Explicitation In The Translated English Of Chinese Sci-tech Classics

Recording much knowledge of science and technology in ancient China,Chinese scitech classics are well worth exploring in the context of China’s “Going Out” strategy and “The Belt and Road Initiative”.This study sets out to investigate explicitation in E-TU Zen Sun and Shiou-Chuan Sun’s English translation of Tiangong Kaiwu that has a wide readership,with special focus on its logical connectives and the information added by the translators in the brackets.Types and techniques of explicitation are the two topics much explored in the foreign studies on explicitation in translation.In terms of the types,the most systematic classification was made by the Hungarian scholar Klaudy,who divided explicitation into obligatory explicitation,optional explicitation,pragmatic explicitation and translationinherent explicitation.In terms of the techniques,some foreign scholars have summarized a set of techniques of explicitation in such materials as literary works,interpreting and subtitling.This study builds a small-scale Chinese-English parallel corpus displaying the sentence-to-sentence alignment of the translated text of Tiangong Kaiwu.As to the logical connectives,a corpus-based quantitative analysis is made with such tools as WordSmith Tools,Tmxmall and CUC_ParaConc.As to the information added in the brackets,a qualitative analysis is made of the techniques of explicitation.Based on Klaudy’s model and with reference to the techniques of explicitation by some foreign scholars,this study builds the model for explicitation in the translated text.The model reveals Klaudy’s four types of explicitation,and the techniques of realizing each type of explicitation.The technique of realizing obligatory explicitation is tense specification.Optional explicitation is realized through six techniques,namely adding logical connectives,adding prepositional phrases,adding specific terms to pronouns or general terms,including additional explanatory remarks,adding modifiers or determiners,specifying actors,recipients,and the environment for processes or events.Adding cultural information is the technique of realizing pragmatic explicitation.The use of optional that with some reporting verbs reflects translation-inherent explicitation.The largest share of adding logical connectives and adding prepositional phrases in the techniques of optional explicitation,coupled with the appearance of logical connectives and prepositions in the high-frequency wordlist,can justify such two techniques as the feature of this translated text to a certain extent.The techniques are then found to be driven by six factors.This study has certain theoretical and practical implications.To begin with,the exploration into the types and techniques of explicitation in the translated text of Tiangong Kaiwu provides evidence for explicitation in Chinese,a non-Indo-European language,thus enriching the theory of explicitation in translation.Furthermore,the study on the English translation of Chinese sci-tech classics caters to China’s “Going Out” strategy and “The Belt and Road Initiative”.