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Research Papers on EST Translation from the Perspective of Functional Equivalence Theory
Research Papers on EST Translation from the Perspective of Functional Equivalence Theory

I. Introduction

With the acceleration of the integration of global economic information, the technical exchanges between China and other countries in the world are increasingly close. The development of enterprises is also constantly introducing foreign advanced technology and literature. As a non-literary translation, scientific translation has gradually become the main task of many translators. Scientist Qian Sanqiang once said, "English for Science and Technology has become a special new field of modern English in many countries." With the progress of the times, some joint ventures or foreign companies even set up technical translation posts, which shows that technical translation is gradually occupying the translation market.

Second, functional equivalence theory and the characteristics of scientific and technological translation

The concept of "equivalence" was first put forward by R.V. Rieu from 1953. By 1965, Catford put forward the concept of "text equivalence". In other words, the purpose of translation is to find the equivalent that best matches the source language among all potential target languages. As long as the source language and the target language are interchangeable in the situations involved, they can be regarded as translation equivalence. "Equivalence" has always been an important concept in modern western translation circles. Eugene Nida made a comprehensive exposition on the concept of translation equivalence. In his view, the so-called equivalence between the translation and the original mainly refers to semantic equivalence, followed by rhetoric and language style equivalence.

Both automotive English and mechanical English have the common characteristics of EST, that is, word selection and translation need to be extremely accurate and rigorous. The language features of English for Science and Technology are very obvious, and English scientific literature is full of a large number of terms. Sentences are mostly long sentences with no subject or passive voice.

Therefore, the difficulties in scientific and technological translation lie in the huge amount of information in the original text, the limited professional knowledge of the translator and the handling of some proper nouns. "The writing structure and habits of English and Chinese are exactly the same. English is hypotaxis and Chinese is parataxis, which is often difficult to be compatible at the syntactic level. " (He Gangqiang) To achieve the equivalence between the translation and the original, we should not only make necessary adjustments in sentence patterns and vocabulary, but also make some necessary additions and deletions. These are all problems that scientific translation must face.

Three. Addition and subtraction of words

The differences between Chinese and western cultures are often reflected in language. For example, there are many concepts or things that China people take for granted and do not need to be explained, but foreigners need to explain them. The more important reason is that, as Mr. Fu Lei once said, the "mentality" of the Han nationality is far from that of the western nation. "Foreign languages are analytical and prose; Chinese is comprehensive and poetic. In scientific translation, the use of addition and subtraction can improve the differences between the two languages to some extent. Since English is hypotaxis while Chinese is parataxis, in order to better understand the meaning of the original text, it is necessary to add some words or delete some words in translation. In the process of addition and deletion, we must follow the principle of reciprocity. For example,

(1) Original: used for successful customer negotiation.

Negotiate prices with customers

(2) Original: Independent

Translation: independence

In the first example, the word "success" is a modifier, which is unnecessary in China's technical literature, so the meaning is deleted in the translation and the word "price" is added to realize the completeness of the translation. In the translation of Example 2, the word "sex" was added after the word "independence" to make the translation more in line with Chinese expression habits and achieve ideographic equivalence.

Fourthly, the treatment of technical terms.

Technical terms are another difficulty in the translation of scientific English. Technical terms refer to some established and unified vocabulary in a certain subject field. Some technical terms are internationally accepted, that is, their translation is fixed and unified, and they cannot be translated arbitrarily in the actual translation process. For example, in the field of science and technology, "panel" usually means "dashboard", while in the field of law, the word means "juror". Like the field of machinery, "factory" refers to factories in some companies and workshops in others, with different categories. It is necessary to clearly understand the subject domain of professional words in the text and their special meanings in a specific context, so as to realize the equivalence of ideographic functions between the translated text and the original text.

Establishing a small terminology database and using parallel texts are effective ways to achieve functional equivalence of technical terminology translation. According to the source of the original text, collecting related or similar parallel texts in the same field and establishing a small terminology database or comparing parallel texts can avoid the deviation between the original text and the translation to the greatest extent, thus achieving real equivalence.

Verb (abbreviation of verb) conclusion

China and western countries have different histories, cultures and customs. This cultural difference is also reflected in the translation of EST. In rigorous scientific and technological literature, how to eliminate the influence of cultural differences without affecting the rigor of the original text and realize the functional equivalence between the translated text and the original text is a subject that translators need to take seriously. Translators should follow the translation theory put forward by Nida and Newmark, understand the cultural differences hidden in scientific and technological texts, and try to eliminate the cultural differences by making the main information and functions of the target language and the source language equivalent in the translation process, so as to optimize the translation to the greatest extent.

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