摘要

  在中国，翻译是一门古老而又年轻的艺术。中国的翻译可以追溯到魏汉，而盛于隋唐，前后大概持续了一千多年。在这一千多年里，许多古今中外的专家和学者对翻译以及翻译的标准提出了不同的看法。这些珍贵的看法对后人在翻译实践时产生了很大的影响，他们为当代的翻译事业贡献了自己的力量。尽管如此，还是有很多学生在做英译汉的练习时免不了会望文生义，导致这种现象产生的原因是多种多样的，主要可以归结为两方面的原因—主观原因和客观原因。主观方面的原因大致是学生的认识问题，而客观方面原因就比较复杂，如，英语词汇的一词多义，英语句子和英语词汇在不同上下文的不同含义，以及英语语法结构的复杂多样性。本文主要从英语的复杂性和多变性从着手，深入研究导致学生产生望文生义这种现象的主观方面原因和客观方面的原因，举出一系列相应的例子,并详细地分析了这两方面的原因,最后提出措施以防学生在今后的翻译中再出现类似的错误。

关键词：望文生义; 主要原因；翻译策略；

Abstract

In China, the translation is an art which is both old and young. Translation can be dated back to about 1000 years ago, during which time many experts and scholars in ancient time and modern time expressed their opinions about translation and standards of translation, and they also tried their best to make the field perfect. Those opinions are helpful and have great impacts on students. However, students still make mistakes when they do translation practice. The reasons that cause the phenomenon of translating literally in translation practice are multiple. Reasons of the phenomenon can be divided into two aspects: subjective aspects and objective aspects. The subjective reasons mainly include students’ understandings about the special culture of English speaking countries and the background information of the original text, while the objective reasons are complicated: polysemy of English vocabularies, different meanings in different contexts of the same English sentences or words, and the complexity of the structure of English grammar. They are the main points that cause the phenomenon of translating literally. This paper studies the reasons in detail and gives some related examples on the basis of the complexity and variability of English; furthermore, the paper draws a conclusion. Finally, in order to avoid the mistake in translating English into Chinese, this paper proposes series of specific measures for students to take to to prevent future problems in this field.

Key words: word-for-word translation; main reasons; translation strategies