A Report On The English-chinese Translation Of Essential Math For Data Science(Excerpts) In Light Of Toury’s Norms Theory

The selected translation material for the report is from the book Essential Math for Data Science published by O’Reilly.This book provides a thorough introduction to the various basic mathematical knowledge required in data science.It is of interest to mathematical learners,developers and those who want to learn skills in data analysis.Chapters one to two are selected as the translation material,the first chapter covers some basic mathematical concepts,including rational and irrational numbers,integers,logarithms,etc.,and the second chapter introduces some detailed points related to probability.In the process of translation,some translation norms need to be followed to obtain an ideal translation.Therefore Gideon Toury’s norms theory has been chosen as the guiding theory.According to Toury,different norms play a role in different stages of the translation process,and these norms are subdivided into three categories: preliminary norms,initial norms and operational norms.As an informative text,the original text contains many terminologies and therefore,the accuracy of the content should be ensured.At the same time,as a book that teaches basic mathematical knowledge,it still need to draw readers’ attention,which requires the translator to adopt appropriate translation strategies in the proper contexts and under the constraints of different norms.In light of Toury’s norms theory,the translation report discusses the translation problems encountered in the process of translation from the two aspects of initial norms and operational norms.First,adequate translation and acceptable translation under the constraints of initial norms.According to Toury,translation is a norm-governed activity,and the target culture system will have some influence on translation.Therefore,while accurately dealing with a large number of professional terms and proper nouns in the original text,based on the linguistic characteristics of the original text,the translator should also ensure the acceptability of the translation in the target language culture.Second,the specific translation choice under the constraints of operational norms.Operational norms include matricial norms and textual-linguistic norms.During the translation,the translator meets the requirements of matricial norms by adopting translation methods such as addition and omission,sentence combination and segmentation,and sentence order adjustment,and meeting the requirements of textual-linguistic norms using translation techniques such as choice of diction,conversion of part of speech,change of voices,and format transformation.