Post-Translation Editing From The Differences Between Chinese-Western Thinking Patterns

This translation practice report draws upon the Chinese-English translation projects White Paper on China’s Compliance with Regulations on Distant Water Fishery(2020)and Regulations on Administration of Distant Water Fishery.By means of the model of “machine translation(MT)+ post-translation editing(PE)”,it studies the PE of distant water fishery policy texts under the differences between Chinese-English thinking patterns.Informative texts with accurate expressions and formal wordings are generally amenable to MT.Due to MT system’s inability to distinguish between Chinese and English thinking modes,it was discovered through this translation practice that MT texts have a major overlooked flaw of incompliance with features of the target language(TL).With Chinese-English translation as an illustration,MT texts often reflect such Chinese characteristics as continuity,subjectivity and process-orientation,which further highlights the necessity of PE.Therefore,PE has to be carried out from the disparities between Chinese-Western thinking modes for the conformity with features of the TL,so as to improve the accuracy and readability of the translated versions.The paper mainly studies PE from Chinese-English differentiations in thinking modes and language use,and holds that with full comprehension of original texts,the translator shall(1)transform continuous Chinese into discrete English by drawing the line between different contents or content levels within sentences and paragraphs;(2)transform subjective Chinese into objective English by employing impersonal style,passive voice and formal subject;(3)transform process-oriented Chinese into result-oriented English by compressing dynamic words and describing the results.It is hoped to provide some suggestions on the application of the “MTPE” model to other translation projects,so that more translators can improve the efficiency and quality of PE and raise their awareness in this connection.Especially when it comes to distant water fishery policy texts which are policy/law-oriented and informative,the focus will not only be on the editing of terms as well as lengthy and difficult sentences,but also expression patterns of the TL,thus to make them more accessible with the accurate apprehension of China’s policy on distant water fishery.