Differences between Translation of Chinese Compound Nouns into English Compound Constructions ‘Deverbal Noun - Noun’ and ‘V.-ing - Noun’

DOI

10.2991/iccessh-18.2018.183How to use a DOI?

Keywords

compound nouns; translation; cognitive linguistics; construction grammar; deverbal noun; verb-ing; differences

Abstract

Chinese compound nouns consisted of a modifier based on a verb meaning and of a head noun may be translated into English ‘deverbal noun (dn.)-noun (n.)’ compound construction or ‘v.-ing-noun (n.)’ compound construction. Under the perspective of cognitive linguistics, the two constructions possess cognitive, semantic and pragmatic differences which are looked into in this study. Suggestions on whether adopting ‘dn.-n.’ compound construction or ‘v.ing-n.’ compound construction for translation are given. Findings include that ‘dn.-n.’ is a better choice for translation if the various meanings related to the action of the source modifier need expressing or the ambiguity is in need, while ‘v.-ing-n.’ is better if only the meaning of the process of the action is needed and to avoid misunderstanding. ‘Ing’ can be omitted in ‘v.-ing-n.’ because of the economy principle of language when the semantic effect of ‘dn.-n.’ and ‘v.-ing-n.’ is close.

Copyright

© 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Rou Yang
AU  - Dongjie Li
PY  - 2018/07
DA  - 2018/07
TI  - Differences between Translation of Chinese Compound Nouns into English Compound Constructions ‘Deverbal Noun - Noun’ and ‘V.-ing - Noun’
BT  - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Humanities (ICCESSH 2018)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 806
EP  - 811
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/iccessh-18.2018.183
DO  - 10.2991/iccessh-18.2018.183
ID  - Yang2018/07
ER  -