Abstract

Negation is ubiquitous in human languages. However, different languages have different ways of expressing a negative meaning. Compared with Chinese negative forms, owing to the differences exist in the ways of thinking and codes of language and so on, English negative forms have a lot of differences. The ways of expressing a negative meaning in English are complex, which results in the difficulties of understanding, translation and usage.
English negation has been an old topic. Many people have made great contributions to the translation of English negative sentences into Chinese, and some scholars have divided English negation into different types on the basis of different methods. In light of the relations between meaning and form, surface structure with negative meaning can be divided into explicit negation and implicit negation. In addition, negation can also be studied at these three levels--phonological level, lexical level and syntactic level.
In this paper, I will divide English negation into explicit negation and implicit negation, and then illustrate how to translate English negative sentences into Chinese at lexical level and syntactic level.

Keywords: English negation; translation; explicit negation; implicit negation

摘要

否定在人类语言中普遍存在。但是不同语言表达否定意义的方法有许多不同之处。由于思维方式和语言习惯等方面的不同，英语的否定形式与汉语相差较大。英语表达否定意义的方式非常复杂，这造成了我们在理解、翻译和使用上的困难。
英语否定的研究已经是个老话题了。许多人在英语否定句的汉译上做出了巨大的贡献。有些学者将英语的否定按照不同的方法进行了分类。根据意义与形式之间的关系，表面结构含否定意义的否定可以分为显式否定和隐式否定。此外，否定也可以从这三个层次进行研究——语音层面,词汇层面和句法层面。
在本论文中,我将英语否定分为显式否定和隐式否定,然后在词汇层面和句法层面上举例说明如何把英语否定句译成汉语。

关键词：英语否定；汉译；显式否定；隐式否定