第八讲：加注和释义

Translation Skills ---Annotation and Paraphrase Amplification:

1. There is much woman about him.

2. The rest of the day was anti-climactic.

3. She looked up to see Amelia crooking a finger from the half darkness of the hall. “You back? What is it?” asked Amelia crossly.

4. They have, by this very act, opened Pandora’s Box.

他们这种做法，无异于打开了潘多拉的盒子---所有的祸害都要来了。（种下了各种祸根）

5.We were cat’s paws

6.People considered that what he played on that occasion was no more than a Judas kiss.

Annotation:

由于社会文化差异，英语中有些词义在汉语中完全不存在，形成了词义空缺semantic vacancy。在这种情况下，英语译成汉语常常采用加注法来弥补空缺。加注法分为音译加注和直译加注。音译加注：多用于翻译单个词语，尤其是专有名词。

Pizza 皮萨饼

Toyota 丰田车

Sahara 撒哈拉大沙漠

Sauna

AIDS

Jazz

用于句子中的词语翻译实例

1.He did it a Jordan in the basketball court.

2.I am Peter Darwin. Everyone asks, so I may as well say at once that no, I’m not related to

Charles.

3. A dead leaf fell in Soapy’s lap. That was Jack Frost’s card. 一片枯叶飘落到苏皮的膝头，那是

杰克·弗罗斯特的名片。（杰克·弗罗斯特

直译加注：直译原文，并附加解释性注释

Tree hugger: 紧抱树杆的人（指极端环保主义者）

Zero Ground: 零地带(指纽约世贸大厦在2001年9月11日遭两架被劫持飞机撞击坍塌后所形成的瓦砾场，源自原子弹着陆后的爆炸点。)

Sesame street:

用于句子中的词语翻译实例

1.But I am short-tempered, frazzled(疲惫的) from all responsibilities. I am the “sandwich

generation”, caught between kids and parents.

2.He suggested that a truly-inclusive politically-correct pronoun would be “s/h/it”.

他建议，真正既全面又符合政治正确性的代词应该是“她/或他或它”。（原文中，指“她/

或他或它”的英语为s/h/it，与shit（粪便）同形，意在揶揄被美国媒体大肆炒作的“政治正确性”。

3.You told me the other day that you weren’t going to write anything about him yourself. It would

be rather like a dog in the manger to keep to yourself a whole lot of material that you have no intention of using.

Translation methods:

1.direct translation, i.e. literal translation

2.indirect translation, i.e. liberal translation, or paraphrase

3.direct translation with notes or margin notes

4. transliteration: translate according to the sound of the original

The principle in the application of the methods:

Usually direct method is the first choice if it can convey the source message without causing confusion.

But because of the disparity between the two languages (linguistic or cultural), some adaptation, paraphrase or annotation (adding supplementary information) is always inevitable.

Linguistic disparity:

Eg. Englishman in New York: Your sky looks much cleaner than in London.

Cab driver: Sure! We have more skyscrapers here.

Eg. Mary: My mother gave me a dollar for being good today.

Jack: Wow! And all this time I’ve been good for nothing.

---- Call your dog off!

---- I can’t. I’ve always called him ‘Jimmy’and it’s too late to change now.

Cultural disparity

（1）Hygeia herself would have fallen sick under such a regimen; and how much more this poor old nervous victim?

按照这样的养生之道，别说这可怜的老太太了，就连哈奇亚*也会害病。

（2）Big Ben is ringing the hour.

（3）New York was never Mecca to me.

（4）Like a son of Bachus, he can drink up two bottles of whisky at a breath.

(9)We have enrolled every local Cicero. 我们把各地西塞罗式都招来了。Orator, prose stylist

10. He slipped out of the State Department and crossed the Potomac to Arlington, Virginia, where the civil ceremony took place.

他偷偷溜出了国务院，渡过波托马克河到弗吉尼亚州的阿林顿县，

（1）It was Friday *and soon they'd go out and get drunk.

星期五到了，他们马上就要上街去喝得酩酊大醉。

（2）While it may seem to be painting the lily, I should like to add somewhat to Mr.Alistair Cooke's excellent article.

我想给阿利斯太尔〃库克先生的杰作稍加几笔，

(3) Even before they were acquainted, he had admired Osborn in secret. Now he was his valet, his dog, his man Friday.

他没有认识奥斯本之前，已经暗暗佩服他。

（4）The man who waters his grass after a good rain is carrying coals to Newcastle.

刚下一场及时雨，那人却又为草坪浇水，

（5）I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient.

释义（paraphrase）是指舍弃原文中的具体形象，直接解释出原文的意思。在翻译一些具有鲜明民族色彩的词语（如成语、典故）时，如果直译不能使译入语读者明白意思，而加注又使译文太噜嗦，并且原文重意不重形、重意不重典时，可采用释义法。它既可使译文简洁明了，又不损害对原文信息的传达。

1．as drunk as a fiddler酩酊大醉

（在古英格兰,民间小提琴手在公共场合为舞蹈伴奏,人们往往以酒酬谢,因此往往会喝得大醉.后人用此成语时,常常重意不重形与典,因此,不必直译为"像小提琴手一样酩酊大醉",采用释

义法即可.）

2。bring down the house 全场喝彩(不能直译为"把房子都弄倒了")

3．It's not easy to become a member of that club-they want people who have plenty of money to spend, not just every Tom, Dick, and Harry.

要参加那个俱乐部并非易事──他们只吸收手头阔绰的人，

（2） A Red Light for Smoking

抽烟行为不可长！

（这是美国Time《时代》周刊1983年一篇文章的标题。red light本意是红灯，指停车信号、危险信号。文中指出美国社会中蔑视法令的现象已到了触目惊心的地步，必须采取措施加以制止。译成"玩忽法令之风不可长"一目了然，言简意明。

（3）Our son must go to school. He must break out of the pot that holds us in.

我们的儿子一定得上学，

（4）The study had a Spartan look.

（古希腊斯巴达人）\ （9）She scolded her maid and was as cross as two sticks.

(13). The young girl thumbed her way to the passing cars.

(thumbed her way 为英语手势语,意为"站在路边向来往的汽车摆动着竖起的拇指表示她要搭车",在汉语中没有这种手势语,翻译时只有采用释义法,以便让我国读者明白其意.)

（17）Mr. Kingsley and his Red Brick boys will have to look to their laurels.

（Red Brick又称Red Brick Universities，指英国除牛津、剑桥大学以外的其他地方性二流大学。因其建筑主要是红砖砌成，不象牛津、剑桥的建筑均为古色古香的石块所建成，故得此名。

The first American foot soldiers to reach the British Isles in preparation for the invasion arrived early in 1942, just 50 days after the Japanese attached Pearl Harbor. Britain had never seen the likes of these breezy, long-legged Yanks, eventually to be 1.5 million strong. They came with swarms of planes, parked their Sherman tanks in rows ten miles long, and stockpiled six million tons of bombs, guns and ammunition——threatening, the British said, to sink their island. GIs were everywhere, jitterbugging to “In the mood”and politely inquiring whether there was a trapeze act at Piccadilly Circus.Few could resist their ingenuous high spirits.(From Reader’s Digest, June, 1984)

GI: government issue: 军需用品

Piccadilly Circus is a famous road junction and public space of London"s West End in the City of Westminster,built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with the major shopping street of Piccadilly. In this context a "circus", from the Latin word meaning a circle, is a circular open space at a street junction. "circus", Oxford English Dictionary 2nd Edition 1989It now links directly to the theatres on Shaftesbury Avenue as well as the Haymarket, Coventry Street (onwards to Leicester Square) and Glasshouse Street. The Circus is close to major shopping and entertainment areas in a central location at the heart of the West End. Its status as a major traffic intersection has made Piccadilly Circus a busy meeting point and a tourist attraction in its own right. The Circus is particularly known for its video display and neon signs mounted on the corner building on the northern side, as well as the Shaftesbury memorial fountain and statue of an archer popularly known as "Eros" (sometimes called "The Angel of Christian Charity", but intended to be "Anteros"). It is surrounded by several noted buildings, including the London Pavilion and Criterion Theatre. Directly underneath the plaza is Piccadilly Circus London Underground station

日本袭击珍珠港后仅50天，美国步兵便于1942年初到达不列颠岛准备登陆作战。英国人还从没有见过这样一些爱说爱笑的长腿美国佬。他们的兵力最后达到了150万。他们带来了成群结队的飞机，他们的谢尔曼大炮一排又一排，排成几十英里长的。接着他们又储存了六百万的炸弹、枪炮和弹药。用英国人的话来说，大有压沉英国岛屿之势。这里到处都是美国大兵，他们伴随着“好心情”这支乐曲跳起了吉特巴舞，并且彬彬有礼的问皮卡迪里马戏团是否有秋千表演。所有的人都被他们纯真、高昂的情绪所感染。