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1. Each of the following sentences contains the word language. Read the sentence and identify whether the word, as used in the context, refers to language as activity or language as system. If it refers to language as system, does it refer to a system used by an individual, a group of people, a nation, or all human beings?
1) Compared with English, German is a difficult language.
2) The professor keeps using obscure language.
3) Aphasia means the loss of ability to use or to understand language.
4) Do you know what that word really means? You should be more careful with your language.
5) Psychologists use lots of big terms. Their language is difficult to understand.
6) The article is full of archaic language.
7) Young children are good at picking up a language.
8) The boy was scolded by his mother for using bad language.
2. Sit back and relax. Read a piece of Chinese original and its English translation carefully, and try to answer the following questions:
? Do you like the translation? Why or why not?
? What linguistic and/or extralinguistic knowledge is needed to translate this specific passage?
? Can you identify any differences between the Chinese and English languages from your comparative reading(s) of the two texts (respectively called the “source text” and the “target text”)? How do these differences affect the way the translators communicate the meaning and style of the original in English?
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Yin
Hsueh-yen was genuinely bewitching, though no one could say precisely where
her charm lay. She rarely bothered to put on makeup; at most she might touch
her lips with a little Max factor now and then; so faint as to be barely
noticeable. Nor did she care to wear vivid colours. All through the summer,
when the weather was burning hot, she dressed entirely in silvery white,
looking cool and fresh beyond words. Indeed, she had lovely snow-white skin
and a slender figure, with sweet, exquisite eyes set in an oval face, but it
was not these features that made her so extraordinary. Everyone who had ever
set eyes on Yin Hsueh-yen said that, for some mysterious reason, every
gesture of her hand and every movement of her foot held an alluring charm
unmatched in all the world. While a yawn or a frown would have been
unbecoming to others, in her it carried another kind of attraction. She spoke
little: at crucial moments she might throw in a few words, ever so pleasant
and soothing to the ear, in her Soochow-accented Shanghainese. Some patrons
who could not afford to have her at their tables came nevertheless to the
Paramount Hall just to enjoy her radiant
presence and listen to her soft Soochow speech, which seemed to make it all
worthwhile. On the dance floor, her head slightly raised, her hips gently
swaying, she always danced unhurriedly; even when it was a quick fox-trot,
she never let go of herself displaying the ease and the suppleness of a
windblown catkin drifting along, free of roots. Yin Hsueh-yen had her own
rhythm; she moved to her own beat. No outside disturbance could affect her
natural poise. (??????? ?). |
3. What kind of study is contrastive linguistics?