Abstract: the most basic point of translation is to be faithful to the original text, and it is extremely important to fully understand the meaning of the original text. When encountering "Japanese-Chinese homographs", the translator needs to make a lot of efforts to carefully scrutinize and ponder in order to accurately express the meaning of the original text. Chinese characters flowing into Japanese have the characteristics of the same or similar glyphs and different meanings and parts of speech. Or although the forms of words are the same and similar, there are still differences in language sense, such as praise and criticism, tone strength, word collocation, stylistic color and so on. It is these Japanese words of "suspected" Chinese characters that can easily lead to misunderstanding and mistranslation when used.
Key words: the causes of misunderstanding and mistranslation of Japanese and Chinese homographs.
Translation is the activity of re-expressing ideas and information expressed in one language in another. Or translation is the re-creation of another language. Language is a tool for exchanging ideas, and any language is closely related to the life, customs, habits and historical traditions of the people who created it. Different languages have different characteristics. Therefore, as a Japanese learner, we must master the basic laws of Japanese and Chinese, and constantly compare the different customs and historical traditions of the two countries to achieve the purpose of translation. The most basic point of translation is to be faithful to the original text, and it is extremely important to fully understand the meaning of the original text. At the same time, mastering a large number of words is also an important basis for translation work. For Japanese learners, only by accurately grasping the similarities and differences between Chinese and Japanese words can they better express the meaning of the original text in their mother tongue. Especially when encountering "Japanese-Chinese homographs", the translator needs to make a lot of efforts to carefully scrutinize and ponder in order to accurately express the meaning of the original text.
Chinese characters were born in China, and Chinese characters in Japanese certainly came from China. In the past, Japanese had only spoken language, but no written language of its own. As early as the first century AD, Chinese characters began to be introduced into Japan, but only with stone carvings, inscriptions, metals, pottery and so on. At the end of the 4th century, a man named Wang Ren came to Japan from Baekje (present-day Korea) with ten volumes of The Analects of Confucius and one volume of Thousand-character Works, and Chinese characters began to spread widely in Japan. After the introduction of Chinese characters into Japan, after the evolution of 1000 years and the process of Japanese characters, Japanese characters have changed more or less in pronunciation, form and meaning compared with Chinese characters.
First of all, the change of pronunciation is the most complicated. Japanese characters are divided into phonetic reading and training reading, and phonetic reading is different from pentatonic, Chinese and Tang sounds. Chinese characters with more than one word and more than one word account for a considerable proportion. Secondly, fonts have also changed considerably. Because both China and Japan have simplified fonts several times, some Chinese characters have simplified Chinese without simplifying Japanese, or simplified in different ways. In addition, the Japanese created their own unique Chinese characters. Also, in terms of meaning, the meaning of many Chinese characters has become very complicated because of the training and pronunciation of Japanese characters. The different results of the evolution of the meaning of Chinese characters in China and China lead to many Japanese characters with the same glyph but different meanings, or the same meaning is not exactly the same. In addition, both Chinese and Japanese simplified words have different parts of speech of words with the same or similar glyphs. Although the word forms are the same or similar, there are still differences in language sense, tone strength, word collocation, stylistic color and so on. This paper will focus on the misunderstanding and mistranslation of "Japanese and Chinese homographs" in Japanese.
As we all know, Japanese and Chinese homographs are generally divided into three categories: the same shape but the same meaning and usage; The font is the same, but the meaning and usage are completely different; The glyphs are the same, but their meanings and usages are different. So, how are these differences formed?
First, the misunderstanding and mistranslation caused by the differences in the meanings of homographs between Japanese and Chinese.
1. The change of meaning itself leads to the difference of meaning.
(1) The transformation of word meaning, such as the word "market", originally meant the place where goods were traded, even the area where goods were marketed. But in modern Chinese, the word "market" not only has the same meaning as the Japanese word "market", but also derives a new meaning to describe the popularity of something. For example, "pessimistic arguments are getting less and less." Other words that fall into this category include "warm current", "dead corner" and "prison cell". This phenomenon can be regarded as ambiguity caused by vulgarity.
(2) Borrowing of Word Meaning Generally speaking, when a word enters another language as a foreign word, its word meaning will be restricted or even specified to some extent due to various factors. For example, the word "frontline" has at least ten meanings as a noun in English. However, in modern Japanese, "former sage" has only two meanings, and some (not all) other meaning are absorbed by the foreign words "フロント". In other words, "front line" means "フント". In modern Chinese, "front line" has only one meaning, that is, "the area where the two armies are at war".
(3) Differentiation of Meaning and Time Difference The word "perfunctory" was originally a pure Chinese word introduced into Japan from China, and both of them belong to the same origin. However, in modern Chinese and modern Japanese, their meanings are quite different. According to relevant data, "perfunctory" in Chinese has gone through four stages of evolution. (1) The original meaning of "fu" means diffusion and flow; "Yan" describes the way water is dispersed. (2) the first derived meaning-from the original meaning, extended meaning.
(3) Second derivative meaning-then derivative meaning of speaking, acting irresponsibly and handling things. (4) the third derived meaning-and then derived the meaning of barely maintaining and handling things.
The meaning of "perfunctory" in Japanese belongs to the first derivative of the above example, which is the earliest derivative of "perfunctory" in Chinese. Therefore, the meaning of the word "perfunctory" in the two countries is the same until the first derivative and the second derivative. Later, the Chinese side derived three or four derivative meanings, and the Japanese side's "perfunctory" still stayed in the first derivative meaning, which caused ambiguity. Incidentally, in modern Chinese, the second-order derivative meaning of "perfunctory" is most commonly used, and the third-order derivative meaning is also more commonly used, while the first-order derivative meaning is hardly used except in very limited written language occasions.
(4) The influence of different social and cultural backgrounds on the meaning of words In modern Japanese, the word "discussion" means discussion and investigation. In modern Chinese, "review" means: "find out your shortcomings and mistakes in your thoughts, work or life, and investigate their roots." There is no connection between the two, but there is a big difference. I'm afraid the reason has to be explored from the changes of social life in modern China.
According to the test, the word "Yi" in Japanese does inherit the basic semantics of "Shen" in ancient Chinese. In the Tang and Song Dynasties, the meaning of "review" in Chinese was to search, search and sort out, and later it derived the meaning of research. But in 1930s and 1940s, the meaning of "review" escaped in the liberated areas, and the meaning of analysis was derived from the meaning of research, and then from the meaning of self-criticism. 1949 After the founding of New China, this usage was spread to the whole country, and the original intention of "review" was gradually forgotten. On the other hand, the original meaning of "review" is still used in the written language outside the liberated areas, including Taiwan Province, Hongkong, Macau and some elderly people. Intriguingly, after the reform and opening up, with the increasingly frequent contacts and exchanges between the mainland and Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and other regions where Chinese is used, the original meaning of the word "review" has a recovery trend.
On the causes of misunderstanding and mistranslation of "Japanese-Chinese homographs". 2. Factors other than semantic changes lead to different meanings (1). The word "candidate" means to choose the right person for this job from many people in different Japanese. "Candidate" in modern Chinese means: "a person selected for a certain purpose." Their meanings are related, but they are essentially different. The former is "things" and the latter is "people". I'm afraid the reason is that these two words are formed in different ways. The "candidate" in Japanese is the "object-predicate structure", while the "candidate" in modern Chinese is obviously the "biased structure". Therefore, Japanese "candidate" can be used as a verb, while Chinese "candidate" has no such usage and can only be used as a noun.
(2) There are two situations in which the meaning of ancient Chinese still remains in the words of a country.
One is the Chinese word that was integrated into Japanese before Meiji and became a part of Japanese vocabulary, and its meaning is still intact. On the other hand, the meanings of corresponding words in Chinese change with the times, which leads to ambiguity. On the other hand, this paper is provided by www.51lunwen.com. If you need to reprint, please indicate the source.
It was the Japanese in Meiji period who abandoned the old meaning when translating two new terms in ancient Chinese. On the other hand, this old meaning still exists in modern Chinese, which leads to ambiguity.
(3) Differences caused by different pronunciations This refers to some homographs. Although both Chinese and Japanese have the same word form, one side (mainly Japanese) has two or more pronunciations. Different pronunciations have different meanings, that is, pronunciation becomes an element to distinguish meanings, which leads to ambiguity.
(4) The transliteration of homophones leads to differences. Since the beginning of this century, Japan has repeatedly restricted the use of Chinese characters by law, especially the List of Commonly Used Chinese Characters issued by 198 1 restricts the number of Chinese characters to 1945. When some words contain Chinese characters that are not listed in the list, transliteration is adopted, that is, some specific Chinese characters with the same pronunciation in the list are used (not arbitrary).
(5) Different morpheme meanings lead to ambiguity, such as "wife". In modern Chinese, "wife" refers to a wife, not an elderly woman. And "wife" in Japanese means the latter. The word "Lao" here, like the word "Lao" in "Teacher", "Lao San", "Tiger" and "Old Corn", belongs to affixes. Specifically, the word "Lao" here is a "prefix, which refers to people, ranking order, and some animal and plant names" and has no practical significance. Therefore, it can only be used as a word-making component and has no old practical significance.
Second, misunderstanding and mistranslation caused by different parts of speech of words with the same or similar glyphs after simplification of Chinese and Japanese characters: the word "Ji" is a verb or noun in Chinese and a noun in Japanese; The word "Zheng" is an adjective or adverb in Chinese and a noun in Japanese. The word "neural" is an adjective or adverb in Chinese and a noun or verb in Japanese. The word "agree" is a verb in both Chinese and Japanese, but it is a substitute verb in Chinese and an automatic word in Japanese.
3. Words with the same and similar forms but different usages, such as "lesson, question, softness and present", have different feelings between Chinese and Japanese in terms of praise and criticism, tone strength, word collocation and stylistic color. From the above aspects, it is not difficult to see that the simplified words with the same or similar glyphs in Chinese and Japanese have complex phenomena such as the same meaning and part of speech, different parts of speech and subtle differences in language sense. Without careful study and analysis, China people whose mother tongue is Chinese will be influenced by Chinese when learning and using Japanese, and there will be many mistakes in the process of choosing words and making sentences, such as misunderstanding and mistranslation. In a word, Chinese characters introduced into Japan have undergone great changes in pronunciation, form, meaning, part of speech, language sense and many other aspects after more than a thousand years of evolution. In terms of glyphs, Chinese characters, as a recording language, a symbol and a tool for mass communication, naturally have a requirement of "convenience" and "relaxation". In order to meet this requirement, China and Japan have carried out many reforms on the simplification of Chinese characters, which eventually led to the differences in font, meaning and part of speech between the two countries. On the one hand, Chinese characters in Japanese are similar to Chinese in meaning and usage habits, which brings a lot of convenience to Japanese learners. On the other hand, Japanese learners are often influenced by their mother tongue and ignore the differences, resulting in misunderstanding and mistranslation. Therefore, we should identify these Japanese words with "suspected" Chinese characters, especially "Japanese-Chinese homographs". In modern Japanese, some glyphs, meanings and parts of speech are exactly the same as Chinese, some glyphs are completely different from Chinese, and some glyphs, meanings and parts of speech are similar to Chinese. For these words, we need to distinguish them carefully in the practical application process, and we need more translation and practice to correctly understand and use Japanese, especially when we encounter "Japanese-Chinese homographs".