Translation of Popular Chinese.docx

1、Translation of Popular ChineseTranslation of Popular Chinese Internet Expressions for the Year of 2009 and 20101. IntroductionPopular Chinese Internet expressions, also frequently referred to as Net-language, is a newly born language mode.With the rapid development of science and technology of our e

2、ra, the Internet is gaining more and more popularity even among common people. According to statistics made by the China Internet Network Information Center( CNNIC), the total number of Chinese netizens has come to 457000000 by the end of December, 2010 with the coverage rate reaching 34.3%. Compare

3、d to 2009, there is an increase of 73300000 Internet users and the coverage rate has increased by 5.4 percentage point.As a result, there has been, over the recent years a flood of popular Chinese Internet expressions emerging and flowing in every corner of the cyber space. Among them, some derived

4、from social events, some came from cultural exhange, others appeared along with the advance of science and technology, still others were outcome of the needs of convenience and novelty required by the Internet exchange. They have substantially stimulated peoples wisdom and ingenuity of language use,

5、 and also enlarged our Chinese vocabulary to an unimaginable extent. Besides, they are a fashion which has reflected individuals way of life and their state of mind in the Internet age; they are more than just a language phenomenon, but a new social and cultural phenomenon. Also, their English trans

6、lation is not only good for extending their global influence, but an indispensible supplement to the development of human language. Therefore, they deserve our full attention and serious study.Indeed, along with their popularity, they do attract much attention. Many scholars and linguilists have tri

7、ed their hands at this new subject. However, the current studies in our country mostly concentrate on certain aspects. For example, Popular Chinese Internet Expressions and Translation after 2000 by Cheng Shuiying puts emphasis on the description of English transltion of Net-language emerging after

8、2000; On the Significance of Net-language by Zhong Qiumin places particular stress on the significance of Net-language. So this thesis will give a comprehensive introduction of the features, influences, translation strategies of Chinese Internet buzzwords as well as English translation of those emer

9、ging in the year of 2009 and 2010.2. Features of Popular Chinese Internet Expressions In the present time, features of Chinese Internet catchphrases can be concluded into the following five aspects.2.1 Short time effectivenessOne may well say that the Internet world is undergoing a myriad of changes

10、 in the twinkling of an eye. Chances are that what were all the rage yesterday could be completely gone at the present. So with popular Internet expressions. In other words, they are highly time-limited, such as 打酱油( I am here for some soy sauce), means none of my business and became a catchphrase f

11、or public apathy when a man questioned by a journalist about a scandal in the news said, “ It has nothing to do with me at all! Im just out to get some soy sause!”); 俯卧撑(push-ups, indicating an attitude of netizens who neither care about nor make comments on current affairs, and just do their own th

12、ings. In fact, it shows a kind of helplessness and satire to those unkown truths.) They came into being and were on almost everyones lips overnight, following certain social events in 2008. But, as time goes on, they seem to lost their popularity and are replaced by new ones.To sum up, although popu

13、lar Internet expressions have been given a high degree of concern and can be really widespread at the moment they were put forward, they tend to have a low continuity due to their association with specified events and given environment.2.2 Wide acceptanceIn the cyber space, one means of expression p

14、opular among a certain group of people is well likely to be well received by others just in a minute. The reasons can be described as fowllows:1) Time and space impose no restrictions on the link of the Internet. Thanks to science and technology, people who are from different places or even who get

15、online at different time can easily get in touch with each other. All one need to do is to get a computer and make sure that the Internet services are available.2) Nowadays there are almost no obstacles in the process of the Internet exchange, no matter within a country or on a global scale. The com

16、mon obstacles, such as, language, custom, manners and the like are more and more easily to be handled, especially on the Internet. 3) A wide range of messaging services, such as QQ and MSN, help greatly to provide the worldwide Internet users with convenient and speedy online communication.4) Being

17、interesting living and even resonant, these catchphrases are capable of catching peoples hearts. So, people cannot wait to make them well known.Perhaps this feature might help to make up for the mentioned feature of short time effectiveness, because some expressions can really turn into everyday wor

18、ds and thus be reserved after being continually and widely used within a period of time.2.3 Multi-formsThe forms of Chinese Internet top expressions are various rather than just limited to Chinese phrases or sentences, as listed below:1) Words made up by letters, including both English alphabets and

19、 Chinese pinyin. Such as, BBS( bulletin board system), ICQ( a network paging software, sounds like “I seek you.”); BT( bian tai, pinyin for 变态, means “pervert” ), PP( pi pi, pinyin for 屁屁, nickname of “bottom”; or piao piao, pinyin for 漂漂, means “pretty”), etc.2) A string of numerals or combination

20、of numerals and Chinese characters or of numerals and English alphabets. They are puns, actually. Here are some examples: 7456 ( sounds like “qi si wo liao”, pinyin for 气死我了, meaning “ It pissed me off.”), 886 ( sounds like“bai bai liao”, pinyin for 拜拜了, meaning “Byebye”); 8错 ( sounds like“bu cuo”,

21、pinyin for 不错, meaning“not bad”); B4( a pun for “before”), F2F( a pun for “face to face”), and so on.3) Homophonic of Chinese characters, including both homophonic to Chinese characters and homophonic translation of English words. For example, 美眉( mei mei, meaning“a pretty girl”), homophnic to妹妹( me

22、i mei, means“little sister”); 血拼(xie pin, means“shopping”), homophonic translation of “shopping”.4) Symbolic words. Making use of pictographic features of all kinds of symbols, such as, punctuation mark, Latin letters, symbols on keyboard, and so on, they are word forms mainly used to express feelin

23、gs or state of mind while chatting online, just like gesture language in real communication. For instance, - , image of a smiling face, implies cheerfulness or appreciation. Another example, , suggests that please take this beautiful rose There are numerous examples like them.In the future, it is we

24、ll likely that more and more forms will be adopted and put into use. 2.4 InnovativenessThe main part of Internet users are young people who are quick-witted, energetic, inventive, and able to learn new things very fast. Therefore, as long as those Internet expressions are considered as fresh, intere

25、sting by them and win sense of agreement from them, they will be widely spread, or even be used as language models within a short time period. For example, 菜鸟(cai niao, the corresponding English word is “newbie”, or “greenhand”) refers to an inexperienced Internet user; 大虾(da xia, homophonic to 大侠),

26、 “knowbie” in English, refers to a knowledgeable and experienced Internet user. 2.5 RandomnessWhile chatting online, people tend to use random words rather than to choose words carefully according to identity and social status. This may be explained by what is listed below:1) On the Internet, people

27、 are not face to face, that is to say, they cannot see or hear each other. In that case, people would care less about whom they are talking to than whether their aimsay, to get some information or to pour out troubles when in low spiritis achieved or not. Perhaps, a man is falling in love with anoth

28、er man who he thinks is a PLMM( a pretty girl). Who knows? 2) In order to catch attention, people always bring their ingenuity and creativity into full play to seek novelty and peculiarity. Whats more, no relevant rules to be observed. Therefore, all kinds of popular Internet expressions have appear

29、ed and made the feature of randomness inevitable. 3) To keep up with the high pace of modern life, fast communication is required. Accordingly, time needed to think about wording is limited and even inadequate. It is especially true with cyber communication. Thus, random expressions come into use an

30、d some even become popular.4) The last but not the least, people favour helps to promote the development of these random Internet expressions. It seems that people like this kind of communication a lot. Needless to say, in the real world, people wouldnt open their hearts and speak out all of their i

31、deas and opinions due to identity and social status. But the world on the Internet is quite different. People can tell what is on mind to their hearts content and dont have to fear anything, because its open and anonymous!In the light of the reasons discussed above, it is no wonder that some popular

32、 Internet expressions are solemn, some are humorous, others are serious, and still others are bantering.2.6 SimplicityHave you ever had the experience that the minute you log in, all kinds of information come into sight and it is really hard for your eyes to take in all of them? In this case, which

33、would you decide to read first? Many Internet users hold that for the sake of getting as much infomation as possible within a limited time, they would resort to skimming and scanning when confronted with excessive contents on the Internet. Consequently, when posting information online, we must use si