翻译考试经验：如何运用替代手法（3）

翻译考试经验：如何运用替代手法（3）

例13．Egypt, wrote the Greek historian Hecataeus, is the gift of the Nile. No other country is so dependent on a single lifeline. Egypt’s very soil was born in the Nile’s annual flood; with the flood came the life-giving mud that made Egypt the granary of the ancient world. And as rain fell in the Ethiopian highlands and the snows melted in the Mountains of the Moon, the river was everlastingly renewed. (National Geographic)

　　在第一句和第三句里，the Nile出现两次。在第四句里再次出现时，使用了代称the river。要想避免重复，译者就不能把视线局限在一个句子之内，而要照顾到上下文。

　　例14．要选人民公认是坚持改革开放路线并有政绩的人，大胆地放进新的领导机构里，使人民感到我们真心诚意搞改革开放。

　　We should boldly choose for the new leadership persons who were generally recognized as adhering to the line of reform and opening up and who had some achievements in that respect to their credit. This would convince the people that we were wholeheartedly committed to that line.

　　以上二例都是以名词替代名词，也不见得比实称简短多少，只是换一种说法而已。

　　动词和形容词如何避免重复呢？如果可能，可以合并。

　　例15．所以，要把我们的军队教育好，把我们的专政机构教育好，把共产党员教育好，把人民和青年教育好。

　　So we must educate the army, persons working in the organs of dictatorship, the Communist Party members and the people, including the youth.

　　例16．会议多，文章太长，讲话也太长。wｗw.ExamＷ.CoM

　　We hold countless meetings, and our articles and speeches are too long.

　　如不可能合并，则可利用so，as，to do that等词语来避免重复。

　　例17．He disliked her and had never been shy of saying so.

　　例18．The government could change the law if they were so minded.

　　例19．老科学家、中年科学家很重要，青年科学家也很重要。

　　Veteran and middle-aged scientists are important, and so are young ones.