The Origin of Four-Character Structures with er (而) in Literary Translation from English into Chinese: A Descriptive Study of A Passage

摘要

Four-character structures in Chinese are commonly discussed as tools of embodying the aesthetic properties of both oral and written literature works.The use of four-character structures in the Chinese translated texts could have the same function,and it is not hard to find in the Chinese translations of English literature works that four-character structures are largely adopted.Through collecting four-character structures with er(而)from a translated work of A Passage to India,and investigating on their origins in the source English text,this thesis uses statistic methods to induce some linguistic properties on the counterparts.From the perspective of analyzing those counterparts which correspond to the Chinese four-character structure translations,certain characteristics or properties are discovered,and inspirations on literary translation techniques are provided.Some discussions are also made concerning possible relations between the four-character structures with er(而)and their ST counterparts.