Aesthetic Tropism In The English To Chinese(E-C) Translation Of Technical Documents

As the translation study goes further, great achievements have been made. At the sametime, the relationship between translation and other disciplines become closer. Aesthetics hasbeen long connected to translation both in theory and practice. Yet, studies in translationaesthetics focus on literary translation. With the rapid development of science and technologyand deepening communication between different countries, English for Science andTechnology (EST) and its translation has been a hot topic in the field of modern translation.Many scholars have concentrated on the EST translation from the perspectives offunctionalist translation theory, Skopos theory, cross-cultural communication theory,translator’s subjectivity and cognitive linguistics. However, the study of EST translation fromthe perspective of translation aesthetics is relatively few. Translation of technical documentsis an important branch of translation of EST. In China, there are some scholars who applytranslation aesthetics to EST translation. They put forward that there are aesthetic values inEST and have done researches on the means to reproduce beauty in EST translation. Theirstudies can provide implications to the study of aesthetics value in technical documents.Aesthetics is the study of beauty while technical documents are featured with compactstructure, strong logic and high accuracy. In general, people will assume that the two havenothing to do with each other. Is there any relationship between them? Does any aestheticelement exist in technical documents? If the answer is yes, and how the beauty is reflected intechnical translation and how to reproduce them in translation practice? This is the focus ofthe thesis. Through literature review, analysis, induction and illustration, the thesis Probesinto the interrelationship between technical documents and aesthetics.Based on previous studies on translation aesthetics, this paper attempts to applytranslation aesthetics to E-C translation of technical documents. At first, the conception oftranslation aesthetics is elaborated and its origin is displayed in China and Western countries.And then technical documents are analyzed from lexical, syntax and discourse levels. Afterthe analysis of technical documents from linguistic perspective, the properties of technical documents are summarized from aesthetic angle. The characteristics, such as accuracy,conciseness, orderliness, fluency and integrity, can give a wonderful reading experience tothe target readers. At last, the way to reproduce aesthetics value is explored from theperspectives of aesthetic subject and translation techniques respectively. As the aestheticsubject, the translator is the master of translation process. Based on the above discussion andstatements, it is aimed at gaining implications on translation of technical documents.