C-E Translation Of Abstracts In Academic Papers: From The Perspective Of Functionalist Translation Theory

Background: The abstract is an important part of an article in a journal. A well-preparedabstract guides authors into summarizing more explicitly the contents of their articles,helps readers to judge quickly whether it is worthwhile for them to read the whole article,assists reviewers of articles submitted for publication to render critical judgments, andfacilitates users of electronic bibliographic databases. English abstracts play an importantrole in the transmission of knowledge and in academic communication and cooperation allover the world. In the past30years, many researchers have conducted a number of studieson the writing of abstracts from different perspectives, and have made great improvementsto the quality of abstracts in journals. However, there has been no systematic discussion onthe translation of abstracts in academic papers.Purpose: This dissertation aims to formulate principles and strategies of abstracttranslation as well as establish a model for translating Chinese abstracts into English onesusing functionalist translation theory as a framework. We hope that this research enablesChinese scholars to master the disciplines in the writing and translation of abstracts,improve the quality of journal abstracts and promote academic communication.Methods: We conducted the research with contrastive analysis, qualitative and quantitativeresearch methods:(1) Based on literature studies, we analyzed the status quo of abstractwriting studies and generalized some problems existing in abstract translation as well assummed up the major contents of functionalist translation theory and analyzed theimplications for academic abstract translation.(2) We assessed the quality of90Englishabstracts randomly selected from30natural science journals,30medical journals and30social science journals indexed by the2011Chinese Journal Citation Reports. Thesejournals chosen for this study had high impact factors (IF>1.0) and the articles werepublished from January2010to September2011. The deficiencies of the English abstractswere identified and classified under three broad categories: the writing standards, thestructure of the abstract and the language use. And then the translation principles wereexplored on the basis of skopos theory and the “rules” of ISO214-1976(E) and GB6447-86; The translation strategies were determined from the perspectives of the generic structure and the linguistic features of the abstract. A model applicable to academicabstract translation was to be established.Results:(1) The results showed that in English abstracts of Chinese academic journals,there existed such problems as abstract translation in relation to the recommendedguidelines for the writing of English abstracts, incomplete generic structures, illogic moves,as well as some linguistic problems at the lexical, syntactical and discourse level.(2)Functionalist translation theory can be used to guide abstract translation.(3)The translationprinciples are established in this study. The “three rules”, that is the skopos rule, thecoherence rule and the fidelity rule serve as “the general principle” and the “nine rules”based on (ISO)214-1976(E) and GB6447-86as “the basic principle” for translatingabstracts. By analyzing the rules of (ISO)214-1976(E) and GB6447-86, we generalize thefollowing “nine rules”: reflecting the generic features, normalization, objectivity,consistency, conciseness, accuracy, self-containedness, formality and paying attention tothe developmental trend of the use of words.(4) The strategies in the process of translationare constructed: choosing proper words and sentence patterns in each move of the abstractin translating subheadings and typical words and sentence patterns; changing the wordorder in the translation of attributes as well as adverbial clauses; using conversion(choosing one verb as the predicate, and changing the other verbs into prepositions ornon-infinitive forms); choosing verb tenses, voices and first person pronoun in accordancewith the communicative functions of the sentence and using transitional words and phrasesfor coherence.(5) A “five-procedure” translation model is built up. The model consists of“five steps”: establishing translation brief, undertaking adequate preparatory work for thetranslation, adopting an integrative text analysis model in the process of translation,translating, revising as well as polishing the draft, and checking the English version withthe checklists devised in this study.Conclusions: It is concluded that the functionalist translation theory provides atheoretical foundation for the translation of academic abstracts;“The general rule” basedon skopos theory and the “nine basic rules” based on (ISO)214-1976(E) and GB6447-86play an essential role in normalizing abstract translation; Each of the strategies at differentlevels constructed in the present study is suitable at its own level respectively; And the“five-procedure” translation model provides an explicit “schema” for translators. Limitations: The analysis of the functionalist translation theory is not as clear as it mightbe. In addition, the small samples selected for this study may not have covered all of thepossible generic structures and linguistic features of journal abstracts.Implications: This study may have some pedagogical implications for English academicwriting. On the one hand, it is essential to apply functionalist translation theory to theteaching of academic writing. Teachers, on the other hand should help college students todevelop genre awareness.In addition, we discuss, in Chapter Six, the principles of key word indexes and keyword translation. Such principles as normalization, conciseness, accuracy and consistencymight be followed in the translation of key words.