中式英语之鉴

那艺娜

In Chapters 4-6 of Part Two of *The Translator's Guide to Chinglish*, the author meticulously dissects three critical aspects of sentence structure that frequently plague Chinglish translations. Through a wealth of examples and step-by-step revisions, these chapters offer practical guidance on how to transform awkward, unclear sentences into natural, fluent English.

Chapter 4 delves into the issue of "Dangling Modifiers." In Chinglish, modifiers such as participles, gerunds, or prepositional phrases often dangle, failing to attach grammatically and logically to the intended word or phrase in the sentence. A classic example is "Looking out of the window, the garden was beautiful." Here, the phrase "Looking out of the window" illogically modifies "the garden," creating the absurd impression that the garden was doing the looking. The correct version, "Looking out of the window, I saw a beautiful garden," clearly establishes the person as the one performing the action. The chapter also highlights that dangling modifiers can arise from careless translation or a lack of understanding of English grammar, and it provides strategies for identifying and correcting these errors.

Chapter 5 focuses on "Parallel Structure," a fundamental principle in English writing that is often violated in Chinglish. When presenting lists, comparisons, or coordinated elements, English requires consistent grammatical forms. For example, in the sentence "The job requires analyzing data, writing reports, and to present findings," the use of "to present" breaks the parallelism established by "analyzing" and "writing." The correct version, "The job requires analyzing data, writing reports, and presenting findings," ensures that all elements in the list are gerunds. The chapter explains that a lack of parallelism not only disrupts the rhythm and flow of a sentence but also confuses readers. It offers various examples across different types of structures, helping translators and writers to recognize and rectify parallelism errors.

Chapter 6 emphasizes the importance of "Logical Connectives." In Chinglish, connective words and phrases such as "and," "but," "therefore," "however," and "although" are often misused, omitted, or used in a way that creates ambiguity. These connectives play a crucial role in expressing the relationships between ideas, whether they are additive, contrastive, causal, or conditional. For instance, a sentence like "He worked hard, he didn't achieve his goal" fails to convey the intended contrast. Adding "but" to form "He worked hard, but he didn't achieve his goal" clarifies the relationship. The chapter also warns against overusing certain connectives or using them inappropriately, which can lead to convoluted and unclear writing. It provides tips on choosing the right connectives based on the context and the logical relationship one wishes to express.

Overall, these three chapters collectively underscore the significance of proper sentence structure in English. By addressing dangling modifiers, maintaining parallel structure, and using logical connectives correctly, translators and writers can elevate the quality of their English expressions, making them more precise, coherent, and in line with native - like usage.

张兵

非常好帖子，使我的回复旋转