A Report On The E-C Translation Of Talk To Me:How Voice Computing Will Transform The Way We Live,Work,and Think(Excerpt)

With the rapid development of science and technology,computers are entering a new era,an indispensible feature of which is voice computing.Voice control is obviously superior to other existing ways of human-machine interaction,for it fully exploits the most common means of human communication--natural language.Under this circumstance,this translation project selected the first chapter of the book Talk to Me: How Voice Computing will Transform the Way We Live,Work,and Think as its source text.The book popularizes voice computing,introducing its history and prospect from multiple perspectives such as business and technology.Since the source text aims at the popularization of science and technology,its translation should include both linguistic transformation and proper adjustments to its content,form and style.Therefore,with the guidance of Huang Zhonglian‘s Variation Theory,four main translation strategies were applied to certain parts of the text both within and among paragraphs,specifically,selective translation,translation and editing,translated narration,and explanatory translation.Further,selective translation included selective translation of words in clauses and selective translation of sentences in sentence groups,and translation and editing covered techniques both at the micro and macro levels.With the flexible use of these techniques,the translation project went smoothly.The significance of this translation task can be summarized into three aspects: 1)popularizing voice computing domestically;2)introducing voice computing to young people,the interested ones of whom could translate into potential recruits to related fields;3)serving as a reference for the translation of similar texts.