Report On C-E Translation Of A Coating Manual:Difficulties And Strategies Of Translating Instructional Subject-absent Sentences

This C-E translation project refers to the task of translating a coating manual of Shenzhen**Coating Co.Ltd.,which is over ten thousand Chinese characters.In the process,the author encounters difficulties.Then,under the guidance of Cohesion and Coherence theory,the author writes this report after thorough analysis.The syntactic differences between Chinese and English languages generate the difficulties in translating instructional subject-absent sentences:(1)difficulty in translating instructional subject-absent sentences with direct instruction;(2)difficulty in translating instructional subject-absent sentences with indirect instruction.Guided by the Cohesion and Coherence theory,the author compares the means of cohesion and coherence in English and Chinese so as to produce on the foreign readers a natural effect as that achieved on Chinese readers.Specifically,depending on different emphasis in sentences,the following strategies are utilized:(1)in translating instructional subject-absent sentences with direct instruction,we adopt imperative sentences and infinitives.(2)in translating instructional subject-absent sentences with indirect instruction,passive voice,the pattern“It is+adj+infinitive”and additional subjects are recommended.By means of both hypotaxis and parataxis,this technical coating manual is translated so as to be accepted by target readers.Encountering the difficulties in translation and working out the translation methods provide the author with a better understanding of translation,more technical translation skills and more beneficial experience for further translation.However,this report only focuses on certain difficulties in translation,other difficulties in the translation of technical manual texts remain unsolved.