E-C Translation Of Verbs In Chemistry Texts From The Perspective Of Functional Translation Theories

English of Science and Technology, one of the biggest language variants in English,has been widely studied on its linguistic features on either macro or micro levels. Whilesharing all the common characteristics with general English, and other genres in Englishof specific purposes, it owns unique features which distinguish itself from the others.As one of the fundamental components in this big family, English for Chemistry andChemical Engineering, also called English for Chemistry in this study mainly for the sakeof brevity, is largely framed by a productive nature of the discipline itself. Unlike otherbranches of EST, this category is dominated by nouns, a vast amount of nominal nouns ofchemical substances, which is continually increasing by0.6million annually, while mostof them merely serve a professional function.Verbs in the chemistry text, on the other hand, are applicable in either English forChemistry or English for other purposes, which enables them with different contextualmeanings. In this study, Functionalist view is resorted to in explaining different translatingchoices of verbs, in an eye to give considerations to both linguistic paradigms of Englishof science and technology for professional scholars, and a sense of appeal to generalreaders who use chemistry texts, since texts targeted at chemists and related scholars areconspicuously different in diction from those at general readers or readers with basicknowledge of the discipline. Thus starting from this point of view, the author has exploredverbs in English for chemistry and their translation techniques in a functionalist approach.This study first was led by a pilot study, analyzing one verb that frequently appears inchemistry texts and this serves for later analysis on verbs. In the texts that mainly targetat readers who are either professionals in this field, taking chemistry-related work as dailyroutines, or academic scholars who are devoted to laboratory experiments and researchfindings, verbs are objective and concise in their translated version, while in the texts witha general purpose such as monographs of a particular branch of chemistry, and coursebooks of English of chemistry and chemical engineering, and sometimes instructions of aparticular product from chemical process, verbs are entitled to inform as well as appeal,with an emotive technique. Functional translation theories, as the name suggests, look at the functions of thetranslation and translation process, and serve well, by its core theory: Reiss’ text typologyand Vermeer’s Skopostheorie, in justifying principles and analysis explained in this paper.And the author also believes that Functionalist view in translation of verbs in chemistrycan be further applied in classroom teaching of English for chemistry.