Mistranslation of Japanese slogans

On the causes of misunderstanding and mistranslation of "Japanese and Chinese homographs"

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 or 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 create it. Different languages have different characteristics. Therefore, as Japanese learners, we must master the basic laws of Japanese and Chinese, the different customs, habits, history and traditions of the two countries, and constantly compare them 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, so as to accurately express the meaning of the original text.

Chinese characters were born in China, and Japanese characters also came from China. In previous Japanese, there was only oral language without its own writing. As early as the first century AD, Chinese characters began to be introduced into Japan, but they were only combined with stone carvings, inscriptions, metals and pottery. At the end of the 4th century AD, 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 Characters, 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, morphology 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 one word and multiple tones and one tone and multiple characters account for a considerable proportion. Secondly, fonts have also changed considerably. Because both China and Japan have simplified fonts many times, some Chinese characters are simplified in Chinese, but not in Japanese, or simplified in different ways. In addition, the Japanese created their own unique Chinese characters. Also, in terms of word meaning, because Japanese characters use training pronunciation, the word meaning of many Chinese characters becomes very complicated. The different results of the evolution of word meaning between Chinese and Japanese characters lead to many Japanese characters with the same shape but different word meaning, or the same word 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 words are the same and similar in shape, there are still differences in language sense, tone strength, word collocation and stylistic color. This paper will focus on the misunderstanding and mistranslation of "Japanese-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, misunderstandings and mistranslations caused by the differences in the meanings of Japanese and Chinese homographs.

1. The change of meaning itself leads to the difference of meaning.

(1) The transformation of meaning, such as the word "market", originally refers to the place where goods are traded, even the area where goods are promoted. However, in modern Chinese, the word "market" not only has the same meaning as Japanese "market", but also derives a new meaning to describe the popularity of something. For example, "pessimistic arguments are getting less and less." Other words in this category include "warm current", "dead corner" and "cell". This phenomenon can be regarded as ambiguity caused by vulgarity.

(2) Word meaning borrowing Generally speaking, when a word enters another language as a foreign word, its meaning will be restricted by various factors and even specified to some extent. 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, the meaning of "front line" is "フント". In modern Chinese, "front line" has only one meaning, that is, "the area where the two armies are close in battle".

(3) Differentiation of meanings and differences in time The word "perfunctory" was originally introduced into Japan from China as a pure Chinese word, which belongs to the same origin. However, in modern Chinese and modern Japanese, their meanings are completely 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-the meaning derived from the original meaning.

(3) Second derivative meaning-then derivative ways 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, that is, the earliest derivative of "perfunctory" in Chinese. Therefore, the meaning of the word "perfunctory" in these two countries remains the same until after the first derivative meaning and before the second derivative meaning. Later, China derived three or four derivative meanings, while Japan's "perfunctory" still stayed on the first derivative meaning, which caused ambiguity. By the way, in modern Chinese, the secondary derivative meaning of "perfunctory" is most commonly used, and the tertiary derivative meaning is also commonly used, while the primary 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 own shortcomings and mistakes in thought, work or life, and investigate their roots." Compared with the two, there is no connection, 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 "discussion" in Japanese does inherit the basic semantics of "comment" in ancient Chinese. In the Tang and Song Dynasties, the meaning of "review" in Chinese was discovery, search and arrangement, and later it derived the meaning of research. But in 1930s and 1940s, the meaning of "censorship" escaped in the liberated areas, and the meaning of analysis was derived from the meaning of research, and then the meaning of self-criticism was further derived. 1949 After the founding of New China, this usage was popularized to the whole country, and the original intention of "censorship" was gradually forgotten. On the other hand, the original meaning of "censorship" is still used in the written language of areas 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 and Macao where Chinese is used, the original meaning of the word "censorship" has recovered.

On the causes of misunderstanding and mistranslation of "Japanese-Chinese homographs". 2. Factors other than semantic changes lead to semantic differences (1). The word "candidate" in different Japanese means to choose the person who is suitable for the job from many people. "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 lies in the different compositions of these two words. The "candidate" in Japanese is the "object-predicate structure", while the "candidate" in modern Chinese is obviously the "biased structure". Therefore, "candidate" in Japanese can be used as a verb, while "candidate" in Chinese has no such usage and can only be used as a noun.

(2) There are two situations in which the meaning of ancient Chinese is still retained in a country's writing.

One is that the meanings of Chinese words that were integrated into Japanese before Meiji and became part of Japanese vocabulary are still intact today. On the other hand, the meanings of corresponding words in Chinese change with the times, which leads to ambiguity. In addition, this article is compiled and provided by www.51lunwen.com. If you need to reprint, please indicate the source.

The Japanese in Meiji period gave up the old meaning when translating two new terms in ancient Chinese. On the other hand, modern Chinese still retains this ancient meaning, 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, pronunciations become the key to distinguish meanings, which leads to ambiguity.

(4) Homophone transliteration 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 promulgated by 198 1 limited the number of Chinese characters to 1945. When some words contain Chinese characters that are not listed in the list, transliteration is adopted by using some specific Chinese characters (not arbitrary) with the same pronunciation in the list.

(5) Different meanings of morphemes lead to ambiguity, such as "wife". In modern Chinese, "wife" refers to a wife, not an elderly woman. "Wife" in Japanese means the latter. The word "Lao" here belongs to the affix just like the word "Lao" in "Teacher", "Lao San", "Tiger" and "Old Corn". 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.

The second is the misunderstanding and mistranslation caused by the different parts of speech of words with the same or similar glyphs after simplification of Chinese and Japanese characters: the word "according" is a verb or noun in Chinese, but a noun in Japanese; The word "positive" is an adjective or adverb in Chinese, but it is a noun in Japanese. The word "neural" is an adjective or adverb in Chinese, but it is a noun or verb in Japanese. The word "approval" is a verb in both Chinese and Japanese, but it is an alternative 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 language senses between China and Japan in terms of praise and criticism, tone strength, word collocation and stylistic color. From the above aspects, it is not difficult to see that 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, the Chinese characters introduced into Japan have undergone great changes in pronunciation, form, meaning, part of speech, language sense and many other aspects after the evolution of 1000 years. As far as glyphs are concerned, Chinese characters, as a recording language, a symbol and a mass communication tool, naturally have the requirements of "convenience" and "relaxation". In order to meet this requirement, China and Japan carried out several reforms on simplification of Chinese characters, which eventually led to the differences in glyphs, meanings and parts 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, leading to misunderstanding and mistranslation. Therefore, we should know 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".