Comparison of active and passive voice in English-Chinese translation--taking the example of Howard Goldblatt's translation of Rickshaw Boy
Journal: Region - Educational Research and Reviews DOI: 10.32629/rerr.v6i1.1588
Abstract
In the translation between English and Chinese, there are significant differences in sentence structure, grammatical features, rhetorical devices, expression methods, ways of thinking, and social and cultural factors between the two languages, which increase the difficulty of translation. Especially in English-Chinese translation, the similarities and differences in the usage of active and passive voice can easily lead to translation errors. In English, the passive voice is more regarded as a common grammatical phenomenon, while in Chinese, the active expression of passive meaning is more dominant. Taking Howard Goldblatt's translation of Rickshaw Boy as an example, through the analysis of the passive and active voice in English and Chinese languages with different structures, we can learn more about the similarities and differences between the two languages in order to improve the quality of translation.
Keywords
active; passive; comparison between English and Chinese
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