A Discussion On Interactivity Between The Translator And The CAT Tools

Interest in the translator‘s subjectivity has been growing since the cultural turn which provided researchers with a new perspective to study translation. However, most researches on translator‘s subjectivity are based on literary translation, giving little attention to sci-tech translation. The computer-aided translation(CAT) tools are developing rapidly to promote the efficiency and quality of translation. The CAT tools are widely used by companies and individuals in the translation activity. With the help of computer-aided translation tools, the translator is endowed with another identity: the reviser. The translator‘s subjectivity is displayed when the translator is reviewing the computer-aided translation. Little evidence shows that the translation activity can be accomplished by CAT tools alone. The interaction between CAT tools and the translator shows that the CAT tools save much effort of the translator while the translator improves the computer-aided translation.This report is based on the translation practice accomplished by the author between October and December in 2014. Examples taken from the translation practice are employed to compare the human translation with the computer-aided translation and then to explore translator‘s subjectivity. There are five chapters in this report. Chapter one describes the translation task and introduces the workflow of CAT tools and the translation modes. Chapter two includes an overview of translator‘s subjectivity and the introduction to the translator‘s subjectivity in literary translation and sci-tech translation respectively. Chapter three illustrates the manifestation of translator‘s subjectivity, the interaction between CAT tools and the translator on the basis of two functions in Yaxin and translation techniques used in the translation practice. Chapter four discusses the limitation of translator‘s subjectivity, mainly including sentence recognition mechanism in Yaxin and the computer-suggested translation. Chapter five is the summary of this report.The source text is a sci-tech textbook named An Introduction to Data Structures. Case analysis and comparison of different translation versions are conducted to discuss the interaction between the translator and CAT tools This report is aimed at providing help to the translators who use the computer-aided translation tools.