English-Chinese Translation Of Patent Documentation:Problems And Countermeasures

Although a large number of researches on patent translation practice have been done by many translators and experts, these researches are not done on the base of systematical theories.To fill in the gap, this thesis tries to discuss patent translation under the guidance of functional equivalence. According to the functional equivalence theory, translators should give sufficient consideration to the equivalence in the translated text and make the TL readers have the same reaction as that of the SL readers. The main writing approach of this thesis is to recognize problems, analyze the problems and finally offer countermeasures to solve the problems as follows:This thesis introduces the general characters of patent documentation mainly the structures and functions of two specific patent documents, i.e. the patent specification and claim. It then analyzes the problems frequently appearing in E-C patent translation respectively. Problems occur in the use of words are dealt with the subtitles of the misunderstanding of words’ connotation, ambiguity in expression and inconformity to Chinese expressions; problems caused by misuse of translation techniques, under the improper collocation, the inflexible shift between verbs and nouns and the mistranslation of parenthesis; and finally the problems on the syntactical level under those of the inappropriate employment of voice, redundancy in expression as well as the logical mistakes due to the misunderstanding of long and compound sentences.According to the problems existing in patent translation, this thesis then talks about the linguistic characteristics of patent documentation. On the lexical level, compound adverbs in legal and documentary English, set phrases and pronouns appear very and frequently; Turn to the features of syntax, the use of passive voice, long but simple sentences and also compound sentences are toward; on the semantical level, the features lie in the widely use of common words with specific meanings, the plenty use of abstract nouns over verbs and the creation of neologism as well.Under the guidance of functional equivalence, it provides the countermeasures, i.e. the specific translation methods to deal with the problems appearing in patent translation, including literal translation, free translation and transliteration or voice shift, omission and addition, etc.The thesis draws the following conclusions:First, translators are recommended to use literal translation of set phrases, to rationalize the collocations and to adjust the word orders so as to be faithful to the source texts and make the TL readers understand these technical terms soon. Second, to make smooth expressions and reach the equivalence in syntax, translators need to shift the voices, omit the redundant information and also add logical conjunctions for better understanding. And at last, translators are recommended to adopt free translation, transliteration with footnotes and the nominalization methods to correctly convey the information of SL text so as to get to the equivalence on semantical level.This paper shows that only when the problems are well handled could the E-C patent translation realize the functional equivalence and could the target of patent translation finally come true.