Different ways of thinking and living habits make different forms of expressions and nationalities. The language of the country has its own natural language style. For instance, the English and Chinese, they belong to two distinct languages, so they are different in the expression. For example, we can not find only one word in English ,like 兄,弟,姐,妹. In English,兄,弟all called brother. 姐,妹all called sister. It is difficult to distinguish“uncle”in Chinese because uncle may means 叔父,伯父,姑父,舅父,姨夫. In English, we have to distinguish between men and women according to a certain context when facing the word “cousin”. Chinese word “万” turns into the English language may become ten thousand (ten thousand). Someone tell you to go, you may replied “I am coming”, literally using the past tense. Chinese people used to ask the name of someone, it may absolute not translated “Please teach me your great name” but only translated “May I know (or ask or have) your name? Or what’s your name, please?” It is the difference between two different cultures. We can not change this phenomena because it is the culture that exists thousands years. In order to reduce the misunderstanding of the English original words, the “Zero Translation” emerge.Translation is widely used in Chinese words which is an indisputable reality. Zero translated words not only affect Chinese word formation and Chinese culture but also have a huge impact on the language and cultural policies of the country. It is meaningful and important to study Zero Translation.
Some sociologists believe that language is the crown of cultural stone --- there is no culture without language. On the other hand, language is influenced by culture and reflecting the culture. Because of different cultural backgrounds, the same word or the same kind of expression sometimes tend to have different meanings, but sometimes it may cause the phenomenon of semantic gap. For example, Liu Dongming (Liu Dongming, 2001: 24-27) in his book “Language and Culture” cited a story: Rome has a shoe store, the door hung a sign to attract English-speaking customers. The sign wrote: Shoes for street walking. Come in and have a fit , this brand caused many English-speaking tours’ attention, they gathered in front of the shop--- not saw the merchandise on display in the window, but looked words on the sign .They are all laughing after watching. The owner is Italian and speaks little English, but he did not know the “street walker” is not “the roots of the people” but “in the streets soliciting prostitutes”, to have a fit is not “try” but “rage”. Passer-by saw this brand certainly felt funny and ridiculous. This is a joke of not knowing the cultural difference or not knowing the deep meaning of the words. It is so important to learn more about culture and language.
2. Literature Review
Qiu Maoru (Qiu Maoru, 2001 (1): 24- 27) first proposed the “zero translation” concept in China; he believes that “zero translation” is “not translated”. But “Zero Translation” and “Translation” are two different concepts, “zero translation” is a special kind of translation which is different from the traditional translation strategies, and “not Translation” is not generated translation behavior.
零翻译对文化的影响(2):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_65408.html