A Report On The English Translation Of X Automobile User Manual (Excerpt) Under The Guidance Of Communicative Translation Theory

With the improvement of the quality and productivity of domestic automobile brands,Chinese automobile exports to developed countries have increased significantly.However,there are a large number of automobile texts on the market in China,and the lack of corresponding English versions has caused confusion among foreigners at various stages before,during and after the sale.Based on her translation practice of more than half a year in an automobile company,the translator chooses a 10000-word automobile user manual as the source text,and discusses the translation techniques applicable to the text according to the principle of Newmark’s Communicative Translation Theory.The translator may reorganize the sentence structure of the source text in Communicative Translation,so that the translated text comes close to the effect of the source text,and conforms to the expectations of the target language readers as much as possible.This source text belongs to the informative text within Newmark’s translation theory,and the informative text shows the target readers the various pieces of information listed in the text and the corresponding actions,thus achieving the communicative goal.Therefore,the translator must take into account the Chinese syntactic structure of the scientific and technological text in translation to ensure the accuracy and smoothness of the translation,so as to achieve an effective communicative effect.Communicative Translation Theory attaches great importance to the readers’ understanding of the source text.Therefore,before translating the source text,the translator should first get familiar with the source text,and summarize the features of the automobile text by consulting the relevant literature.Based on this,which translation theories and techniques are applicable to the translation of this type of text should be investigated.Second,the translator should study and analyze the feasibility of adopting Communicative Translation Theory to guide the translation of automobile text.Finally,the source text is analyzed by using different translation methods and techniques,in conjunction with Communicative Translation Theory in a case study,including the content of vocabulary,sentences and text,so as to obtain a more appropriate translation text.At the lexical level,there are many combination words and semi-professional vocabularies in the text.Literal translation and free translation methods are suitable for the accurate translation of these special words;At the syntactic level,active sentences are frequently used in Chinese user manuals.Given the inconsistency of narrative and argumentation processes between Chinese and English,methods such as part-of-speech conversion and sentence order adjustment are adopted to make the translation more in line with English expression habits and be accepted by the target’s readers;In addition,due to the differences in coherence and logical order between Chinese and English,omission,amplification,substitution,and sentence restructuring should be applied at the discourse level to keep the text fluent and logical.The translator hopes that by writing this translation practice report,the target language readers can better understand the structure,failure causes,and maintenance methods of Chinese cars.