A Report On The C-E Translation Of The Repair Manual Of X Vehicle (Excerpts)

In the last few decades,China’s auto industry has been developing rapidly.The total volume of car production and sales has ranked first in the world,and automobile exports exceeded 3 million vehicles in 2022.In addition to sales price,product quality and relevant policies,after-sales service is also a key factor affecting automobile exports,so the quality of the English translation of after-sales service manuals also plays a crucial role.This report is a summary of the translation practice of the second and fourth chapters of The Repair Manual of X Vehicle.The source material for the translation is an automobile after-sales service manual,which belongs to the scientific and technical text.There are many terms,abbreviations and compound words in such type of text;the content is rigorous and objective;the sentence structure is complex;and a large number of tables and diagrams are attached.The accurate translation of this text can improve the accuracy of repair operations,strengthen the quality of after-sales service and enhance the trust of the brand.The translation practice is guided by Catford’s translation shift theory which points out that translation shifts are divided into level shifts and category shifts.The former happens between grammar and words,and the latter includes structure shifts,class shifts,unit shifts and intra-system shifts,which can occur at the levels of part of speech,person,tense,voice and sentence structure.The theory focuses on content equivalence and meaning delivery rather than formal equivalence.Repair manuals are often characterized by specialized terms and abbreviations.In addition,there are also no verb tenses or singular and plural noun forms in the source text.It is also noticed that the source text often uses verbs,short sentences,prepositional attributives,active sentences,negative sentences and personal subjects.Therefore,it is possible to tackle translation issues like the English-Chinese formal non-equivalence brought on by linguistic disparities between Chinese and English by using the translation technique “shifts” from Catford’s translation shift theory in this translation practice.This translation report is divided into five parts.The first part explains the background and significance of the task and the structure of the report.The second part describes the process of the task,including the three stages of pre-translation,while-translation and post-translation.The third part introduces Catford’s translation shift theory,including its concept,development and current studies on it.The fourth part is to analyze specific translation cases from the two aspects of level shifts and category shifts in order to indicate that Catford’s translation shift theory can guide Chinese to English translation of scientific and technical texts.The fifth part summarizes the findings and enlightenment gained from this translation practice.Limitations and suggestions for future revision are also pointed out.