part1

pjsmywife

When I first delved into this book, the most eye - opening revelation came from the re - evaluation of "redundancy". As a translator, I used to unconsciously transplant "category nouns" and "intensifying modifiers" from Chinese into English. For instance, I rendered "农业获得丰收" as "there have been good harvests in agriculture" without realizing that "agriculture" was redundant. After all, in Chinese, it is common to specify the category. However, Pinkham's analysis was like a wake - up call: in English, "harvest" inherently refers to agriculture, and the additional modifier is nothing but a burden. The profoundest insight I gained is that translation is not merely a language conversion but a mental shift. Chinese emphasizes "parataxis", allowing and even relying on repetition and modification to reinforce logic, while English emphasizes "hypotaxis", adhering to the principle of "less is more". For example, when translating "我们要采取有效措施" as "we must take effective measures", "effective" seems necessary but is actually redundant. If a measure is not effective, there is no need to "take" it. This mental transformation requires translators to be ruthless in "letting go" and even challenges our ingrained understanding of "fidelity to the original text". Fidelity does not mean literal replication but the precise conveyance of meaning.