Abstract: Garden path sentence is popular in English. It is a kind of complex but interesting structure in English. Its major feature is the wide use of attributive clauses, which are likely to make readers get lost in the garden paths---the multi-clauses. This results from the lack of full understanding what the writers really mean. This paper focuses on the comparative study of Chinese translations of garden path sentences in Great Expectation by Charles Dickens. They are the translating works by Wang Keyi and Luo Zhiye. Both of them enjoy the high circulations in China. The typical garden path sentences are chosen to make comparisons in terms of semantic, syntax, and pragmatic features. The findings show that readers tend to accept the translation which more in accordance with the background of the context and the plot development of this novel. Furthermore, they also prefer to choose the translation which expresses clearly instead of the subject is equivocal just like original text in English.

Key words: garden path sentence; syntactic feature; translation methods; novel

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Garden Path Sentences-1

1.2 Great Expectations-2

2. Previous Studies of Garden Path Sentence and Translations-3

2.1 Previous Studies of Garden Path Sentence-3

2.2  Previous Studies of Great Expectations and its Translation-4

3. The Linguistic Features and Translations of Garden Path Sentence in Great Expectations-5

3.1 The Features of Garden Path Sentence-6

3.1.1 The Pronouce in Garden Path Sentence-6

3.1.2 The Subclauses in Garden Path Sentence-7

4. Comparative Study Garden Gath Sentences Translation in Great Expectations-9

4.1 The Translation of Syntactic and Semantic Elements in Garden Path Sentences-10

4.2 The Translation of Pragmatic Elements in Garden Path Sentences-13

5. Conclusion-17

References-19