A study on the usage of the intensifier “quite” and its translation from English to Chinese: Novel “Wuthering Heights” and “Pride and Prejudice”

摘要

This paper aims to analysis the usage of one intensifier “quite” in two English novels Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice, and examine the different translation strategies that are used to translate the intensifier “quite” in the Chinese translation versions of the two novels. The ability to recognise the certain degree of “quite” in different situations is crucial for translators to interpret its meaning correctly and achieve translation equivalence during the process. However, it is impossible to describe or judge the exact degrees and meanings of “quite” in some cases. The vague nature of “quite” and the boundedness of its modifying heads make the translation more difficult. These issues create challenges to translators during the translation process. This paper takes a close look at some examples of the intensifier “quite” from the two novels to analyse the usage of “quite” and the translation strategies which applied to the translation of “quite”. The findings reveal that the degree and meaning of “quite” are decided by the boundedness of its modifying heads. And free translation and literal translation methods are almost equally used in the novels. Especially in free translation, various methods are used to achieve equivalence in translation, such as compensation, omission and discourse analysis. The findings also suggest that it is impossible to make exact translations of the intensifier “quite” because of its vague nature of and the boundedness of its modifying heads in different situations. The complexity of the degree of “quite” requires translators to make decisions according to the specific situations.