greatness. In what way, by
what means does liberal education remind us of human greatness? We cannot think
highly enough of what liberal education is meant to be. We have heard Plato’s
suggestion that education in the highest sense is philosophy. Philosophy is
quest for wisdom or quest for knowledge regarding the most important, the
highest, or the most comprehensive things. Such knowledge, he suggested, is
virtue and is happiness. But wisdom is inaccessible to man and hence virtue and
happiness will always be imperfect. In spite of this, the philosopher, who, as
such, is not simply wise, is declared to be the only true king; he is declared
to possess all the excellences of which man’s mind is capable to the highest
degree. From this we must draw the conclusion that we cannot be
philosophers—that we cannot acquire the highest form of education. We must not
be deceived by the fact that we meet many people who say that they are
philosophers. For those people employ a loose expression which is perhaps
necessitated by administrative convenience. Often they mean merely that they
are members of philosophy departments. And it is as absurd to expect members of
philosophy departments to be philosophers as it is to expect members of art
departments to be artists. We cannot be philosophers but we can love philosophy;
we can try to philosophize. (250 words)

【参考译文】

什么是自由教育？

作为对完美的贵族气质和对人的优异的培育，自由教育在于唤醒一个人自身的优异与卓越。而自由教育通过何种道路和方式唤醒我们身上的卓越？在此我们无法再更进一步地思考自由教育的含义了。我们听过柏拉图关于最高意义上的教育是哲学的提法。哲学是对智慧或对关于最重要的、最高的或最全的事物的知识的追求；这种知识，按他的说法，是德性和幸福。但由于智慧不属于人，因此人的德性和幸福总是不完善的。尽管如此，哲学家，作为不完全智慧的人，还是被宣称为唯一真正的国王；他被宣称为拥有所有人类心灵能够达到的优异，因而是最高水平上的人。从这里我们必须得出我们不是哲学家的结论因为我们无法获得这种最高形式的教育。我们一定不能被自己经常遇到一些自称哲学家的人所欺骗。因为他们采用的是一个对管理的方便来说有必要的广义的表述。他们通常不过是说他们是哲学系的。而认为哲学系的就是哲学家，和认为艺术系的就是艺术家一样荒谬。我们不能成为哲学家，但我们可以热爱哲学；我们可以努力进行哲学化的思考。

II. Translate
the following passages into English and write your translation on the answer
sheet. (50 points, 25 points each)

Passage l

起哄

东方社会有东方的起哄法，西方有西方的起哄法。

而且两边比较起来，还是东方社会里的人更爱起哄。

假如此说是正确的，那么真正的幸福就是让人在社会的法理、公德约束下，自觉自愿的去生活；需要什么，就去争取什么；需要满足之后，就让大家都得会儿消停。

这当然需要所有的人都有点文化修养，有点独立思考的能力，并且对自己的生活负起责任来，同时对别人的事少起点哄。

这当然不容易，但这是唯一的希望。

看到人们在为物质自激，就放出人际关系的自激去干扰；看到人在人际关系里自激，就放出物质方面的自激去干扰；这样激来扰去，听上去就不是个道理。(264字)

【参考译文】

Creating
disturbance

Creating
disturbance occurs in both the Eastern society and the Western society. But
people in different societies do it differently.

Compared with
the people in the Western society, people in the Eastern society are more
likely to create disturbance.

If this is true,
the real happiness is to be obtained by allowing people to live their lives
according to their own ideas under the constraint of the legal principle and
social ethnics in the society; whatever they need, they will strive for it;
after their needs are satisfied, stop making a fuss.

Of course to
realize this, everybody is expected to be in possession of some cultural
cultivation and certain ability to think independently. In addition, they need
to be responsible for their own life and no longer interfere in other people’s
business.

It is not easy
to do as what is said, but the only hope lies in it.

It is simply
unjustifiable to distract others with interpersonal relationship while they endeavor
to attain material fulfillment. It is the same thing when it comes to diverting
others’ attention to material satisfaction while they are dealing with interpersonal
relationship.

Passage 2

初雪

雪花快飘，

白如石膏；

高地宰鹅，

这里飞毛！

所以今天早上我初次望见这个不常见的银白世界时，我不禁衷心希望这里的雪能多下几场，这样英国的冬天才能更增添几分冬天的味道。于是，我羡慕起那些居住在美国东部和加拿大的友人来了，他们那里年年都能指望上一个像样的冬天，都能说得出降雪的准确日期，并能保证，直至大地春回之前，那里的雪绝无退化为黑色泥浆的可能。但我马上觉得这样还是不行。不消一周人们就会对它感到厌烦。甚至一两天后魔力就会消失，剩下的惟有白昼那种永无变化的耀眼阳光与刺骨严寒和凄凉的夜晚。看来真正迷人的地方并不在雪的本身，不在这个冰雪覆盖的景象，而在它的初降，在这突然而静悄的变化。(287字)

【参考译文】

First snow

Snow, snow
faster:

White alabaster!

Killing geese in
Scotland,

Sending feathers
here!

This morning,
when I first caught sight of the unfamiliar whitened world, I could not help
wishing that we had snow oftener, that English winters were more wintry. I
began to envy my friends in such places as the Eastern States of America and
Canada, who can count upon a solid winter every year and know that the snow
will arrive by a certain date and will remain, without degenerating into black
slush, until Spring is close at hand. And then I saw that it would never do for
us. We should be sick of it in a week. After the first day the magic would be
gone and there would be nothing left but the unchanging glare of the day and
the bitter cruel nights. It is not the snow itself, the sight of the blanketed
world, that is so enchanting, but the first coming of the snow, the sudden and
silent change.

III. Essay-writing: (50
points, 25 points each).

1 Answer the questions
after reading the following passage. (25分)

Back-translation as a Test

To see whether
an equivalent is natural or directional, the simplest test is back-translation.
This means taking the translation and rendering it back into tile source
language, then comparing the two source-language versions. When natural
equivalence prevails, we can go from Friday to Viernes then back to Friday, and
it makes no difference which term is the source and which tile translation.
This is because the correspondence existed in some way prior to the act of
translation. More to the point, the transfer of the Judeo-Christian seven-day
week occurred several millennia before our act of translation, so the original
directionality has now come to appear natural. That naturalness is certainly an
illusion (in historical terms, all equivalents are probably the result of as
much force and authority as is assumed in Kade’s one-to-one technical terms).
Yet the illusion has had a strong ideological pull on many translation
theories. On the level of bad luck, we can indeed go from “Friday the 13th” to “martes
13” and back again, and we can make people believe that the equivalence is
somehow written into the nature of our cultural systems. The same kind of test
might work for Le just prix, and even for Der Preis ist heiss, if we define
carefully the levels we are operating on. But the back-testing cannot be
extended all the way; the mysteries of the “one-to-several” quickly appear. For
example, why does the French apparently not have “Le prix juste” (with the
adjective after the noun, as is frequent in the language)? And what about the “lifelines”
that become “jokers” and “wild-cards” but could become many other things as
well? Can they also be justified as being in any way natural? For that matter,
what should we say about the “Friday the 13th” that is recognized in Taiwan (we
are told) not because it was always in the culture but because it traveled
there in the title of a horror film? Some kinds of equivalence refer to what is
done in a language prior to the intervention of the translator (hence the
illusion of the natural); others refer to what translators can do in the
language (hence the directionality of the result). But one could also argue,
historically, that all equivalence is in some way directional.

“Directional” and
“natural” are the terms we are using here to describe the different concepts
elaborated by theories of translation; they are not words used by the theories
themselves. They nevertheless help make some sense of a confusing terrain. As
we have seen, most of the questions coming from structuralist linguistics
concern strictly natural equivalence, or the search for it. When we mentioned
Saussure’s sheep and mouton example, we talked about the words “translating
each other.” The same would hold for Polish milk and universal bad-luck days.
For that linguistic paradigm, it should make no difference which of the terms
is the source and which is the target. For the above definitions of
translation, on the other hand, equivalence is something that results from a
directional movement.

Reference to
directionality was perhaps the most profound way in which the problem of structuralist
linguistics was solved.

Answer the following
questions (in English).

1 In what way is back translation a test
of the equivalence to the ST?

2 Give one more example to illustrate the
author’s point of view.

3 What does the term mean; (1) “directional”;
and (2) “natural”?

【答案】

1 Back translation requires an independent translator to render the
completed translation back to the source language and then compare the two
versions in source language, so as to find out how much the two version are
corresponded with each other, in diction or in sense, so it can be a test of equivalence.

2 The author believes natural equivalence comes from directionality
and all equivalence is in someway directional. For example, the English word “slow”,
if in directional equivalence, is corresponded with “lentement” in French. Both
of the words are adverbs and depict the similar state. However, as a road sign,
“Slow” means “Drive slow and carefully” and in French road sign, “lentement” is
rarely used. Instead, the French word “Ralentir” is used, which is a verb for
the similar meaning. So in bilingual or translated road signs, “Slow” would be
corresponded with “Ralentir”. And in this way, the sight of “Slow” in road
signs will be naturally equivalent with “Ralentir” in French and this pair will
habitually become natural equivalence.

3 (1) I think “directional” means conditional correspondence in
translation when a word or situation has several explanations and the
translator has to choose between the “several” to correspond with the “one”, so
this kind of equivalence is one-way and can’t be translated back.

(2) While “natural” means conventional correspondence when the
equivalence between two words or situations have become a convention and
routine and the meaning of this word or situation can be intuitively linked to
the other. It is a kind of two-way movement and this kind of equivalence is
done long prior to the intervention of a translator. However, the occurrence of
natural equivalence is inseparable with directionality and the influence of
translators and other influential factors.

2 写一个300字左右的小论文(中文），对以下现象进行评析，可添加自己的例子进行论述。(25分)

“Difficult to find the police”

某地一块警方信息服务牌，将“有困难，找警察”翻译成“Difficult to find the police”，成了“很难找到警察”的意思，成为众多网友的笑柄。据悉，翻译错误的原因是使用了翻译软件。那么，这一错误说明了什么？

【参考范文】

近年来，机器翻译得到了迅猛发展，翻译软件相继推出，给人们的生活、工作、学习带来了便利。然而，由于机器翻译研究水平有限，相关学科理论不完善，导致机器翻译不能完全满足人们的翻译需求。很多语言经过翻译软件翻译后往往词不达意，不知所云。据《环球时报》报道，随着中国赴法国人数增多，法国人开始借助机器翻译，但翻出的效果并不令人满意。例如，把货币兑换处的“手续费”译成“委员会”，把“免费公厕”译成“免费碳化钨”。闹出了很多笑话。由此我们可以看出，目前机器翻译并不完善。所以我们不能把翻译工作完全交给机器，仍然需要人工翻译。

然而，我们不能就此放弃机器翻译。和人工翻译相比，机器翻译有效率高、保密性、成本低等优势。我国著名计算语言学与机器翻译专家董振东说：“美国要开发一种口语翻译机，专门用来审讯与美国人语言不通的塔利班俘虏。如果用人来做翻译，由于语言不通，即使翻译被塔利班收买，对美国人信口胡说，美国人也不会知道，而机器就不可能出现这种情况。这机器现在有没有发明出来，能到什么翻译水平还不得而知，但这至少是一个相当好的发展领域。”因此，发展机器翻译仍是我们未来需要努力的方向之一。这有利于推动经济发展，社会进步，消除人与人之间的语言障碍，并能沟通整个世界，促进交流，加快全球化进程。

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