on-e--c-translation-of-american-presidential-inaugural-addresses--美国总统就职演说词的汉译研究--大学.doc

武汉轻工大学

毕业论文

设计（论文）题目： 美国总统就职演说词的汉译研究

院 （系）： 外国语言文学系
专 业： 英 语
姓 名：
学 号： 111001107
指导教师:

2015年 06 月 2 日

On E-C Translation of American Presidential Inaugural Addresses

A Thesis
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the B.A. Degree in Foreign Language and Literature.

By

Undergraduate Program
School of English Language and Literature
Wuhan Polytechnic University

Supervisor:
Academic Title: Associate Professor

Approved
April 4, 2015

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Contents
Abstract i
摘要 ii
Acknowledgements iii
I. Introduction 1
1.1 The Domestic and Foreign Situation of Research 1
1.1.1 Domestic situation of research： 1
1.1.2 Foreign situation of research： 3
1.2 The Purpose and Significance of the Thesis 4
II The Characteristics of the Presidential Inaugural addresses 5
2.1 Lexical features 5
2.1.1 The use of big word 5
2.1.2 The use of pronoun 6
2.1.3 Nominalization 8
2.2 Semantic Features 8
2.2.1 loose sentence 8
2.2.2 periodic sentence 9
III Analyses of Three Presidents’ First Inaugural Addresses 9
3.1 Comments on the translation of president Kennedy’s first inaugural addresses 9
3.2 Comments on the translation of president Nixon’s first inaugural addresses 11
3.3 Comments on the translation of president Reagan’s inaugural addresses 12
3.4 The Problems existing in translation 13
3.4.1 Improper translation 13
3.4.2 Over-translation 14
3.4.3 Mis-translation 14
IV. The Translation Skills in American Presidential Inaugural Addresses. 15
4.1 Differences between Chinese and English 15
4.2 The phrases translation skills in American presidential inaugural addresses. 15
4.2.1 Use the four--word phrases 15
4.2.2 Addition 16
4.2.3 Conversion 17
4.2.4 Commendation & Derogation 18
4.3 The sentences translation skills in American presidential inaugural addresses. 19
4.3.1 Affirmation and negation 19
4.3.2 Contraction 19
4.3.3 Division 20
4.3.4 Restructure 20
VI Conclusion 22
Bibliography 23

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Abstract
In American political life the presidential inaugural addresses,which are issued to the public by the newly elected president in his inaugural ceremony, are an inseparable part. Through the inaugural addresses, the newly selected president demonstrates his fundamental political value orientation, particular principles and how to play the role of being a good president. Since 1972 , China has established diplomatic relations with the United States, the two countries has made great progress in politics, economy and culture. To better promote the cooperation between the two countries as well as to give the Chinese a comprehensive understanding of American political life, thus it is a tendency in today’s society to make a research relating to the American presidential inaugural addresses, it is benefit to both the English language learners’ improvement of oral communication competence and the cultivation of Chinese learners’ speech thinking. This thesis is composed of five chapters. Chapter one gives a brief introduction in terms of topic, research purpose and significance. Chapter two states the stylistic characteristics of the American inaugural addresses. Chapter three analyses Kennedy’s and Nixon’s and Reagan’s first inaugural addresses respectively, finding some problems existing in the translation. Chapter four is a key part of the whole paper, does a research about translation skills of American president inaugural addresses from two different perspectives: language and culture. Chapter five is the conclusion.
Key Words: inaugural addresses; stylistic characteristics; translation skills

摘要
美国总统就职演说是美国政治生活的重要组成部分，是新当选的总统在就职典礼上向公众发表的演说，通过演说，新总统说明其基本政治价值取向，特定原则，以及如何扮演好总统的角色。中国自1972年与美国建交以来，两国在政治，经济，文化等方面的发展日新月异，为了更好地促进两国之间的合作，也为了让中国人民对美国的政治生活有一个更全面的了解，因此对美国总统就职演说词的翻译进行研究符合当今发展趋势，既有利于提高英语学习者口语交际能力，也有利于培养中国学者的演讲思维。本文共分为五章，第一章为引言，介绍本文的研究对象，研究意义。第二章从词汇,句子两个方面论述美国总统就职演说词的文体特征。第三章对三篇就职演说的不同译本进行比较，并指出翻译中存在的不当之处。第四章从语言差异和文化差异两个角度入手，对美国总统就职演说词从词到句的翻译技巧进行归纳和总结。第五章为结论。

关键词：就职演说词 文体特征 翻译技巧

Acknowledgements
This thesis concludes my university study for several years. I would like to thank all my teachers in the Foreign Languages and Literature Department of Wuhan Polytechnic University; to whom I owe much of my knowledge in the English language, linguistics, literature, and especially in the translation..
Firstly and foremost, my heartfelt thanks go to my supervisor, Miss Jia, who has led me into the field of translation studies by her systematic and effective expert guidance and has been extremely supportive throughout this research. Her guidance has broadened my horizon in this realm, her profound learning has strengthened my interest in translation studies and her enlightening advice and help have been so important in rendering the present research possible as well as worthy of conducting. Most important of all, her patience and constant encouragement helped me drag through the numerous difficulties I have been confronted with in writing and revising this thesis.
Secondly, I will thank Doc.Zhang, whose lectures arouse my interest in translation. I benefited a lot from his lessons. And I also have been inspired by his scientific spirit.
I am also obliged to my friends, classmates and roommates especially, who have been accompanying me and providing me with much help which will be remembered in my whole life. I am also grateful to all those who have devoted much of their precious time to reading this thesis and offered me much beneficial advice.
Last but not the least, my sincere gratitude for my parents’ love, support and companionship in my life, extends beyond words.

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I. Introduction
As we know, America is a leading country in today’s world, its policy no matter toward domestic or abroad should be given more attention. However, American presidential inaugural addresses are an important part of America political life, doing a research about these addresses is necessary for Chinese, especially about the Chinese translation, which will give Chinese access to know American political tendency as well as strengthen two countries’ relationship.
1.1 The Domestic and Foreign Situation of Research
1.1.1 Domestic situation of research：
Professor Xu Zhenzhong published A Humble Opinion about English Speech in 1990, in this article, firstly he comprehensively summarized the variety category of speech as well as advantages and disadvantages of speech, which come from various schools in different western countries. Then he used ample examples of real speech to come to a conclusion that the formal style derived from written style and the informal style derived from spoken language style, the field and tenor that an orator used in his speech determined that speech is a spoken language and it is used to make oral presentations at the meeting or at a mass rally. However, the speech is usually prepared in advance, from the mode it used, the spoken language is a non-natural language for it is possessed with the figures of written style.
In 1995, professor Xu published an article named the Religious Colors of English Political Speech. In this passage ,the author summarized the concrete embodiment of religious colors in every president’s inaugural addresses as three types: the first one, before the beginning of the speech thanks for God’s gift which has been bestowed already and at the end of the speech prays God to bless his country unceasingly, thus the echo between beginning and ending is formed. The second one, directly quoted from Bible to make an explanation for the president’s points of view and course of policy. The third one, from the perspective of religious preaching. In general this passage has made great help for the translator to translate American presidential inaugural addresses and the reader to understand it, in addition,the other western leaders’ religious colors in inaugural addresses has also been involved at the end of passage, which made the article more comprehensive as well as more persuasive. But the passage didn’t refer to the reasons why religious colors were formed in inaugural addresses, which would make the reader who lack related background puzzled.
Through the comparison of different translation version of American presidential inaugural addresses, professor Wang Xin found some faults in Chinese-English translation version and he pointed out the difficulties that text translation practice and translation version analysis have faced, first, there existed no specific text that corresponds the inaugural addresses, a special text. Second ,from the perspective of phonetics, lexis and grammatical structures, Chinese language and English language embodied different style feature. Of course, the reasons of making the translation inappropriate are different, but the most highlighted reason is the differences in cultural backgrounds, lexis, grammar as well as rhetorical skills, among these reasons , professor Wang gave a deep analysis about lexis that respectively from three aspects, semantic, rhetorical color and logic of correlatives.Professor Wang’s discussion was of strong pragmatism, but the deficiencies were that he didn’t come up with a method to revise after pointing out the existing problems.
During the period of professor Luo Yi’s research about the genres of American presidential inaugural addresses, the research objective has been extended from 1789 to 2001, this important break-through made amends of pre-articles, whose research range was narrow, so it has a great improvement in terms of research significance, research range as well as research accuracy. Before Luo Yi, there were fewer passages or articles that made a diachronic research about American presidential inaugural addresses through comparison, but Luo Yi’s passage made up this gap through the exploration of language style and language variety of American Presidential inaugural addresses. At the beginning of his article, Luo Yi offered three hypothesis: 1, The selection of a speech is determined by the specific language context, it has the characteristics of both oral and written English. 2, For specific purposes in specific occasion, speech is different from daily dialogue in terms of its language organization and means of expression. 3, From 1789 to 2001,the American presidential inaugural address has stride over more than two hundred years and coupled with the social progress and economic development, the language itself would change accordingly.

1.1.2 Foreign situation of research：

The foreign research about American presidential inaugural addresses emphasized on stylistic features. George.A. Kennedy adopted a method named discourse analysis to do a research about communicative goals and introduced structure and rhetoric to the construction of inaugural addresses’ genres, he provided some clues about inaugural addresses’ research by the way of combining genres analysis with analysis of inaugural addresses, but in order to analyze efficiently about inaugural addresses at specific occasion or backgrounds, it is necessary to expand the range of research rather than restrict to the analysis of genres. In New History of Classical Rhetoric(1994) , George. A. Kennedy made a research about the arrangement of rhetoric and pointed out that introduction and narration were best suitable for speech, for each of them has its own functions and features.
In 1999, in the public speaking; strategies for success, David Zarefsky pointed out that speech was an art not a discipline and what made a speech excellent was not because it followed certain rules but because it can cope with specific situation efficiently, thus,David Zarefsky’s research still paid more attention to discourse, he held that a public speech is a process of making a choice by highlighting the word “strategy”. This book took examples of American presidents’ inaugural addresses, such as president Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Kennedy as well as Reagan to illustrate that the strategy of speech is just a choice. Reading through the whole book, it was easy to find that the author laid stress on listener-orientation and adaptation of situation rationally. Using the real examples to testify theory and using theory to perfect real examples are the major features of this book. Stylometry consists of lexis, sentences, rhetoric and discourse, however ,this book only emphasized the influence of situation on discourse without involving in other aspects. In Chinese , speech is categorized into argumentation, which belongs to applied writing. However, in English, there still exists dispute about the category of speech. The Britain scholar David Crystal and Derek Davy, in their collaborated work, Investigating English Style , divided English variety into five aspects: the language of religion, the language of legal documents, the language of conversation, the language of newspaper reporting and the language of unscripted commentary and they considered presidential inaugural addresses as the last category,the language of unscripted commentary,for the reasons that in their opinion, speech is possessed with features of spoken language and it is a completely colloquial form, but actually it is not the whole story , as we all know, speech is delivered to the listeners by the oral form, but not all speeches are the orators’ impromptu utterance, most parts of the speeches, especially political speech are prepared carefully in advance by the orator before formal speech. Up to now, the fifty-six American presidents’ inaugural addresses are previously prepared in written form, so when categorizing the speeches,the book Investigating English Style ignored that speech also possessed the features of written form,which was the deficiency of this book.

1.2 The Purpose and Significance of the Thesis
With the development of technology, our society makes a pace towards more democratic, more scientific and more liberal. The right of speech gradually gained more and more attention, as the manuscript delivered at the important occasion or mass rally--the speech, which plays an important role in political life of the public. Take the America presidential inaugural addresses as an example, it not just focuses on some certain public figures but it is related to every American citizen. Being an epitome of the United States, it covers all the aspects of American social life. America is the biggest powerful country in today’s world, it will make influences on other countries more or less as there exist any movement, thus it is easy for us to make a comprehensive understanding of America, espe