论文总字数：30955字

摘 要

随着互联网的发展，网络词汇层出不穷，且广泛应用于人们的日常生活中。网络词汇通常具有时代性，丰富性，互动性，新颖性，多样性，简明性和风趣性。但东西方文化的差异也给网络新词的翻译带来了困难。因此，为了使目的语准确形象生动地再现原语的文化内涵，本文将功能对等理论引入网络新词的翻译中，并总结三种有效翻译方法：音译，直译和意译，试图解决网络新词翻译过程中的交流障碍和文化冲突问题。

关键词：网络新词；功能对等；翻译方法

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 Definition of Neologism 1

2.2 Introduction to Internet Neologism 2

3. Functional Equivalence in the Translation of Internet Neologism 4

3.1 Introduction to Functional Equivalence 4

3.2 Application of Functional Equivalence into the Translation of Internet Neologism 5

3.3 Translation Principles under the Guidance of Internet Neologism 7

4. Translation Methods 7

4.1 Transliteration 8

4.2 Literal Translation 9

4.3 Paraphrase 10

5. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 13

1. Introduction

With the development of globalization, Internet Neologism becomes the vital part of information exchange among different countries, and the application of computer technology has spread to every corner of life, people surf the internet wherever they are, whether through a laptop or telephone. Gradually, some new terms related to the phenomena spring up, involving both new things and certain tough problems. Therefore, the quality of translation of Internet Neologism will directly affect the communication between China and other countries. So it is necessary to make a profound study of Chinese translation of Internet Neologism. What’s more, the constant endless occurance of new network terms make it rather urgent to find a better way to translate them and make our communication more and more liable.

Throughout history, many theories have been put out to solve translation problems. To translate Internet Neologisms effectively, some theories must be chosen to guide translation, though it is hard to select from so many schools of translation theories. Among them, from the practical use of new terms, Nida’s functional equivalence is the best option, because it focuses on receptor’s reaction. Nida supports that the response between the target language and original language should be substantially the same, which means the translation should have almost the same effect as the original one. He puts particular emphasis on the beauty and the form of language in the translation.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Definition of Neologism

Since the 1990s, the booming neologisms have been gaining their weight in English. In noting that neologisms are of immense value to the continued existence of a living language, and that most words are developed as neologisms from root words, Pei stated in The Story of Language:“of all the words that exist in any language only a bare minority are pure, unadulterated, original roots. The majority are ‘coined’ words, forms that have been in one way or another created, augmented, cut down, combined, and recombined to convey new needed meanings, The language mint is more than a mint; it is a great manufacturing center, where all sorts of productive activities go on unceasingly”.(Pei, 1949: 45)

According to Bloomfield, neologisms mainly mean new words, and such new words would often directly reflect a special individual, publication, period or event. The term neologism was originated around 1800. In linguistics, a neologism refers to a word, term, or phrase which has been newly created to have new concepts, or to refresh older terms in newer language form.

Another definition of neologism from the New Oxford English-Chinese Dictionary is that “Neologism is a new word or expression”. (Thomson, 2004:1357) According to this definition, one is able to figure out neologism is timely and semantically fresh. What’s more, in Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, “neologism” is defined as “newly-invented word”, and in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, “a new word or expression, or a new meaning for an older word”.

2.2 Introduction to Internet Neologism

2.2.1 Background

In recent years, computers have been developed from desktop to laptop and to today’s palmtop. With the internet entering the office, many new words related to the work come into people’s life and people use the internet for browsing, surfing and chatting with friends, or logging on some websites to send E-mails. Netizens can not only enjoy the information of others, but also can share the information of themselves with others. What is more, in order to find an interesting and convenient way to communicate with each other, people create some new cyber languages. Those cyber languages have many characters. Firstly, those cyber languages are vivid and novel, and they can meet people’s needs of communication. Besides, they also reflect the close relationship between language and society, and are easy for understanding and communication. There is no doubt that more and more people begin to communicate through the internet, such as E-mail, E-mail discussion group, QQ, QQ zone, Microblog, Wechat.

From the above, it can be assumed that the main reason why new internet terms develop so rapidly is that the internet is more and more popular at present day.

2.2.2 Definitions of Internet Neologism

Although it’s rather difficult to find exact definitions for new internet terms, according to Richard Hudson, the definition of new internet terms is as followed: “A set of linguistic items with similar social distribution。”（Hudson, 1996:22）.

To sum up, the Internet Neologism refers to a new word or expression which originates from the Internet then is accepted by people and spreads widely. These popular words have great influence on people’s way of thinking, the habit of life and the tendency of pop culture.

2.2.3 Characteristics of Internet Neologism

Due to lack of body language and voice tones, internet neologisms should be what we are familiar with or what we could easily catch by syllable. Many neologisms are formed by deriving from some frequently used words, combining familiar words together, or adding new meanings to the existing words. Therefore, the Internet Neologisms have the characteristics of being vivid, proper, terse and clear in semantic sense, which can help us to make better expressions of the thoughts and ideas. So these neologisms are easily accepted and understood in realistic usage. For example, “女汉子“(tough girl)is not the superficial meaning that the girl who looks like a boy or who is tall and strong. It represents the independent and unyielding girl. When the tough girls encounter troubles, they won’t give up easily, on the contrary, they will try their best to manage to finish it.

In addition, as to the formation features, the internet neologisms are easy to remember and type. Those words carry the characteristics of conciseness, easiness to understand and remember, which helps the netizens get rid of the verbose and complicated terms and jargons, improve the speed of typing, thus contributing to the dissemination of the internet information. What’s more, the internet neologisms often utilize the symbols on the keyboard, such as Arabic Numbers 1-10 to stand for a series of simple and convenient words. For example, the word ‘B4’is derived from ‘before’, because the pronunciation of the syllable ‘fore’ in ‘before’ is the same as the Roman number 4, and it is replaced by “4”in writing. There are also other examples, 88(bye bye); me2(me too); 3Q(thank you); G8(gate); 2nite(tonight)；4ever(forever); B4N(bye for now); 2B or not 2B(to be or not to be).

To conclude, the internet neologisms are terse and clear, vivid and proper, popular and interesting. They have unique charm to attract net users, including a high proportion of high school students in our country; they create many easy, lively and interesting new cyber words. However, the new internet terms can only be popular for a very short time, because new ones will catch our eyes while old ones fade away gradually. That is to say, prevailing network words are always changing over time.

3. Functional Equivalence in translation of Internet Neologism

3.1 Introduction to Functional Equivalence

Nida, a famous linguist, a translator and a translation theorist, in the process of translating Bible, gradually formed his own translation theory and his core concept -functional equivalence.

Before giving further illustration on functional equivalence theory, it is necessary for us to first discuss two terms, which are ‘‘dynamic equivalence’’ and “functional equivalence”. What is the relationship between the two? As a matter of fact, functional equivalence originates from dynamic equivalence. According to Nida basically, functional equivalence has been described in terms of dynamic equivalence. In Toward a Science of Translating, Nida first postulated his concept of dynamic equivalent as follows: “in such a translation (dynamic equivalent translation) one is not so concerned with matching the receptor-language message with the source-language message, but with the dynamic relationship, that the relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that existed between the original receptors and the message.’’ (Nida and Taber, 1969:42)

Later, in order to avoid the confusion of relevant concepts, Nida changed dynamic equivalence to functional equivalence. This principle emphasizes the functional equivalence of information instead of the direct formal equivalence in translation so as to keep the meaning and style of the source language functionally equivalent to that of the target language as much as possible. The functional feature of the translation depends on the balance of two relationships, that is to say, the relationship between the target language receptor and the target text should generally be equivalent to the relationship between the source language receptor and the source text, and it is the two relationships that provide the basis for functional equivalence. 

In fact, one of the best ways to learn how to translate is to pay close attention to “how an expert translator explains precisely what he or she is doing in the process of transferring the meaning of a source text into a receptor’s language.”（Nida, 2001: 42）It suggests that an effective translation should be able to produce the equivalence of function, message and response for both the target and the original reporters. Accordingly, the realistic definition of functional equivalence should be that the readers of a translated text are able to conceive of, understand and appreciated the text. Nida’s equivalence produces great positive effects on translation field. Functional Equivalence puts stress on not only the form but also the meaning. As Nida expressed in The Theory and Practice of Translation that “translation consists of reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language first in terms of meaning, secondly in terms of style.” （Nida and Taber, 1969:56）Then we know that the aim of it is to make translation texts completely appropriate and to help receptors understand without contradicting their culture, so the translation is more than the superficial information but also has deep culture information. What’s more, the translation should be consistent with the original text as much as possible. The translator should also focus on the meaning and spirit of original text instead of paying too much attention to the original language structure.

3.2 Application of Functional Equivalence into the Translation of Internet Neologism

As a special language, the internet vocabulary has some commons: simplicity, novelty and cultural factors. And they prevent us from translating perfectly. Firstly, the translator should be very well familiar with new Chinese cyber terms implied with certain cultural elements, and find another way to express what the target reader could accept. That is the first step of translation, because it avoids any disrespect when translating. Secondly, it not only means you have to be skilled in another language but also you know clearly both two nations of culture. Eventually, translators can find the cultural equivalence between the two languages. Different cultures mean cultural shocks. Changing words associated with various cultural backgrounds directly reflects the writer’s meanings and purposes.

Examples are taken as follows:

As for the vocabulary “秒杀”, the first translation comes to our mind may be “seckill”; however in the light of Nida’s functional equivalence, it is not a suitable one. The “秒杀”, as an e-commerce word, is a new way of online auction. Network sellers issue some products at rock-bottom prices; all the internet users rush for purchasing them immediately. It is very often that those entire commodities are snapped up in a very short time even in a second, so as a way of promotion, “buy now” is the good translation. On the one hand it has shown the connation, on the other hand it is able to play the role of vocative—it is can be sold in a second. “buy now” not only makes the internet surfers to understand the shop keepers’ purpose to attract the customers, but also stimulates consumption. Compared with the former translation, the latter fully realizes Nida’s translation theory.

“囧, pronounced “jiong”, is an ancient Chinese character,. Because the character pattern of “囧” looks likes the ancient windows, then human extended the meaning to bright, which means “light shining through a window”. However, nowadays “囧” has many different meanings. Young Chinese use it to express embarrassment, confusion and depression or a bad mood. It is necessary to translate it vividly and to make people understand easily. According to the functional equivalence, “be sunk or sunken” is a good translation. For example, I got fifty-nine marks in an English text, so I felt very depressed and awkward. Then we can say “I am so sunk”. When translating, we have to focus on target language’s culture and to rewrite in a way that the readers accept most. Sometime we could even neglect what the original text is. This translation is absolutely correspond with functional equivalence.

3.3 Translation Principles under the Guidance of Internet Neologism

In order to show the connotation of popular culture in target language exactly, the translator should follow the Nida’s theory to eliminate the cultural difference. The following three principles should be considered. Under the guidance of Nida’s theory, firstly, the translation text should abide by the original semantics. When translating them, translator should know the background and the cause of popularity of these internet neologisms. Based on this, the translators apply their abilities of translating to internet neologism. Owing to the succinctness and straightforwardness of the internet neologisms, it requires that translators should adopt the pertinent way of expressing to translate. In this way, the translated internet neologism can transmit the original information and ideographic meaning can be more exact and appropriate.

Secondly, the translation should reappear the connotation of original culture. In addition, translators should learn much about the characteristics and connotations of original culture, which asks translators to grasp the accuracy of statement because of the cultural differences between the China and western countries.

Thirdly, if the translation can’t give the consideration to both meanings and culture at the same time, we have to abandon the formal equivalence and change the original form to achieve the aim of original semantics and culture. What’s more, we can use paraphrase to solve cultural differences flexibly to achieve the equivalence between the source language and target language.

4. Translation Methods

By definition, translation is an accurate text rendering the source language to the target language. For the network terms, they are all recreations covering history, customs, art, culture and some other factors. Moreover, based on the evolution of Chinese, translating these new internet terms is rather tough, so some convincible theory are needed to guide this course. Combing Nida’s “functional equivalence” with the target and characteristics of new cyber vocabulary, we could come to the conclusion that the following three ways of translation could be applied. They are transliteration, literal translation, and paraphrase

4.1 Transliteration

According to Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, the definition of transliteration is “writing words or letters by using letters of different alphabet or language”. (Hornby, 2004:1881) Transliteration is also a process in which words in one alphabet are represented in another alphabet. There are a number of rules which govern transliteration between different alphabets, designed to ensure that it is uniform, allowing readers to clearly understand transliterations. Transliteration is not quite the same thing as transcription, although the two are very similar; in transcription, people represent sounds with letters from another alphabet, while in transliteration, people attempt to map letters over each other, sometimes with accent marks or other clues to suggest particular sounds.

For example, The original meaning of土豪（tuhao）is that the local tyrants who exploit the poor man. Now it has been well known in China and western countries. It refers that someone who abuses the money without limitation or someone who is very rich and show off their wealth. The sentence “Let’s make friends with tuhao” is very popular on the internet.

大妈（dama）is the appellation of middle- aged woman. However, in 2013, when the gold price fell sharply, they went abroad to buy much gold to make the lower price of golden rise again rapidly, which attracts more attention at home and abroad. After that the foreign media called them “Chinese dama”.

Another new word山寨（shanzhai）whose core meaning is fake brand-name products is widely used on the Internet. According to its original meaning,山寨（shanzhai）can be expressed as “rip-off world class brands” or “something is kind of poorly done”, “low-class approximation of another thing”. However, it is more appropriate to use shanzhai directly, for the foreign people, it is a catchword. The expressions of “shanzhai products” and “shanzhai culture” have sprung up in many western websites.

Likewise, “给力的”is the dialect of northern China that means forceful. “给力” originated from Japan funny cartoon Journey to the West where Sun Wukong said “is this the India, it’s not cool”. That is to say, it’s far from the anticipation. It describes something that is cool, awesome, amazing and fabulous. Now the “gelivable” is largely accepted by people. It is noticed that this word are too Chinese to be translated directly into English. If interpreting it to “Give Force”, we may cause a big joke in the talks, even the word “cool,” “awesome” “fabulous” or “amazing” could not express its original implication exactly. Based on Nida’s functional equivalence, we know that the “gelivable” works not only in connation but also in the most nature forms.

4.2 Literal Translation

Regarding the translation of the internet neologism, the most frequently used method is literal translation. Professor Liu Zhongde defines literal translation as follow: “In the process of translation, literal translation treats sentences as basic units and at the same time takes the whole passage into consideration, translator who attaches great importance to literal translation does his or her best to reproduce the ideas and writing style of the original work retaining in the version of the original as possible”.（Liu Zhongde, 1994:172）

The most obvious trait of this technique is totally loyal to the literal meaning of source network vocabulary. In other words, the method of literal translation can preserve the original content and form of the new cyber term to the maximum. And we can say that literal translation is the most simple and effective way to overlap the source language and target language. And usually it is feasible to do a word translation. We often put this application on some new internet words that have tangible or hint meaning.

The expression “凤凰男” refers to a man who grew up in the poor countryside, but they study hard and attend the universities in big city, later they move to a big city and marry a city girl. Due to the couples’ different backgrounds and habits, they often encounter problems in their marriages. The expression “凤凰男”is translated literally into “phoenix man”.

Similarly, “会虫” is translated into “Conference parasite”, which means the man take part in all kinds of conferences for other interests or meals in the seminar instead of exchanging academic. Interpreted word by word,“会” is translated to “ conference” and “虫” to “ parasite” . We can see it is translated literally. At the same time we get the perfect translation text. So is the “你太有才了”( “You’re so gifted”! )

By employing literal translation, we could retain the original forms of words and meanings. At the same time the local color and features are rather outstanding. In addition, more and more Chinese ideas, new stuff or particular things could be introduced to foreigners.

Meng Xiangchun(Meng xiangchun，2001：04) thinks the words similar image and meaning in two cultures can be translated literally. He offers the following examples: “second generation of wealthy” for“富二代”, “second generation of bigwigs” for“官二代”, “thunderstrike” for“雷人”, “indoorsman” for“宅男”, “indoorswoman” for“宅女”， “mortgage slave” for“房奴”.

Nida also mentioned: “a better way to simplify the original is to catch its core meaning from the source language and then turn to the target language but search for style and the semantics in source language”（Nida and Taber, 1969:77）.

4.3 Paraphrase

Paraphrase is the method of translating new cyber words by restating the connotation in target language. Chen Anding defines it as “a restatement of a text, passage, or work giving the meaning in another form”.（Chen Anding, 1998:17）could attain some certain functional equivalence between the source language and target language.

Although the literal translation is based on “faithful equivalence”, due to the limitation of cultural factors, sometimes literal translation can be a good method to complete transferring the source language to the target language. When it comes to semantic adjustment about the information translation, Nida expressed that “in fact, many different translation texts can represent different degree of equivalence. This means that equivalence could not measure by the meaning of identical mathematics. It can only be understood and approached to a certain degree with the original.”(Nida and Taber, 1969:32）.Judging form his remark, we can get an insight that it’s coincident to get the same notion by the same translation forms. We can keep its original form where it is possible; otherwise we have to give up forms to hold the original connotation. We are very likely to be led to incorrect translation if we are too serious about the forms of words. In a word, there is a great need to use the method of paraphrase.

Aside from that, some items existing in China may not have the appropriate English name. Faced with this, the theorist has to sacrifice the original images or give up the features to preserve the text meaning. In some situation, if we are deliberate to retain the forms of words, we are likely to attain the ambiguous notion. In short, for the sake of making the reader comprehend the original vocabularies’ core concept and aesthesis, it is feasible to use the way of paraphrase. And of course, it corresponds to Nida’s functional equivalence. As mentioned, some vocabularies may be more suitable to be translated by liberal translation, like the version of “拽”arrogant. The word originates from a northern dialect, those who pride themselves on skills, fame, or income look down heir rivals or peers. Suppose that it is translated directly to “pull”, “drag”, “haul”, the English user will be totally confused about it. The “arrogant” not only keeps the Chinese linguistic features of simple and sounds sonorously but also creates among English-speaking people image that people is conceited.

Recently, one of the most popular network catchword“神马都是浮云”is widely used in our lives. If it only had been translated literally into “God horses are floating clouds”, the reader is likely to boggle his mind. “神马” sounds like “什么”, “浮云” means nothing. When these two words together, it can form a universal sentence, push the universal all usable, become numerous net friend mantras. So the original meaning is “whatever is not worth mentioning”.

What’s more, “晒客”should not be translated literally to “Bask in the guest”, which would sound ridiculous to English-speaking people. Instead, it should be translated as “Self-disclosing clan”. Now, people are keen on sharing some private pictures, information or experience on the Internet, they can also learn from each other. Then “晒客” attracts more and more affections.

Once a person in Guangzhou was asked to give his opinion of news, the man answered leisurely: “it’s none of my business, I’m just out to buy some soy sauce.” These words express a sense of dry humor, from then on，people have begun using the words to mean “it’s none of my business.” “打酱油”spreads quickly on the Internet. Now, it has become a humorous excuse that they have nothing to do with politics and sensitive topics. If we use the literal translation, it can be translated into “buy some soy sauce” that can’t embody its real meanings sufficiently. So we can say “it’s none of my business, I’m just a passer-by.” This will be easy for western people to understand.

All in all, the above examples can achieve functional equivalence by scarifying the formation style. Dealing with those vocabularies, the translator often use the paraphrase to make it easy to understood.

5. Conclusion

This paper makes a study on the translation of internet neologism from the perspective of Functional Equivalence. At first the definition and the characteristics of internet neologisms are offered. The new flushing words appear with some practical significance and it’s really necessary to make the translation as similar as the original so that receptors could accept the original texts more efficiently. Viewed from this angle, the functional equivalence should be regarded the best theory to guide the translation of these new terms, because it emphasizes not only the forms but also the reader’s response. Functional equivalence plays an important role in guiding translation, but it does not solve all the problems. The development of vocabularies suggests that it is rather necessary to find a good way to translate those terms; it sums up three effective translation methods, transliteration, literal translation and paraphrase. However, the research of this thesis is far from satisfaction and still needs further study.

Works Cited

[1] Jin, Di. Equivalence Effect in Translation in An Encyclopedia of Translation. Hong Kong：Chinese University Press, 1995.

[2] Pei, Mario. Story of Language. New York: Prentice Hall, 1949.

[3] Newmark, Peter. Approaches to Translation. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2001.

[4] Nida, Eugene A. Language and Culture contexts in Translating. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2001.

[5] Nida, Eugene A. and Charles R. Taber. The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden:J.Brill, 1969.

[6] Hudson, Richard. Language Networks: a New Word Grammar. 1996.

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