Neologisms and Translation

时间：2024-08-31

摘要：With the rapid advancing of human society，a great quantity of neologisms are crated in English.This paper roughly discuss about the reasons of creating neologisms，the approaches to create neologisms and the methods to translate neologisms，while focuses on the discussion about why and how neologisms are created in The Handmaids Tale which is written by Margaret Atwood and the translation of those new words.In this book，there are two reasons for people to create neologisms，they are the advancing technology and the changing politics.And the types of neologisms in The Handmaids Tale include： old words with new senses，compound words，blending words，derived words.The translation methods applied are annotation，literal and free translation.

關键词：Neologisms；Reasons of creating neologisms；Types of neologisms；Translation methods；The Handmaids Tale

Chapter 1 Introduction

From Peter Newmarks A Textbook of Translation，we can get the definition of neologisms，“neologisms can be defined as newly coined lexical units or existing lexical units that acquire a new sense.” If a language is still being used at present and it is developing with the whole human society，then there must be neologisms in this language.English is an active language and a global one，so many neologisms are added into English every year with the rapid development of technology and culture.

According to Peter Newmarks work，A Textbook of Translation，neologisms can be divided into the following types，they are “old words with new senses，new coinages，derived words，abbreviations，collocations，eponyms，phrasal words，transferred words，acronyms，pseudo-neologisms，the creation of neologisms.” And other scholars think there are eight ways to form new words in English，they are： affixation，compounding，blending，acronymy，old words which have new meanings nowadays，borrowing words，new coinages，analogy.

Generally，translators can apply the following methods to translate neologisms，they are annotation，literal translation，free translation，transliteration，combination of transliteration and free translation.Annotation means to add notes in the translation work to explain the meaning of the neologism，helping readers to understand the new word more easily.Literal translation means to translate the original neologism to the target language word by word.Free translation means to translate the neologism bases on its meaning in the context and some innovations are accepted in free translation.Transliteration means to translate the neologism by using a homophone of its pronunciation in the target language.Transliteration and free translation means to remain both the meaning and the pronunciation of the original word in the target text.

Chapter 2 Neologisms and Their Translation in The Handmaids Tale

2.1 Types of Neologisms in The Handmaids Tale

The first type of neologisms which are created in The Handmaids Tale is old words with new senses.In this book，many old words are used to represent something do not exist before，they have different meanings in this book，so those words are also neologisms.And they constitute the biggest type of neologisms in The Handmaids Tale.Such as angels，“Angels” in Atwoods book does not refer to the Gods servant who dressed in white with wings，but an army whose responsibility is to protect Gilead.And “Gilead” in this book is not the name of the place in ancient Palestine in the Bible anymore.It is a new nation founded by an extremist religious group in America.

The second type of neologisms in The Handmaids Tale is compound words.Compounding is an approach to create new words by putting two or more free words together in a particular order.Such as “The Red Center” in The Handmaids Tale is composed of three free words，“the”，“red” and “center”，it refers to a place where those Handmaids are taught to obey rules and to bear babies for Commanders.Compounding is a method that Atwood uses in her book to create interesting neologisms.

The third type of neologisms in The Handmaids Tale is blending words.Blending is an approach to create new words by using parts of two words to form a new one or using a free word and a part of another word to form a neologism.Such as “Econowives” in The Handmaids Tale，it is formed by “econo”，part of “economical” and “wives”，and it refers to wives of Commanders who is not rich，so they have to be economical.And some other blending words are also appeared in this book，such as “Compubite”，“Compudoc”，“Compucount”，“Computalk”，“Compuphone”，“Compubank”，“Compunumber”，“Compucard”，they all have the part “compu” which is from “computer”，and they represent parts of a new computer system used in Gilead.Those words are not existed at present，since they are all created by Atwood in her book.

The fourth type of neologisms in The Handmaids Tale is derived words.Derivation is the process to form new words by adding prefixes or suffixes to existing words or bases.Such as “Unwomen” in Atwoods book is formed by the existing word “women” and a prefix “un”，which means women who do not obey the rules of Gilead.And “Unbaby” is also a neologism created by Atwood，it is formed by “baby” and the prefix “un”，which refers to a dead infant or a deformed child.

2.2 Translation Skills Applied to Translate Neologisms in The Handmaids Tale

At last the author will discuss about translation skills which are used in the translation of neologisms in The Handmaids Tale.In the translation of The Handmaids Tale，the translator mainly applies three methods to translate neologisms in this book，they are annotation，literal translation and free translation.

The first translation method applied in the translation of The Handmaids Tale is annotation.Annotation is the act of adding notes in the translation work to help readers understand it more easily.Such as the translator of The Handmaids Tale translates “The Angels” into “天使军”and add a note to explain the reason why the people of Gilead call an army “The Angels”.

The second translation method applied in the translation of The Handmaids Tale is literal translation.Literal translation is，by comparing English and Chinese，to translate the reference meaning word by word according to the original language.Such as “Econowives” in The Handmaids Tale is translated into “經济太太”，because “Econowives” is constituted by part of “economy” and “wives” which can be translated into “经济”and “太太”respectively.

The third translation method applied in the translation of The Handmaids Tale is free translation.Free translation is the method to translate words bases on the meaning of the original text，but with some innovations.Such as “Aunt” in The Handmaids Tale is translated into “嬷嬷”which refers to old female servants who teach young girls etiquette in ancient China.And in this book，“Aunt” refers to old women who teach Handmaids to obey rules，so its meaning is similar to “嬷嬷” in Chinese.Thats reason why the translator applies the method of free translation to translate the neologism “Aunt”.

Those translation methods mentioned above are the main translation methods applied in the translation of neologisms in The Handmaids Tale.They are annotation，literal translation and free translation.Translators can also apply these translation methods to translate neologisms in other literary books effectively.

Chapter 3 Conclusion

In the introduction of this paper，the author has mentioned other scholars opinions about neologisms and their translation，including the approaches to create neologisms and the methods to translate neologisms.The approaches to create neologisms include： affixation，compounding，blending，acronymy，old words with new meanings，borrowing words，new coinages and analogy.The methods to translate neologisms include： literal translation，free translation，transliteration，annotation，transliteration and free translation.

After the introduction about the general condition of neologisms，the author has discussed about the approaches of creating neologisms and the translation methods in The Handmaids Tale.The types of neologisms which are created in The Handmaids Tale include： old words which have new senses in this book，compound words，blending words and derived words.The translation methods applied in the translation of The Handmaids Tale include： annotation，literal translation and free translation.

References

Foreign Bibliography

[1]Newmark，P.A Textbook of Translation[M].Shanghai：Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press，2001.

[2]Atwood，M.The Handmaids Tale[J].New York：Vintage Classics，1985.

[3]Stolerman I.P& Price，L.H.Neologisms[J].Berlin：Springer Berlin Heidelberg，2015.

[4]Zhang Ni.English Neologism and Translation[J].Overseas English，2013（3），168-178.

[5]Peter.Newmark[J].A Textbook of Translation，2001：140.

[6]Peter.Newmark[J].A Textbook of Translation，2001：150.

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