A Report On The E-C Translation Of The Bidding Document Railway Track And Structure Rehabilitation Works(Excerpts)

With the further development of the “Belt and Road Initiative”,more and more Chinese engineering enterprises join in the international competition.As a major form of economic cooperation,international bidding plays a crucial role in world trade activities.According to the international practices,the bidding documents must be prepared in English if the goods,materials and services are procured through bidding.Therefore,the translation of bidding documents is significant and may affect company’s business and image.Combining the author’s translation practice with the bidding document,this report strives to figure out specific methods of translating such texts under the guidance of functional equivalence.This report is excerpted from Railway Track and Structures Rehabilitation Works,which includes Section I,Section II and Section IV of the bidding document.Guided by the functional equivalence theory,this report analyzes various problems encountered in the translation process and discusses some solutions.Nida elaborates the functional equivalence theory from four aspects: lexical equivalence,syntactical equivalence and stylistic equivalence and discourse equivalence.In this report,lexical equivalence includes the translation of terminologies and archaic words,syntactical equivalence contains the translation of passive sentences and long sentences,textual equivalence includes the overall cohesion and coherence of the translation,and stylistic equivalence can be achieved by preserving the formal style of the source text.The findings of this report are as follows:(1)Since the bidding document is an informative text with objective and concise language,and its purpose is to convey true and effective information,Nida’s functional equivalence theory can effectively guide the translation of the bidding document.(2)Bidding documents have distinct stylistic features,which are standardized,rigorous and solemn in forms and usually adopt a fixed format.Therefore,functional equivalence theory provides a good guidance for the translation of such material.(3)In order to achieve semantic and lexical equivalence,translators can adopt effective translation methods,such as free translation,conversion,amplification and etc.At the same time,translators need to have a good command of background knowledge,relevant terms and expressions,as well as a rigorous attitude.After completing the translation report,the author can feel the difficulty of engineering English translation.However,through detailed analysis of the characteristics of lexical,syntax and other features of the bidding document,the author has figured out some problems that frequently appear during the translation process and gives corresponding suggestions.Meanwhile,the author horns his translation skills and improves his translation efficiency after completing the translation report,and enriches the translation studies in bidding documents.