Study On The Translation Of Technical Term Definition

This project report is on the translation of the Wetland Glossary from English into Chinese.The original text presents the academic concepts and definitions of wetland science,covering diverse fields such as sea waters,estuary,river,lake,marsh,reservoir,pond and paddy field,etc.Like other technical dictionaries,the text is characterized by numerous academic terms,specialized professional expressions,strict sentence organization and complex logical relationship,which calls for high-standard translation.In the process of translation,the translator encountered the main problems as follows: 1)the difficulty in finding the proper Chinese words for the lack of readily available corresponding expressions due to the fact that wetland study is at early development stage;2)the difficulty in text comprehension partially for being unfamiliar with wetland science and partially for the difference in definition expressions between English and Chinese;3)the difficulty in analyzing the complex logical relationship found in the original text;and 4)the less-than-professional wording in target language not conforming to the style of dictionary.In order to tackle with these problems,the translator examines the strategy and methods applicable to the translation of academic definitions from English into Chinese,according to the commonly-used seven defining methods: the stipulative definition,lexical definition,theoretical definition,precising definition,operational definition,definition by genus and difference,and extensional definition.Through comparative analysis of different definitive expressions and characteristics between Chinese and English,the translator gains the following translation experience.Firstly,in English definition by genus and difference,the concept of genus is usually preposed and the restrictive component is postposed(i.e.genus+difference),but the Chinese definition order is reserved(i.e.difference+genus).Generally,in case the restrictive components are short in the sentence,the genus could beput at the end of sentence by the method of translation in reverse order.The sentences with long restrictive elements could be divided into clauses,then the attributive clauses and/or non-predicate verb structures could be translated into independent Chinese sentences.Secondly,the cause-effect relationship in Chinese is usually expressed in sequence of the causes before results,but in English the results may be put ahead of causes.In this case it is necessary to adjust the word order.Thirdly,the application of logical analysis to translation process is very useful in deepening the comprehension of the original text as well as in improving translation quality.Understanding the logical feature of various definition methods is helpful to analyze the sentence and/or proposition structure to extract the key information for making it clear and prominent in target language.Finally,in logical perspective of concept definition,the translation project report attempts to explore the logic principles and translation techniques applicable to translating scientific definitions,hopefully setting examples for the translation of similar texts.