中譯英冠詞選擇對翻譯「訊息準確」之影響

在中譯英的實務及教學中，要做到訊息準確，需要譯者注意細節，特別是要留意中英文相差較大的語言特徵。英語冠詞不僅是英語教學和學生第二語習得的一個難點，也是中譯英時容易被忽略的一點。本研究分析譯文中冠詞誤譯的情形，探討了不同翻譯能力的譯者在中譯英政經社論型文章時的冠詞誤用是否具有一定規律性，以及造成這些誤用的原因。在統計分析後發現，各類別譯者在總體冠詞翻譯錯誤類型上差異顯著，與母語是英語譯者之差異尤為顯著。研究所程度譯者雖然總體英語程度高於大學部譯者，但其對冠詞用法的掌握並沒有顯著提升。本文透過比較分析還發現，冠詞誤譯的類型與冠詞後接名詞的情境、可數性、原文名詞語言情境有顯著相關性。導致冠詞誤譯，特別是「英語正確但與原文不符」誤譯的因素，不再是因英語上能力不足之單一原因所致，而是與對中文原文上下文及讀者已知知識的正確判別有關。由此，本研究建議提高高級英語教學及翻譯教學中對冠詞的重視，並針對本研究發現的冠詞使用上存在的具體問題加强施教。

關鍵字

英語冠詞；冠詞誤譯；中譯英；第二語習得

並列摘要

In the practice and pedagogy of Chinese to English translation, achieving accuracy requires attention to detail, especially to linguistic characteristics that are widely different in Chinese and English. English articles are not only notoriously difficult in pedagogy and second language learning but are also often overlooked in Chinese to English translation. This study analyzed the mistranslations of articles and explored whether patterns of article errors exist among translators of different translation competence levels in translating political and economic editorials from Chinese to English. It also looked for the cause of these mistakes. Statistical analyses reveal that there are significant differences in the types of article mistakes among translators of different abilities, especially for those whose mother tongue is English. Although graduate school level translators have an overall better command of English than translators at the university level, they do not have a significantly better comprehension on the use of articles. Through comparative analyses, this study also finds that the types of article errors are significantly correlated with the situation and countability of the noun following the article and the context of the noun in the source language. Factors causing mistranslations of articles, especially in the ”grammatically correct English with meaning different from source language” category, are not just limited to insufficient proficiency of English but also to the knowledge and contextual interpretation made by the translators. Thus, this study suggests more emphasis be placed on articles in advanced English learning and translation pedagogy, focusing on the specific problems found during this study.