Tea-flavor English 茶味英语

叶凝云

Tea-flavor English 茶味英语

   Either American or British people can possibly write good or bad English. But both the good and the bad can absolutely not be more native. For linguistics, there is no English that is wrong within the native realm according to descriptivism. Therefore, while the good native English is a good cup of coffee and then the bad native English is a bad cup of coffee, they are all coffees however. Chinese can also write good as well as bad English. But, no matter how good the English they write is, it is at best that they are mimicking, rather than writing with authority.To the native realm but aliens we Chinese are.

    不管是美国人还是英国人，都既可能写出好的英文或差劲的英文。但他们写的英文不管是好的还是差的，都绝对可以是地道得不能再地道。对语言学家而言，根据描写主义的理论，在地道的领域里，没有什么英语是错误的。因此，当好的地道的英文是一杯好的咖啡从而差劲的但地道的英文是一杯差的咖啡，它们无论如何也都是咖啡。中国人也一样既会写出好的英文，也会写出差劲的英文。但是，不管他们写出的英文能有多好，他们最多也就不过是在模仿，而不是带着语言使用的权威在写作。对于地道的领域，我们中国人只能是外人而已。

    I have been loving ever since quite a few years ago to read writings in Chinese which are translated from English. For me, they are like nice coffees in the Chinese tea cups. Though so well translated in Chinese, they are of the coffee-flavor. However, now that I like it so much, it is proved that the coffee-flavor Chinese, that is, the good non-native Chinese, may as well serve the Chinese readers right.

    从好几年以前起，我就一直很喜欢读从英文翻译过来的中文文章。对我来说，它们就像装在中国茶杯里的优质咖啡。尽管被如此精心地翻译成了中文，它们终究还是咖啡味。然而，既然我如此喜欢它们，那就证明了，咖啡味的中文，也就是，优质的非地道中文，也是可以正和中国读者的口味的。

    Seen in this light, I thereby have a proposal. Why shouldn't we Chinese tend to write literary English in the Chinese tea flavor, instead of making the non-native coffee by mimicking? We don't necessarily have to make the writings read like native-written ones, so that the English and the American like them because they are coffees rather than because they are good. Instead, we can write the tea-flavor English, English which the native like so much because it's so good in taste, while it's tea rather than coffee which can never be made by the native, but only by we Chinese!

     从这样来看，我于是有了个提议。为什么我们中国人就不能偏向于把文学的英语写得有中国的茶的风味，而不是靠模仿来做不地道的咖啡呢？我们不一定非要让文章读起来就像英美本土人写的一样，从而让英美人喜欢它们，不是因为它们写得好，而是因为它们是咖啡。反而，我们可以写茶味的英文，这种英文让本土人如此喜欢，因为它别具风味，而它又是茶而不是咖啡，只有中国人做得出，而本土人却做不到！

转载自 http://www.dioenglish.com/home.p ... 95&do=blog&id=49538 作者：dphpxs

lorry

good idea,but it will be a long time

admin

good article!