Towards A Physical Approach To Translation Studies And Practice

As a leading subject of natural science,physics,with its sphere ranging from universe to basic particles,has become the foundation of other natural subjects.Physics and translation,seemingly two disciplines without any connection,are actually two intersecting lines in disguise.If we go deep enough to explore and extend these two lines in space,we will be able to see the intersection of them,which is philosophy.It is philosophical views that make it possible to work on the interdisciplinary study between physics and translation.In its early stages,physics is also known as natural science.Actually,physics is a subject which includes lots of quintessential thoughts and theories of philosophy.The fundamental laws and rationales of physics have been widely used in economics,sociology,engineering science and so on.In the same way,those laws and rationales can also be applied to translation study and practice,because the interconnecting principle of dialectics tells us that everything is connected with each other and the whole world is a linked entity.Although physics is a pure science subject and translation is a pure art subject,I believe the fundamental laws and rationales of physics can also be widely used in translation practice and study.This thesis will discuss some important laws and rationales which boast reference value of philosophy,such as Occam’s Razor principle,it says that if you have two competitive theories that make the same kind of prediction,the one which is simpler is better;law of inertia,which stipulates an object will remain at rest or in motion at a constant speed in a straight line unless it is acted on by an unbalanced force;Lenz’s law,which stipulates an induced electromotive force always gives rise to a current whose magnetic field opposes the change in original magnetic flux;uncertainty principle,which says we cannot know the position of a microscopic particle and its speed at the same time.In this thesis,I will delve into the philosophical connotations of these physics principles,and then apply the philosophical significance of these principles into translation case analysis and translation practice.I believe that these physics principles and their philosophical connotations and philosophical views can serve as ingenious ideas to translation studies and translation practice and promote their development.