C-E Translation Of Technical Terms In Bridge Design Manual

With the increase of China’s overseas contracted engineering projects, the translation of technical materials has become more and more important. Whether the expression is correct or not will surely affect the transmission of source language. This thesis takes the two sections of the second part of Bridge Design Manual as the research subject. This manual belongs to the scientific text, which is of the general characteristics of technical text, that is, including lots of technical terms, especially terms of civil engineering.Based on the analysis of the source text, this thesis will use the principle of terminology translation to select the proper translation strategies for the source language text and to correctly convey the information to the readers, i.e. the builders. This thesis, with the help of the statistical analysis of the technical vocabulary, divides the technical terms into three types, i.e. technical vocabulary, semi-technical vocabulary, and the terminological usage of common words; then it discusses three major criteria of the terminology translation, and finally it summarizes the translation methods of technical terms, and lists six translation strategies, namely translating them into adjective+adjective+noun, adjective+noun, noun+noun, present participle+noun, past participle+noun, and compound adjective+noun.Results show that, due to the reasons that the meaning of English words will change with the contents, it is not easy for the Chinese–English terminology translation. Thus, when choosing the translation strategy, the translator should consider the structural features and the content to choose the strategy flexibly. In addition, during the translation process, the translator must know the characteristics of the technical terms, and combine it with the three criteria of the technical terms translation, so as to provide a better version of the civil engineering terms. It is hoped that this thesis can provide some guidance for the translation of civil engineering texts.