Translation of Long English Sentences Based on Clause Complex Theory

Abstract

The translation of long sentences in English is hard to handle for translators in the English-Chinese translation. The first and very key factor contributing to this problem is the high complexity of sentence structures and constitute relationships in long English sentences. Additionally, since English and Chinese are two unrelated languages with huge differences, translators’ understanding and handling of these differences, to a large extent, affects their performance in translation practice. Taking above-mentioned factors into consideration, numerous methods were proposed by scholars previously in the practice of translating long English sentences. However, there is no decent standard and sufficient sample analyses provided for translators to judge from. More importantly, analyzing sentences in traditional linguistic ways is not always practical in translation practice. Therefore, Clause Complex Theory is proposed to provide framework for clause-based analysis of clause complex structures in both English and Chinese. Following the Clause Complex Theory, this paper introduces an English-Chinese clause alignment annotation system, including English clause tagging and Chinese translation generation and combination. Furthermore, selected research samples together with concrete analysis are anticipated to be presented. To conclude, this study has described an effective Component Sharing based method for the proper treatment of long sentences in English-Chinese translation.