The Communicative Nature Of Translation

In a narrow sense, materials about military defense are concerned with military equipment, which is a practical genre which has its own peculiarities. The expressive function and the informative function are the main functions of this kind of material. Through providing the information about the knowledge of military equipment in western countries, the translation of materials about military equipment (MAME) can broaden mutual understanding and strengthen military communication with developed countries. The expressive function is the prerequisite, while the informative function serves as the ultimate goal. MAME features a communicative nature. In order to have the desired effect, the translation should be a dialogue between the communicator and the receiver.In view of the peculiar characteristics of MAME, the translation of it should be different from that of other genres. However, the rigid way of translation has resulted in unintelligible translated works. Besides, the study of the translation of MAME is a comparatively less explored area where there is a serious lack of guiding theory.In order to compensate for the limitation, the present thesis sets out to examine the Chinese-English translation of MAME from the perspective of Communication Science. Since the translation of MAME is a kind of communication, the communicative nature of MAME asserts itself into the framework of Communication Science. As a newly developed theory of Communication Science, Information Theory has great significance in the translation of MAME: it serves to provide translators a somewhat broader approach to their problems. Also, it helps translators to view translation as an intercultural communication in which all the elements that may influence the form of message are taken into account. The communicative nature of the translation of MAME is thus highlighted, a strictly purely linguistic approach to translation being avoided. This thesis purposes to apply Information Theory to the translation of MAME to improve the quality, to be specific, readability of translated works of such genre.The author of the present thesis makes a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the essential elements involved in the process of the translation of MAME—the author, the translator, the reader, message, noise, channel, feedback and effect. It is put forward that MAME differs from other genre in that emphasizes the communicative effect on the intended reader. The communicative effect cannot be realized without the reader's reception. Thus, the translator of MAME should take the target reader's acceptability into serious consideration, and a reader-centered translation orientation should be adopted. The status of the author in the translation of MAME is anonymous. While the role of the translator should be emphasized. If literal translation may result in unintelligible or unacceptable translated works, the translator is endowed with the rights to make proper modification to the original version on the condition the spirit of the original should be fully conveyed. Message—the translated version must be intelligible, and they should be transmitted to the Chinese reader in a way that they can decode. The channel by which the translation travels to the intended receivers is also an element that may influence the translator's choice. The reader's response could even be quantified as a percentage rate of the success of the translation. The translator of MAME, therefore, must be sensitive to anticipatory feedback, that is to say, being able to adjust the communication load of a translation primarily by means of anticipating in advance the likely reaction of the intended reader. There may be psychological noise if the form of the translation is awkward or unclear. In order to get the translation better understood, any form of noise that may hinder the reader's reading should be reduced to the minimum.The present thesis also takes the E-C translation of MAME to have a case study. With Information Theory as the macro-guidance, a linguistic analysis of stylistic specialties of MAME also helps in studying the microstructures of the translation of MAME.The translation practice of MAME reflects its target-readers-centered translation principle. Its translation principle and translation strategy are accord with the viewpoints of the information-theoretic approach to translation. Through a comparative study of English version and Chinese version, the author of the presentauthor makes a summary of the proper translation methods: decompression, compression and rewriting. The successful translation of MAME exemplifies the applicability of Information Theory in the translation field.