The Rules and Principles for the translation of Scientific English 科技英语翻译.doc

the rules and principles for the translation of scientific english1introductionthe scientific english emerged in the 1950s (feng mei，2000：13) it was the outcome of the rapid development of science and technology after world war. since the 1970s, the scientific english has drew attention from all over the word and led to much research among different nations. with more and more science papers published in english, the scientific english, and a major variety of english, which is different from the daily english and literary english, has emerged as the times require with its own typical characteristics. and now it has become a quit important language variety.the scientific english generally refers to both written language and spoken language about science and technology. it includes scientific books, papers, reports, experimental records and schemes; various scientific intelligence and scripts; the practical scientific handbooks (operative means including instruments, machines and tools); scientific films, videos and sound materials with the caption, etc. an important and perhaps surprising feature of scientific english is that its normal style is common to both written and spoken communication (liu biqing，1998: 132)the scientific english has its own characteristics such as high-level specialization, new concepts, complicated structure, simple and clear language, more declarative sentences, extensive use of the passive voice, many complicated and long sentences, etc. compared with other literary forms, it has higher-level scientific nature, organization, accuracy and closeness.2. features of scientific english 2.1 the vocabulary of scientific english with rapid and remarkable advances in modern science and technology, an increasingly large number of english technical terms have arisen in our daily life, giving rise to a new genre of register with vocabularies outside the range of ordinary educated man scientific english.the development of science and technology provides an extremely abundant vocabulary for scientific english. this is also the main and most essential source of the modern new words.the most remarkable characteristic of scientific english is extensive use of technical terms. there are several characteristics of scientific english vocabulary. 2.1.1 specialization of the words in common use technical terms are used widely in scientific english. a great number of them come from the words used commonly in our daily life. but they have strict technical meaning in scientific english. scientific english borrows words in common use to explain the professional technical concepts. this was called “building by imagination” in semantics.。after careful research, we will find that the new meaning origins from the basic meaning of a word. it is the extensive meaning of “pattern” and “gauge”. chinese is different from english in this aspect. in chinese, new meanings give rise to new words.2.1.2 one word with multiple meanings polysemy is another characteristic of the scientific english vocabulary. one word with multiple meanings means that many may adopt a common-used word subjects or has different meanings in one subject. for example, “transmission”, in radio engineering, it means “传送” or “播送”; in mechanics, it means “传动” or “变速”; in physics, it means “透射”; in medicine, it means “遗传”, etc. but there is no such a word with multiple meanings in chinese for science and technology. besides these two, there are several other word-building methods for scientific english vocabulary. that is what we will talk about next.2.2 word-building of scientific english there is no special requirement for the translation of scientific english in comparison with general english except wording and characteristic structures. from the respect of linguistics, the vocabulary of scientific english was formed by way of functional shift, borrowing, deriving, compounding, acronym, blending and so on. the word building methods include compounding, blending, affixation, acronym and borrowing. beside, there are some other ways of word-building like clipping, back-formation, coinage, functional shift and borrowing from the foreign words. 2.2.1 affixation affixation is an important way of coining new english words and technical terms, with prefix and suffix as inseparable elements of the words being coined. the advantage of affixation is evident: it is the most flexible means of forming new words and its potential of creation is almost boundless, therefore it is extensively used in the formation of technical terms. besides prefix and suffix of english origin, there are some foreign borrowings, noticeably the latin ones, e.g. mini- (微) ，bio- (生命、生物) ，thermo- (热), electro- (电), aero- (空气), carbo- (碳), hydro- (水), -asis (表示疾病), -mania (狂热), etc. if we are familiar with these prefixes and suffixes, many technical terms can be translated appropriately. we can use the translation method of transplant. here are some examples. minicell= mini + cell minicrystal= mini + crystal reagency= re + agency microbicid= mocro + bicid 2.2.2 compounding compounding is the way of combining at least two words to form a new word(liu biqing, 1998: 135).english technical terms formed by compounding generally take three forms: with a hyphen； compounds without hyphen, e.g.: with hyphen with no hyphen splashdown hot-press waterleaf pulse-scaler software hot-press greenhouse pick- up lunch box 便携式计算机, aircraft carrier 航空母舰, space cell 太阳能电池, space junk 太空垃圾 most of such compound words may be translated literally, i.e. put the chinese equivalents of separate elements together and we get the chinese equivalents of the compound words. sometimes, however, there are exceptions. for example, bulls eye (靶心), cat and house (航向与指挥的), dog house (高频高压电源屏蔽障), etc. literal translation in tackling such terms may lead us astray. therefore whenever we are confronted with unfamiliar terms and are not sure of their meaning, we should frequently consult dictionaries of relevant specialties. in many cases some additional expressions are needed to make the original meaning clear and accurate. 2.2.3 blendingblending is a variant of compounding, omitting the latter part of the first word and clipping off the first of the second word (liu biqing, 1998: 239). the translation method of transplant can be used in this case. e.g. contrail=condensation+ trail smog= smoke+ fog telex= teleprinter+ exchange medicare= medical+ care gravisphere= gravity+ sphere in many compounding words, either the first part or the second part of the overlapped word could be a full monosyllabic word or disyllabic word. e.g.: zincode= zine+ platicode escalift= escalator+ lift copytron= copy+ electron generally speaking, this blending of words possesses the combined meaning of both; therefore, literal translation is used in translating such terms, with one element modifying the other. blended words are used more commonly in the scientific english than in other language texts. people with a professional knowledge of science think that it is easy to understand the meaning of the original word by imagination. e.g.: biorhythm is compounded with biological and rhythm, and it means “生理节奏”, etc. blending, in a way, can be considered as another form of compounding. 2.2.4 acronym an acronym is a word made up from the first letters of the name of something. since it is very convenient to use this brief form, acronyms are widely adopted in english technical terms. with the rapid development of science and technology, more and more acronyms are extensively used in various fields; therefore, it is up to the translator to discern their actual meaning in different context. aids acquired immune deficiency syndrome 艾滋病 wto world wide trade organization 世界贸易组织 cdma code division multiple access 码分多址 cia central intelligence agency 美国中央情报局besides the above ways of word-building, there are some other ways to form technical terms in english, such as clipping, borrowing, back-formation, coinage, functional shift and so on. in whatever circumstances, the discrimination of the original meaning and the contextual analysis are of vital important. only we can an accurate understanding of them, can we put them into chinese exactly as they actually mean.2.2.5 proper noun many of the technical terms in english are borrowed from proper nouns such as names of people, places, firms, trade marks, organizations, and so on. in such cases, consulting relevant dictionary will be of great help. transliteration is usually adopted in dealing with such terms, and at the same time, labels that indicate the nature of such words are added to the corresponding translation. john f. kennedy 约翰f肯尼迪 bill clinton 比尔克林顿 ibm systemibm系统 washington 华盛顿 vietnam 越南 2.3 general use of nominalization2.3.1 nominalization a nominalization is a noun phrase that has a systematic correspondence with a clausal predication, which includes a head noun morphologically related to a corresponding verb.english is static, and nouns are frequently used to replace verbs, while chinese is dynamic, using more verbs in a single sentence. as a comprehensive language with abundant variety in morphology, english has many strict rules for the predicative verb to scientific english restriction its variety. for example, one sentence is permitted to have only one predicative verb. so many nouns in english are changed from verbs. by this, nominalization came to be used commonly.2.3.2 nominalization in scientific englishcompared with general english, noun phrases are more frequently used in scientific english. when expounding the scientific english, points out that the nominalization is one of the characteristics of the scientific english. the scientific english should have a simple and direct style of writing, very objective ideas, accurate contents, and plenty of information and facts. this is because scientific literature contains more abstract concepts such as definitions, principles, laws, conclusions, etc., and manifold modification and scientific english friction are required to elaborate these concepts or ideas. as the semantic meaning of a noun phrase that consists of several words is usually complicated, the translation should go beyond the surface structure. 2.4 extensive use of the passive voice the passive voice is used when focusing on the person or thing affected by an action in scientific english. it is often used in scientific english where the object of the action is more important than those who perform the action. for example: we have produced over 20 different models in the past two years. changes to: over 20 different models have been produced in the past two years.in the passive voice, the subject of the sentence is neither a do-er nor be-er, but is acted upon by some other agent or by something unnamed. if the agent (the performer of the action) is important, use by for example: tim wilson wrote the flight to brunswick in 1987. tim wilson wrote changes to:” the flight to brunswick in 1987. the passive voice is especially helpful (and even regarded as mandatory) in scientific english such as scientific or technical writing or lab reports, where the actor is not really important but the process or principle being described is of ultimate importance. science and technology documents put emphasize on recounting and reasoning. the readers pay their attention on the ideas and contents in the texts. in order to achieve objectivity, the passive voice is widely used in scientific english. in accordance with the different language situation, the passive sentence can be translated flexibly into the active form or just be kept in passive form. in chinese, the passive voice usually is expressed by “把” and “被”. the passive voice in chinese is less commonly wider used in comparison with the english on account of the flexible syntax of the chinese language. therefore, when dealing with english-chinese translation, we should avoid sticking to the original pattern, and try to convert the passive voice into various “active” patterns.2.5 the long and complicated sentencesin scientific english there are always a great mount of usages of long and complicate sentence, the understanding and translation of these long and complicated sentence take great importance in the process of translation. 2.5.1 extensive use of long and complicated sentence in scientific english when dealing with the complex concepts, the long and complicated sentences are used more frequently in scientific english than the general english. this is decided on the characteristics of scientific english. the definition, laws, theorems, concepts or the techniques in scientific english must be accurate and precise. so the sentence in scientific english has many modifiers, qualifiers and additional elements. this makes the sentence long and complicated. sometimes, a sentence could be as long as a paragraph. extensively using long and complicate is a remarkable feature of scientific english. the long sentence in scientific english is complicated and hard to read and understand. translating long and complicated sentence is perhaps the most difficult in english-chinese translation. the prerequisites for correct handling of long and complicated sentences in english-chinese translation lie in the correct comprehension of the logic and structure of the original sentences. the usual method adopted in translation is cutting the sentence into several short and simple sentences. we should recognize the ideas and the layers of the structure of the original sentences. then we reset the elements of the sentence in chinese version to make sure it is up to chinese expressive way. the method normally employed for free electronics to be produced in electron tubes is thermionic emission, in which advantage is taken of the fact that, if a solid body is heated sufficiently, some of the electrons that it contains will escape from its surface. 2.6 more non-finite forms of verbs the non-finite forms of a verb have no tense, person or singular plural. the infinitive and present and past participles are the non-finite parts of a verb; to do; doing; done. as a mentioned before, scientific english requires simple and clear expression and close structure. so scientific english frequently uses non-finite forms of verbs instead of attributive clauses and adverbial clause, using independent structure instead of adverbial and parataxis clauses, using infinitive phrases instead of kinds of clauses or using pronoun + verb-ing forms instead of attributive clauses and adverbial clause. these make the sentence short and striking. today the electronic computer is widely used in solving mathematical problems having to do with weather forecasting and putting satellite into orbit.numerical control machines are most useful when quantities of products to be produced are low or medium; the tape containing the information required to produce the part can be stored, reused, or modified when requiredtranslating this non-finite of verbs, we can use translation methods referred above, such as converting passive voice into active voice, converting the ing form into verbs, etc. 3. brief introduction to translation 3.1 what is translation?translating is rending from one language into another, i.e. the faithful representation in one language of what is written or said in another language. translation covers a very broad range. some people believe it is a science, others take it as an art; and yet many consider it a craft or rather, a skill. nida, a famous american translator, says that translation is not only an art, a technique or a creation of literature but also a science. if the word “translation” refers to a subject, namely, the study of translation theory and skills, it is no doubt a science, just as any subject is, with its own rules, laws and principles for the translator to abide by. 3.2 principles of translation the main principles of translation are faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance which were first proposed by yan fu in1898. the scientific english, which will be discussed later, emphasizes particularly the principles of faithfulness and elegance.3.2.1 literal translation and free translation literal translation and free translation are two familiar approaches of translation. the so-called literal translation, laterally speaking, means, “not to alter the original words and sentences”; strictly speaking, it strives “to keep the sentiments and style of the original”. for example, crocodiles tears(鳄鱼的眼泪), chain reaction(连锁反应) and gentlemens agreement(君子协定) are translated in a literal way.free translation is an alternative approach which is used mainly to convey the meaning and spirit of the original without trying to reproduce its sentence patterns or figures of speech(比喻). for example, the following are translated by acting on the approach of free translation: adams apple(喉结), at sixes and sevens(乱七八糟), it rains cats and dogs.(大雨滂沱) do you see any green in my eye? (你以为我是幼稚可欺的么?). literal translation and free translation are relative concepts. in other words, there is no absolute “literal” or entirely “free” version in the practice of translation. they are usually adopted simultaneously in the process of translation.4. some approaches of translation of scientific english the translation target of scientific english is scienti