Xinghevs.yihein English-Chinese translation – analysis from the perspective of syntactic construction

It is generally recognized that English is xinghe-prominent while Chinese is yihe-prominent among China's translation circles (CTC). Yet there has long been a misconception that hypotaxis is equivalent to xinghe and parataxis is equivalent to yihe, which has resulted in an unrealistic expectation to rely on simple formal alteration to do English-Chinese (E-C) translation and led to masses of awkward translation products. This paper negates the misconception, and expatiates, through example analysis, the syntactic construction in English which is form-oriented and features subject-predicate structure and that in Chinese which is meaning-oriented and features message-segments logically strung together. The author holds that, as far as E-C translation is concerned, the significance of learning about xinghe-prominence in English and yihe-prominence in Chinese is to unravel the different message-transfer mechanisms rather than the detailed formal differences between the two languages, which will help the E-C translators to shake off the fetter of the superficial structures of the original text and bring into play their subjective initiative and translation awareness.