I. Introduction
"Relocation" is also called relocation. According to the Dictionary of Literary Terminology and Literary Theory, "transferred epithet" is defined as a figure of speech, in which transferred epithet is transferred from an assignable noun to modify another noun to which it does not really belong. The definition shows that "transferred epithet" is characterized by moving rhetoric (usually adjectives or participles) from a noun that should be modified to an irrelevant noun. Holman, a British writer, pointed out: "The transferred epic is an adjustment used to restrict a noun grammatically. It is logically unadorned, and its meaning is clear through such a close relationship." [1] American linguist David? David Grubbs defines it as "the dislocation or temporary combination of two components in a sentence, for example, moving an adjective modifier to an unexpected position." [2] With regard to "transferred epithet", Mr. Chen Wangdao's "The Origin of Rhetoric" defines it as: "When two impressions are connected, the author transfers the characteristics of the original impression A to the impression B, which is called transferred epithet. It is probably common for us to transfer human characteristics to inhuman or ignorant things. " [3] Later rhetoric books basically followed this statement. Therefore, we can see that the definition of transferred epithet in English is basically the same as that in Chinese, and it is a figure of speech corresponding to each other in English and Chinese. For example, The Grapes of Wrath is the title of a novel by the famous American writer Steinbeck. In the 1930s, during the American economic panic, a large number of farmers went bankrupt and fled. He described a large group of farmers who reluctantly left their homes and moved west to California in order to find a better life, struggling and struggling on the line of life and death. "Anger" was originally used to refer to people's temper, but now it is used to modify "grapes". The humor contains spicy whipping, which vividly reveals the theme of the novel. On the surface, this rhetorical device seems to be an abnormal collocation between words, which is unreasonable and unconventional from the logical relationship. However, using this rhetorical device skillfully can make the scene blend, render the atmosphere, deepen the artistic conception, make people think, make the language concise, accurate, rich in meaning, profound in meaning and vivid in image, and receive good reception results.
Secondly, the structural and semantic features of transferred epithet.
The structure of "transferred epithet"+consists of modifier and noun head. On the surface, the modifier seems to be the noun prefix behind the modifier, but in the deep structure, it modifies something else, so it is characterized by "not directly explaining the nature, image or characteristics of the object it modifies, but often turning a corner to express a certain feeling of the object" [4]. Transferred epithet, as a language variety of unconventional collocation, is essentially a dislocation or temporary combination of collocation in a specific context. On the surface, it seems a bit illogical, unconventional and arrogant. But it is through unconventional collocation that its form is always novel and unique, and its words are unique, thus achieving special rhetorical effects. For example:/kloc-Thomas, an English poet in the 0/8th century? The first verse in Gray's Mourning at the Grave.
The winding path rings the death knell of parting day, and when the night bell rings, the waves of mourning are sent to the day.
Cleisthenes's herds slowly blew over the grassland, and the cattle circled and roared up and down.
The farmer was walking on his way home. The farmer was tired and he stumbled home.
Leave the world to darkness and me. Leave the whole world to dusk and me. (thomas gray: Elegy written in the courtyard of a country church) (Bian)
The poet used transferred epithet in two places: in the first line, it is used to refer to the fact that people's departure is removed to decorate the day, which reminds people of the scene of "sunset in the western hills and night arrival"; The word "weather" in the third line was originally used to modify ploughman, but it was moved to modify way. It seems unconventional, but in fact it vividly shows the scene of the plowman dragging his tired legs on his way home after a day's work. Another example is: One hundred years ago, a great America signed the Emancipation Declaration, and we stood in the symbolic shadow of this America. A hundred years ago, a great American signed the Emancipation Declaration. Today, we hold this party in the shadow of the symbolic statue of this great man. ) We know that shadows can't be symbolic. The author decorated the shadows here with symbolism. Although unconventional, the words are concise, novel and rich in meaning, which makes people associate. There are also many examples of transferred epithet in China's ancient poems. For example, "the birds are high, and the lonely clouds go to leisure alone, and they are never tired of looking at each other, only respecting Tingshan." (Li Bai: "Sitting alone in Jingting Mountain") "Cloud" won't feel lonely, just because the poet experienced the bitterness of the world in his long-term wandering, saw through the coldness of the world and deepened his dissatisfaction with reality, thus creating a sense of loneliness and moving on the cloud. The poet used transference to express his feelings about the scenery and conveyed his thoughts and feelings that he wanted to seek comfort and sustenance in the embrace of nature. I feel empathy when I see a mountain weariness, which is the poet's deep feeling that all sentient beings are rushing about for petty profits and fame, and it is difficult to find a reflection of a bosom friend. "angry; Next to the railing, it rains and rests. " (Yue Fei's "Man Jiang Hong") "Tomorrow, I will patrol the flagstone road again. Who will get drunk with me? " (Lu You's Quarrying Thought) Originally, you could only say "resentful feelings" and "drunken people". Here, the rhetorical words "mood" and "person" are used to modify "hair" and "saddle" respectively. Through the use of transferred epithet, not only the language expression is more concise, but also the structure is more compact and the writing is more expressive, thus achieving the purpose of empathy.
Transferred epithet, an illogical surface form, serves to improve the special effect of language, so it consciously violates or deviates from the conventional mode to reorganize words, because it liberates words from the shackles of simple logical thinking mode, digs out the connotation of words from deep semantic relations, expands the association, metaphor and symbolic meaning of words, and is properly used in a specific context, reflecting people's thinking mode full of association and jumping, which is not only puzzling, but also more amazing to read.
Thirdly, the pragmatic types of transferred epithet.
From the pragmatic point of view, transfer can be roughly divided into three categories: moving people to things, moving things to people, and moving things to things:
1. Transfer people to things, that is, transfer words describing people to modify concrete things, abstract things or certain behaviors.
Example 1. The old man lay in his sleepy bed all night.
The old man lay in bed and stayed up all night. In the sentence, sleepless is used to modify the old man, not the bed. It is unreasonable to decorate the concrete bed with drowsiness, but it makes the description more vivid and the language more expressive.
Example 2. He opened the telegram with nervous fingers.
He was so nervous that he opened the telegram with trembling fingers. In this example, the word that is usually used to modify people's nerves is moved to modify fingers, which makes the language concise and vivid and rich in meaning.
Example 3. He sat heavily in a protective chair.
He slumped down, his chair creaking as if in protest. Protest in the example is often used to explain people's behavior, but now it is used to decorate something specific, a chair. The chair creaks because it is overwhelmed, and the reasonable transfer is vivid and humorous.
Example 4. There was an amazing silence, and people slowly turned away.
People were greatly surprised and suddenly became silent. The adjective Amazing is used to explain people's inner feelings, modify the abstract noun silence, and vividly describe the scene of people falling silent because of surprise.
Example 5. I buried my head under the terrible sheets and carpets and lied like a child.
I buried my head in the sheets and blankets, crying like a child, and the sheets and blankets seemed to infect my sadness. People's emotions in the sentence are misunderstood and transferred to objects, which seems to resonate with me.
Similar usages include: critical eyes, happy May, carefree summer, sobbing river, wise advice, hopeless efforts and so on.
2. To transfer things to people is to transfer the attribute of explaining things to explaining people or people's behavior.
He is not an easy person to write. He is a writer whose works are difficult to read.
Easy was originally used to decorate works rather than writers, but here it is used to decorate human writers. An easy-to-understand writer refers to a writer whose works are easy to understand.
Example 7. He even has an occasional electronic conversation with Apple users all over the country.
He even occasionally talks with Apple computer users all over the country through the computer network. Electrons were originally used to decorate things, but here they are used to decorate people's behavior dialogues. Although collocation is illogical, it is understood and the language is concise.
Example 8. I am a straightforward person.
Straightforward should have modified personality, but now it has been moved to modify men. The whole sentence can be understood as: I am a straightforward person. This grafting makes the expression more thorough and reasonable, the structure more compact and the meaning more profound.
3. Transfer things to things, that is, transfer the expression describing things A to modify things B or concepts.
Example 9. I like the cleanliness of the warm breeze on my skin and the coolness of the water.
I enjoy the warm wind bathing my skin, and the cold water supports the fresh pleasure brought by my body. Clean and cool are used to modify the expression of certain things, such as breeze and water. Here, they moved to modify the abstract terms, namely, sensuality and support, vividly showing my feeling of being intoxicated by the warm wind bathing my skin and the cool water supporting my body.
Example 10. Mark Twain had to leave the city because he wrote so many columns. Mark? Twain wrote some biting columns, so he had to leave the city. Bitterness is used to modify columns in sentences in order to achieve the purpose of expressing emotion by borrowing things.
Similar usages include: voracious appetite (hunger), eating poverty (extreme poverty), baking court (nervous court), sleeping country town (barren town) and so on.
To sum up, transferred epithet, whether from person to thing, from person to thing, or from thing to thing, seems to violate language conventions. In a special context, words are temporarily transferred, and the semantic focus is on "moving", but no matter how it is moved, it is not beyond the scope stipulated by semantic premise and pragmatic premise. Its existence is based on a certain premise, that is, the information or background knowledge that both parties know, that is, the information or meaning after the modifier is moved. In addition, from the pragmatic point of view, transferred epithet does not violate the standards of quantity, quality and mode in the principle of conversational cooperation.
Fourthly, the translation principles and methods of transferred epithet.
English and Chinese rhetorical devices of transferred epithet basically correspond. Therefore, when translating transferred epithet, we should not only maintain the rhetorical style of the original text, but also give consideration to the fluency of the translation and accurately convey the profound meaning contained in the original text. When translating transferred epithet, the following translation methods can be adopted:
(A) literal translation method
Generally speaking, the relationship between modifiers and head words in transferred epithet is simple and clear, so literal translation can be used and the same rhetorical devices can be used as much as possible to preserve semantic information and formal correspondence and reproduce the charm of the original text. For example:
1. He was ashamed of his low exam score.
His shameful exam results annoyed him.
2. The heroes in the legal field walked slowly around the baking field.
The hero of the legal profession walked slowly around the tense and stuffy court.
The tireless bell is ringing for the fourth time now.
The tireless bell is now ringing for the fourth time.
During the Great Depression, American society experienced painful poverty.
During the Great Depression, American society experienced heartbreaking poverty.
He is awake from hunger now, tormenting him.
At present, the hunger in his stomach has awakened and gnawed at him.
He ended his busy life at the age of 80.
He ended his busy life at the age of eighty.
(2) Decomposition translation method
Due to the transfer of the attributes of modifiers in English transferred epithet, that is, modifiers and logical modifiers are forcibly separated, there is semantic inconsistency between modifiers and head words. In the process of translation, the translator can restore the position of the modifier or separate the modifier from the head word by disassembling the translation, and move the modifier to the appropriate position in the sentence for readers to understand and accept. For example:
1. Last night, john henderson finished an exhausted business trip and was driving home.
John henderson came back from a business trip very late last night and was exhausted when he got home.
After an unthinking moment, she put the pen in her mouth.
She thought for a while, but couldn't think of anything, so she bit the pen in her mouth.
He tossed and turned in bed with pain all night and couldn't sleep.
He tossed and turned painfully in bed all night, unable to sleep.
(3) Free translation method
Because English and Chinese have different cultural origins, their expressions are different. If the translation form of English greatly exceeds the acceptability of Chinese expression habits, in this case, the translator needs to adopt free translation for the purpose of accurately conveying the information and meaning of the original text. For example:
1. You are an old hand at creative pain.
(Martin Luther King, "I Have a Dream") The deliberate persecution of whites makes you suffer greatly.
Winter keeps us warm and covered.
Forgetting the earth in the snow, feeling
Small life of dried tuber. (T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land)
Winter makes us warm, the earth is covered with snow that helps people forget, and it gives a little life to the dry bulbs.
"Forget about snow" should be understood as: snow covers the earth, so white and clean that we forget the true colors of the earth for a while.
He insists that our hypothesis is completely wrong.
He insisted that all our assumptions were wrong.
Therefore, when translating this kind of rhetoric, we should analyze transferred epithet from the perspective of deep structure, accurately understand the internal relationship and logical relationship between transferred epithet and formal modifier, and then correctly judge their true meanings in sentences or contexts, and try our best to convey their connotations clearly to the target readers in the most appropriate language.
References:
Holman. C.H. Handbook of Literature [M]. London: Cambridge Press, 1979.
[2] Grubbs D. Random House Dictionary for authors and readers [Z]. new york: Random House, 1990.
[3] Chen Wangdao. The development of rhetoric [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 1984.
[4] Wang Dechun. Rhetoric dictionary [M]. Zhejiang: Zhejiang Education Press, 1987.
[5] Ren Huang. English rhetoric and writing [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 1996.
[6] Liu. Style and Translation (Revised Edition) [M]. Beijing: China Foreign Translation Publishing Company, 1998.
[7] Wang. English transferred epithet and its translation [J]. Chinese translation, 200 1.