关键词: 转换生成理念; 英汉翻译过程; 运作机制; 层层深入分析法; 五字整合法

Abstract:

Since the 1950s, Chomsky’s transformational-generative linguistics, considered a “Chomskyan revolution”, has become a great focus of attention in the field of linguistics for his new linguistic concepts and methodologies. It has not only underpinned the structural analysis of structuralism, but also absorbed useful elements from the prevailing cognitive theories, endeavoring to probe into the psychological representation of knowledge structure, and to interpret the psychological mechanisms of the language itself. It is a valuable guide to linguistic research, foreign language teaching and cross-discipline research. Though Chomsky’s transformational generative linguistics is widely applied to the second language acquisition and foreign language teaching, it is seldom used to guide translation research. The present study aims to further explore and expound on the English-Chinese translation process in light of Chomsky’s transformational-generative concepts. It is found that, in Chomsky’s view, the generation of language undergoes transformations from deep structure to surface structure, a process that is common to all languages. Analogously, translation also experiences transformations, but rather the other way around, namely, from surface structure to deep structure at first, and from deep structure to surface structure in the end. This study simulates an English-Chinese translation model featuring a “step-by-step analyzer” and a “five-Chinese-character blender” as primary operators. It is hoped that the findings will shed light on the exploration of the nature of translation process, and the teaching and research.

Keywords: Transformational-Generative concepts; English-Chinese translation process; working mechanism; Step-by-Step Analyzer; Five-Chinese-Character Blender