Issues to Consider in German Translation

The writing and translation of an article are both influenced by culture, which is the fundamental reason for differences in writing styles between different cultures. Whether writing or translating an article, one will be affected by the differences in stylistic knowledge caused by cultural differences. Stylistics refer to the independent genre of a text, the specifications and patterns that make up the text, a unique cultural phenomenon, and a product of long-standing historical content. Stylistic knowledge is stored in cognitive schematic structures, and these patterns will be automatically accessed during the process of writing or translation. For readers from the same native language culture, this stylistic knowledge can help with understanding the article. However, as a translator and foreign language learner, simply transferring stylistic knowledge from the source language to the target language can often make it difficult for readers to understand.

Generally, in Germany, Berichte, Erzählung, Erörterung, Beschreibung are often compared by Chinese-German cultural workers and learners to common types of articles in Chinese: news reports, narratives, argumentative essays, and expository texts. But is this comparison completely accurate? In German, the distinction between types of articles is not based on the way the information is presented but rather on the function of the discourse. Berichte and Beschreibung convey information, Erzählung provides entertainment, and Erörterung clarifies reasoning. In Chinese, articles are categorized based on the development and expression of themes. The writing style in German articles, especially in Erörterung, emphasizes logic and requires coherent reasoning to verify conclusions, while in Chinese argumentative essays, narrative expressions are often used to convey profound insights by narrating events to inspire readers, a role reserved for fables in German. Since the classification of article genres in German and Chinese is different and there are significant differences in similar texts, it is necessary to emphasize the differences in article genres when translating. Translators should not only focus on the level of words and sentences but also analyze the structural characteristics and writing purposes of different articles, which can improve the quality of translation.

Translation is the activity of transforming between two languages, expressing the meaning of the original text in the target language while ensuring fidelity and fluency. Due to the differences between Chinese and German, we can use word class conversion in the translation process. For example, in the translation process from German to Chinese, nouns can be converted into verbs. This is because German official language includes many nominalized verbs, but if nouns are translated as nouns, it will give the translation a German flavor. Another method is voice transformation. German uses the passive voice extensively, while Chinese rarely does. Therefore, when translating, whenever we encounter the passive voice, we should not translate it word for word but instead change the voice to align with the habitual usage of Chinese.

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