A Report On The Chinese Translation Of The User Manual Of UNHT~3 HTV Under Nord’s Text Analysis Model

In 2017,The Austrian company Anton Paar produced a mechanical equipment named UNHT~3 HTV(High Temperature Ultra Nanoindentation Tester),which is widely used in biotechnology and aerospace fields in China for providing precise technical support for scientific research.In April 2018,the author was authorized by Yi dashun Translation Co.,Ltd.to translate the seventh edition of the manual of the UNHT~3 HTV from English to Chinese.UNHT~3 HTV as a mechanical instrument,its user manual has the typical characteristics of informative text.First,the user manual contains a large number of professional terms.Besides,This user manual contains plenty of typical sentence patterns of informative text.The source text not only possesses numerous sentences with the imperative mood and passive voice,but also contains plenty of long and difficult sentences.Finally,compared with the mechanical terms and typical sentences translation,the translation of numerous non-linguistic elements in this source text such as illustrations make this translation task more difficult.Through reading translation studies of parallel texts and information texts,the author decides to use Christian Nord’s translation text analysis model as the theoretical guide.The theory combines the target language and the source language,not only considering the faithfulness of the translation,but also considering the functionality and communication of the translation.Under the guidance of Christian Nord’s text analysis model,this report describes four processes of pre-translation preparation,source text analysis,translation strategies adoption and post-translation revision.Through source text analysis of extratexual factors and intratexual factors,the paper summarizes three types of translation difficulties,which are the translation of mechanical terms,typical sentences and non-linguistic elements.In addition,according to the language characteristics of the original text,the author summarizes the translation strategies for mechanical user manuals,that is,two translation strategies of documentary strategy and instrumental strategy.Finally,the report analyzes 15specific cases under Nord’s text analysis model and concludes 9 translation methods,namely equivalence,selection,sequence,inversion,division,transformation,amplification,extension,and sound-meaning combination translation.According to these nine translation methods,the translation task has been finished successfully.This report is in line with the author’s personal translation practice,aiming to provide useful experience for other translators in the Chinese translation of mechanical user manuals.