Effects of Anglo-Mandarin translation upon the deviation of semantic structures in HK written Chinese - the keyword "chance" as a case

Abstract

本文以香港报章有关语言材料（尤其是在香港书面汉语中使用频率较高的“机会”一词）为依据进行语义分析,试图从翻译的角度、在语义这个平面上考察并确定英语对香港书面汉语的影响,以及导致这些变化的原因。笔者认为,香港书面汉语正与现代汉语产生着某种程度的疏离。其内在动因源自英语的影响,另外,独具香港特色的翻译活动也在其中起着重要的作用,尤其是“援英格汉”的语言转用策略。据此又派生出相应的翻译准则和手法,用以应对复杂的句法/语义结构,使翻译成为一种简单的符号转换活动,因此造出的汉语译语经过扩散,便与其中所携带的英语句法/语义结构属性一起进入随时虚位以待的香港书面汉语,通过相应的句法整饬和语义结构调整,使其产生变异,以颇具英语特征的异态和异质面貌卓然独立于现代汉语。 The journalistic cants (chance, in particular) as generally used in HK written Chinese lie at the basis of the present study, hopefully to confirm the effects of Anglo-Mandarin translation upon the deviation of semantic structures in HKWC. The estrangement of HKWC from modern Chinese, it is proved in terms of semantic model and bilingual translations, has evidently resulted from the excessive activity of translation characteristic of HK culture, which, in turn, has found its resultants of syntactic and semantic attributes in HKWC after years of acculturation. The study, as it is assumed, is none other than an attempt to identify the effects, the functions the translation has performed in the process of deviant estrangement and the reasons that have motivated the deviations, in the hope that it might be conducive to the justification of the rules of the estrangement, and finally, to the would-be acknowledgement of the principles beneficial to historical linguistics ad hoc.