In the real study and work, everyone will inevitably come into contact with papers. Writing papers can improve our ability to comprehensively apply what we have learned. Still at a loss for the paper? The following is an objective and purposeful translation analysis paper of scientific English compiled by me for reference only. Let's have a look.

Analysis of Objectivity and Purpose in EST Translation

Scientific and technical personnel always start from objective things when studying and solving scientific and technological problems. How to analyze the objectivity and purpose of EST translation?

introduce

In the era of rapid development of scientific and technological information, most scientific and technological documents are in English, and scientific and technological English is an independent style. English for science and technology is mainly argumentative or expository, with concise and fluent writing, objective and meticulous, clear and concise. English for science and technology involves the objective laws of the development of science and technology and things, and has the dual nature of scientific research and popular science. Therefore, in the process of translation, in order to achieve the most effective reception effect for different audiences, translators must use correct and appropriate translation methods and strategies to accurately reflect the original text, so that researchers engaged in science and technology can obtain the closest first-hand information as much as possible; On the other hand, in the translation of popular science English, the audience is ordinary people, so we should pay attention to the purpose and explain it with fluent, objective and easy-to-understand translation methods.

First, the stylistic features of EST and its objectivity

Stylistic features of EST determine the objectivity of its translation. Stylistics is a science that uses modern linguistic theories and methods to study style, and it is also a knowledge that studies the effect of language expression. In 1970s, Halliday advocated that language should be investigated and studied together with society and people in his systemic functional stylistic model, and put forward the theory of "register". Halliday's "register" refers to the social and cultural groups that use a unique language (such as scientific English and business English). Therefore, it can be inferred that English for science and technology is a kind of English unique to scientific and cultural groups and a functional variant of modern English. The difference between general English and English lies not only in its use and meaning, but also in its words, sentences and text structure. In EST, popularizing popular science knowledge, transmitting scientific information completely, describing scientific problems clearly and expressing objective laws accurately are the basic requirements and important functions of EST. Its language structure is concise, objective and accurate. Its language and style features are as follows, emphasizing its objectivity and accuracy:

1. Passive voice is widely used. When studying and solving scientific and technological problems, scientific and technical personnel should always proceed from objective things, pay attention to exploring the internal objective laws of things, and explore and verify facts and methods, performance and characteristics. This is determined by the nature of science and technology. Therefore, scientific and technological literature will naturally adopt a large number of sentence patterns with objective things and research objects as the subject. When translating, retranslators should try to avoid using active sentences with the first and second person names or agents as the subject, so as to avoid the subjective impression caused by excessive use of such "personal sentences". Follow the objectivity of EST translation to the maximum extent.

2. The general present tense, which describes objective phenomena in English, is widely used in scientific articles, and its main value is to show the authenticity of the propositional content stated in sentences or paragraphs. Scientific articles generally run through the present tense and are used to explain universal truths, scientific definitions and theories, equations, formulas, charts and so on. The purpose is to give people an accurate "eternal concept", eliminate any misunderstanding related to time and make the writing more vivid and accurate.

3. In terms of rhetoric and technical terms, EST is used to accurately convey scientific and technological information, so that readers can accept and understand it objectively and accurately, instead of generating irrelevant associations. Therefore, in the translation of EST, various rhetorical devices should not appear frequently, and the grammar should focus on statements, and the language should be concise, logical and standardized. When it is necessary to avoid arbitrariness or express suggestions, orders, prohibitions, etc., subjunctive mood or imperative sentences are often used.

English scientific and technical terms are characterized by diverse meanings and strong professionalism, so translation must be handled with caution according to the professional content, and a little carelessness will lead to a big mistake.

To sum up, in the process of EST translation, translators should pay attention to tense voice and lexical discourse, respect the objectivity of the original text, be faithful to the original text, and maintain the equivalence between the original text and the translated text. As an important written basis of scientific and technological things, scientific and technological documents, terms and other words must be semantically accurate and thoroughly demonstrated in the translation process, and strictly follow the principle of objectivity and accuracy. For example, some people misinterpret "newly developed kinescope" (newly developed kinescope) as "newly developed kinescope"; Some people misinterpret "unique instant image system" (unique instant display device) as "unique fast image system" and so on.

Secondly, the purpose of EST translation is analyzed from the perspective of functional skopos theory.

Functional translation theory came into being in Germany in 1970s. Firstly, Katharina REiss put forward the embryonic form of functional translation theory in the book Possibility and Limitation in Translation Criticism published in 197 1. Since then, Hans Vermeer, a student of Rice, has got rid of the shackles of equivalence theory centered on the source language and founded the basic theory of functionalism: Skopos Theory of Translation. In the whole translation process, priority should be given to the text function and the text receiver.

In scientific and technological translation, translation purpose can refer to the whole translation behavior, the result of translation behavior, and also to specific translation units and translation strategies. English for Science and Technology is an informational text, which aims to inform readers of objective things and phenomena in the real world. The choice of language and text form must obey this function. However, English and Chinese have different expressions, so it is sometimes necessary to change sentence components in specific English-Chinese translation to make the translation logically correct, fluent and focused. For example:

1. Translation. In this sentence, the subject of the sentence can be translated into Chinese attributes, objects, adverbials and so on.

For example, the wing is responsible for keeping the sir plane in the air.

The function of the wing is to keep the plane in the air. (translated into attributes)

2. A large number of nominalized structures are used

For example, the rotation of the earth around its own axis leads to the change of day and night.

The earth rotates around its axis, which leads to the change of day and night.

The nominalized structure "The Earth rotates on its own axis" simplifies complex sentences into simple ones, making the concept expressed more precise and rigorous.

3. The extensive use of passive sentences

For example, you must pay attention to the working temperature of the machine.

Pay attention to the working temperature of the machine.

4. Non-restrictive verbs

For example, if there is no reason to change the motion, an object can move more uniformly in a straight line.

If there is no reason to change the motion of an object, then the object will move in a straight line at a uniform speed.

Third, the conclusion

To sum up, in the era of information revolution, on the one hand, all kinds of advanced science and technology abroad urgently need us to learn, on the other hand, with the continuous improvement of China's scientific and technological status in the world, domestic technological achievements are moving towards the world at an unprecedented speed. As a communication tool for scientists and technicians from all over the world, scientific translation plays an important role. Accurately grasp the characteristics and style of scientific and technological style, follow its objectivity, and make the translation as close as possible to the original text, and it is strictly forbidden to be clear at a glance; At the same time, master and understand the translation theory, and make a targeted and practical version from the purpose.

Extended Reading: Logic and Accuracy of EST Translation

With the development of society, scientific and technological innovation is changing with each passing day, and the application of new technologies in social and economic construction has reached a new height. With the increasing frequency of foreign exchanges, the translation of scientific English has been paid more and more attention. The accuracy of scientific English translation is getting higher and higher.

I. Definition of English for Science and Technology

English for Science and Technology is an important branch of ESP. Usually refers to the language used by scientists and engineers to objectively record the development process of natural phenomena or exchange professional opinions, information data, experimental reports, etc. The content often includes mathematical language, graphic language and so on. In wording, typical sentence patterns and a large number of technical terms are often used. These two points also determine its style: accuracy, conciseness and rigor.

Secondly, the accuracy of EST translation.

The accuracy of EST translation means being faithful to the original text, that is, expressing the original content accurately. In addition, it is also required that its words are accurate, fluent and easy to understand. Among the "faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance" advocated by Yan Fu, a famous translator in China, "faithfulness" means "faithfulness", and it is necessary to accurately and completely express the original author's ideological content. Scientific and technological documents are mostly written language, which aims to make readers easy to understand without generating too much imagination. In the process of translation, they must be rigorous and concise, never show off words, pile up gorgeous words at will, and do not require reading and chanting. Such as hot air rising. If it is translated into "Hot Wind Rising", although it combines the tradition of China's CET-4 and CET-6 parallelism, it destroys the style and rules of EST translation. Another example is:

Amplification means converting a small current into a large current without distorting the shape of current fluctuations.

(1) amplification means the transition from small current to large current, and the shape of current fluctuation is not skewed.

(2) The so-called amplification is to change a small current into a large current without distorting the waveform.

Obviously, both versions correspond to the original, but the second version is more fluent and natural, which is more in line with the essence of the original.

Thirdly, the logic of EST translation.

Logical feature is one of the important thinking features in translation activities, and it is indispensable in translation activities. The characteristics of EST make logicality particularly important in EST translation.

(A) the translation of complex sentences and long sentences

Scientific articles express scientific theories, laws, overviews and intricate relationships between things, and logically explain things, so that complex scientific thinking can only replace simple sentences with long sentences with complex grammatical structures. Therefore, in the process of translation, we can divide our thoughts into appropriate clauses according to China people's habits, so as to achieve Yan Fu's standards of "vividness" and "elegance". For example:

The moon is a completely and completely dead world, a barren mountain waste, and the sun is ruthless and angry during the day, but the cold is so strong in the long night that it far exceeds anything experienced on earth.

The moon is a completely lifeless world, a mountainous and barren land. On a hot day, the sun pours relentless flames at it, but the long cold is far from what we can experience on earth.

The structure of this sentence is complex, but the relationship is clear and logical. This sentence contains five clauses, including a main clause, three attributive clauses guided by relative words "that", "which" and "where", and an adverbial clause with so…that structure. After the main terms are straightened out. The characteristics of the moon that this sentence wants to explain are clear at a glance.

(b) Translation of short sentence groups

There are not many long sentences in EST, and the appearance of short sentence groups is more exquisite. However, in the translation of this sentence type, it is especially necessary to understand the logical relationship of the original sentence group. Sentences must be carefully scrutinized, carefully considered, and whether your understanding is reasonable according to common sense and objective truth. For example:

"The most powerful travel phone is used on the ship. There is no weight problem here, just like on an airplane. "

The most powerful travel phone is used on ships. There is no weight problem here, just like on an airplane, which is logically contrary to common sense, and it is easy to misunderstand that ships and airplanes have the same requirements for weight. The correct translation should be: "the most powerful travel phone can be used on the ship, because there is no weight problem on the ship like on the plane."

(3) Translation of words

In scientific articles, the same common English word is not only adopted by many majors, but also has different meanings. Therefore, the understanding and selection of word meaning should be combined with the situation of the whole sentence, with the help of logic and logical relations, and in accordance with the author's thinking order, to seek equivalent translation meaning. Firth, the founder of modern English school, said: "Every word is a new word in a new context." What he said is to correctly understand the meaning of words according to the context. For example:

Colonial countries should first seek the interests of colonial people, and then indirectly seek the interests of mankind.

This sentence is connected by the word "he", but the second part represents the result of colonial countries doing so, so it cannot be simply translated as "he" The correct translation should be: "Colonial countries should seek the interests of colonial people first, and thus indirectly seek the interests of mankind."

Another example is that, like any precision equipment, the method requires a monitor for nursing treatment.

The word "treatment" in this sentence cannot be simply understood as "treatment", but should be translated into the whole sentence: the gas monitor, like any precision instrument, needs careful maintenance.

Four. conclusion

From the above analysis, English for Science and Technology is not as emotional as ordinary English, so you can guess the general idea at will. Its purpose is to accurately express objective laws and clearly describe problems according to logical thinking. In the process of translation, as long as the words are misunderstood or the syntactic structure is analyzed incorrectly, the whole sentence may be completely different. The value of translation will be lost, and the economic loss will be huge or affect the development of science and technology. Therefore, the accuracy and logicality should be strictly controlled in the process of EST translation, and the translator's considerable technical knowledge and background can ensure the accurate expression of the original information in EST.

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 realize the functional equivalence of scientific and technological 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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