Practical Report On Translating Alternative Fuel Automobile Eis From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

This report is on the English-Chinese translation of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient(SAFE)Vehicles Rule(excerpt).The original text introduces the environmental impacts of the technologies and materials used for manufacturing alternative fuel automobiles during vehicle life cycle.It is written in science/technology text style,with abundant technical terms,strict logic relationships and formal expressions,bringing difficulties into the translation process.Therefore,during the preparation stage before translation,the translator consulted a large number of parallel texts to enrich background knowledge,and read research papers on the application of logic in translation,especially those involving concept,proposition and inference to strengthen the ability in text logic analysis.During translation process,the translator was engaged in solving such problems as understanding numerous technical jargons,the exact meaning of seemingly common words,the frequent nominalizations,the long and difficult sentences,and the complex logic relationships,which caused difficulties in text comprehension and translation organization.To tackle the problems encountered during translation process,the translator adopts Verschueren’s adaptation theory and the logic analysis method in comprehending the original text,and it turns out workable.From analyzing typical translation examples,the translator gains translation experience as follows.(1)For the seemingly common words but having certain meanings in the context,it’s necessary to adapt to the specific linguistic context and identify their conceptual implications.When organizing text in target language,attention should be paid to the relationships among concepts in sentences,such as the inclusive and included relationship,the contrary and contradictory relationship,etc.,so as to make the translated version logically consistent and semantically equivalent to the original text.(2)In general,nominalizations in English could be transformed into subject-predicate or verb-object phrases in Chinese in order to adapt to the idiomatic expressions in Chinese.(3)For the implicit causal sentences,the translator may apply logic analysis in deep comprehension for identifying the implied causal relationship,and then express such relationship appropriately in target language,with adding logic conjunctions if necessary.(4)Sentence restructuring is usually applicable in translating long and difficult sentences.In the process of sentence restructuring,it’s necessary to identify the trunk of the sentence first,then divide the whole sentence into several clauses and clarify the logic relationships among them,and finally reorganize them into the translated sentences adaptable to target language.(5)Scientific and technological text is of unique writing style.Therefore,the translator should follow the stylistic characteristics of the original text with the awareness of technical terminology,logic structure and text style in order to make the translation accurate in expression,consistent in logic and consistent in writing style.This report employs the method that integrates the adaptation theory and logic analysis in translation case study.The results show the guiding significance of contextual correlates of adaptability,structural objects of adaptability,dynamics of adaptability and translator’s sense of adaptation in translating informative text.Hopefully,the method used in this report may be applicable to similar translations and translation analyses.