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Summary of the content:
In chapter 10, the author focuses on discussing the common modifiers in Chinese and English. Suspended modifiers refer to the modification of words or phrases in a sentence that are not clearly expressed, leading to confusion or incorrect meanings.
This chapter first defines suspended modifiers and gives examples to illustrate the occurrence of suspended modifiers in Chinese-English translation. The report points out that the subject in the structure of Chinese is often implicit, which may cause such problems when directly translated into English, because English requires a definite subject. For example, in ChingLish, phrases like "After discussion, it was decided to take new measures" might be wrongly translated as "After discussion, it was decided to take new measures" because there is a lack of a clear executor of the action.
To correct the suspended modifiers, the author proposed several methods. One method is to rewrite the sentence and explicitly include the appropriate subject. Another one is to transform the modifiers into clauses to ensure a clear connection of the modifiers. Through a large number of real-life Chinglish examples and their corrected versions, this chapter provides practical guidance for translators to avoid this common trap.
Evaluation:
In this chapter, the author uses simple language and abundant examples to make complex grammatical concepts easy to understand. Dangling modifiers are an important yet easily overlooked issue in Chinese-English translation.
The author's method is practical and solution-oriented. They not only identified the problem but also provided strategies for solving it step by step. This article emphasizes the importance of understanding the structural differences between English and Chinese languages, especially in terms of subject-predicate relations. By emphasizing these differences, this chapter helps bridge the gap between the two languages in translation and promotes more accurate and natural English expression. |
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