《中式英语之鉴》chapter12-13读后感

wenyikk

Reader: 文心怡
Reading Time: 14 weeks
Reading Task: Chapter12-13
Summary of the Content：
Chapter 12: Logical Connectives
English has a clear need for explicit logical connectors (such as and/but/because/however) to clarify the logical relationship between sentences, while Chinese often implies logic through context. Translators must convert the implicit logic in Chinese into explicit expressions in English to avoid semantic gaps. For example, the Chinese sentence "He worked hard, and finally succeeded" should be translated as "He worked hard, and finally succeeded", using "and" to connect the cause and effect relationship; without a connecting word, English readers might misunderstand it as two parallel events.
Additive Relationship: and/moreover/in addition (Example: "她热爱音乐，也喜欢绘画" is "She loves music, and she also likes painting").
Contrastive Relationship: but/however/on the contrary (Example: "任务艰巨，然而团队坚持完成" is "The task was arduous; however, the team persisted in completing it").
Causal Relationship: because/thus/therefore (Example: "天气恶劣，比赛取消" is "The game was canceled because of the bad weather").
Usage Principles: Avoid mechanical accumulation, but ensure the logical chain is clear. For instance, the Chinese sentence "计划失败，新方案被提出" needs to be supplemented with "Thus, a new plan was proposed" to clarify the cause and effect.
Chapter 13: Dangling Modifiers
Definition and Typical Errors: Modifiers (such as participles, infinitives, prepositional phrases, etc.) do not clearly refer to the logical subject, leading to semantic ambiguity. For example:
Error: "After finishing the report, the office was locked" ("finishing" should logically refer to a person, not the office).
Correction: "After finishing the report, I locked the office."
Common Types and Correction Strategies:
Participle Dangling: "Walking along the street, the old building caught my eye" → "Walking along the street, I noticed the old building."
Infinitive Dangling: "To improve writing skills, regular practice is needed" → "To improve writing skills, you need regular practice." Dangling prepositional phrase: "With a map in hand, the destination was easily found" → "With a map in hand, we found the destination easily."
Exception and idiomatic expressions: Some fixed structures such as "Generally speaking" and "Judging from" are accepted despite having no explicit subject due to long-term usage, for example, "Generally speaking, this approach is effective."
Evaluation:
By comparing the differences in thinking between Chinese and English (Chinese emphasizes "parataxis", while English emphasizes "hypotaxis"), the author reveals why translators tend to overlook conjunctions. For instance, in Chinese, "他累了，仍继续工作" does not require the word "但"， but in English， "but" must be used to show the contrast, otherwise the logic will be unclear. The section on conjunctions corrects the translator's misunderstanding of "omitting conjunctions to pursue conciseness", emphasizing that the "explicitness of logic" in English is the foundation of clear expression， rather than redundancy.
Reflection:
English readers rely on conjunctions to understand the relationships between sentences. When translating, the implicit logic in Chinese should be transformed into "and", "but", "therefore", etc., to avoid readers having to infer it themselves. As students of translation, we should also eliminate grammatical errors such as "dangling modifiers" caused by Chinese thinking, ensuring that participles, infinitives and other modifiers strictly correspond to the subject. For example, "To solve the problem, measures were taken" should be changed to "To solve the problem, we took measures."