Contemporary Foreign Languages Studies ›› 2017, Vol. 17 ›› Issue (02): 77-81.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1674-8921.2017.02.012

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Differences between Chinese and English Consciousnesses of Time and Space: A C-E Translation Perspective

WANG Jianguo   

  • Online:2017-03-28 Published:2020-07-25

Abstract: Chinese-speaking people were wrongly assumed to have stronger consciousness of time or space than English-speaking people, because of inadequate consideration of relevant factors. As a matter of fact, English-speaking people have stronger consciousness of both time and space, which is prominently reflected syntactically and textually. To be specific, verbs in an English sentence or text are prominently temporally and aspectually marked while not in Chinese; at the same time a sentence or text in English is hierarchically constructed with explicit subordination while not in Chinese. The findings are evidenced by the fact that Chinese-into-English translators, especially those whose mother tongue is Chinese, often encounter translation difficulties because of the differences between Chinese and English consciousnesses of time and space.

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