Application Of Nominalizations In The C-E Translation On Technical Characteristics Of Electrostatic Precipitators

There are such typical stylistic features of scientific discourse as conciseness, accuracy, preciseness, formality, objectivity, logicality, etc. in “Technical Characteristics of Electrostatic Precipitators”, which determines the importance of application of nominalizations in the discourse. Nominalizing is a basic resource of building English scientific discourse and nominalization refers to a noun or noun group in a clause which is converted from any element or group of elements with the functions of information compression, impersonalization and text cohesion. Appropriate application of nominalizations will make the target text conform to the stylistic requirements of the source text, whereas ignorance of its application may result in the colloquial text with loose structure, lack of logicality and rationality in the language.The thesis begins with a brief introduction to the stylistic features of scientific discourse and the requirements to the C-E translation for Science and Technology. And then the theoretical basis of the study, i.e. the definition, classification and structure of nominalizations, is illustrated mainly from the perspective of the Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar. The current domestic research and existing problems of nominalization are also discussed in the following. To solve the problem, the thesis further analyzes the key roles of nominalizations acted as in the scientific discourse and proposes three corresponding translation principles, i.e. the principles of conciseness, objectivity and coherence, each with one example to illustrate. Finally more translation practices are exemplified to show how to convert Chinese into English nominalizations. More specifically, the same semantic elements of process, attribute, circumstance and relator in Chinese can be identified and firstly translated into their congruent forms. Then these forms can be again converted into nominalizations in accordance with the experience structure of nominal groups, i.e. Deictic+Modifier+Noun+Qualifier.In conclusion, the application of nominalization from the perspective of Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar into scientific C-E translation can make the target text conform to the features and stylistic requirements of English scientific discourse, not only increasing the logicality, rationality and objectivity of the text, but also beneficial to the generalization of knowledge which accelerates the spread of science and technology. It is a basic skill that the translator needs to proficiently apply nominalizations in C-E translation, which especially plays a key role in scientific C-E translation.