Abstract

Chinese and English have different cultural backgrounds. Chinese culture belongs to humanistic culture and English culture belongs to scientific culture. These differences of psychoculture between China and Western countries not only have directly reflected in different necessities, but also have infiltrated various cultural art forms. Language and culture complement each other, just as predecessors have mentioned that the culture is the base of language, and the language is the carrier of culture. The use of language reflects human’s understanding and attitude to the whole world which can not exist independently without culture. Such differences in conception have great influence on the two languages and are the obstacles in cultural exchanges. In his Cultural Linguistics, Xing Fuyi has remarked that the structure of the cultural system can be divided into the surface (material) level, the middle (customs system) level, the inner (psychological) level, which contains aesthetic taste,  moral sentiment, values, thinking patterns, etc. Psychological culture is at a deeper level compared with material culture and system culture. Based on the basic theories of linguistics, cultural psychology and translation studies, this paper mainly compares and analyzes the differences of psychoculture in Chinese and English, and some useful ways to eliminate the interference factors of psychocultural differences in translation. It is shown in the thesis that translators should consider not only the linguistic rendering, but also more of culture transferring and exchange of thinking patterns if they want to get faithful translation to the original and benefit readers’ understanding.

Key Words: cultural exchange; psychoculture; thinking patterns; comparison

Contents

摘要

Abstract

1. Introduction-1

2. Language, culture and translation-1

2.1 The nature of language-1

2.2 The nature of culture-1

2.3 The relationship between language and culture-2

2.4 The relationship between culture and translation-2

3.The comparison of Chinese and English culture in the ways of thinking-2

3.1 Intuitive and concrete vs. Reasonable and logical-2

3.2 Whole vs. Individual-7

3.2.1 Fuzzy vs. Precise-8

3.2.2 Vague vs. Accurate-9

3.2.3 Overall structure of discourse vs. Preciseness of discourse structure-10

3.3 Para taxis vs. Hypo taxis-11

3.4 Tortuous Thinking vs. Straight Thinking-11

3.5 Chinese uses rhetoric and four word antithesis frequently-13

4 Some ways to eliminate the interference factors of cultural differences in translation-13

4.1 To cultivate the ability of abstract and logic thinking-13

4.2 To cultivate the ability to analyze the context and perceive the language-16

4.3 To read widely to enhance cultural appreciation-17

4.4 To strengthen the study and cultivation of the mother tongue-18

5 Conclusion-18

References-19

Acknowledgments-20