Functionalism In Engineering Project Translation

Cooperation in the area of engineering technology and management is one of the most important and common phenomena in international collaboration. Sino-foreign cooperation in this area started a quite long time ago and with the fast economical growth and a further open policy it will be more and more comprehensive. Nowadays in China, those significant engineering projects that are characterized with a huge capital investment, complex technology, high risk and long construction term, generally go for an international open invitation to bid so as to introduce foreign advanced technology, management methods and financial support.Needless to say, translation plays an important role in international collaboration; however, due to the fact that source texts of engineering project translation (EPT) are featured with a broad variety, tremendous quantity of information, strong specialty, being purpose-oriented and time-specific, traditional translation theories, which came into form on the basis of practical translation of classic lections and literature works, and which are basically source-oriented and linguistic and tend to suggest translation strategies and methods upon analysis on grammatical, semantic or other linguistic features of the source text, are found impotent to guide practical operation in EPT and even put the translator into dilemmas.Contrary to traditional theories, Functionalism of"German School", which rose in 1980s, is target text-oriented, viewing the purpose or function, i.e. Skopos as the top rule guiding the translation action, stressing the important roles of the translator and other participants, entitling the translator to adopting flexible strategies or methods in achieving the function of the target text. As it provides translators with applicable theoretical basis for solving many problems which can not be tackled by traditional theories and with confidence and improvement of professional skills as well, Functionalism should be familiarized by more scholars and practitioners and popularized with its application.This thesis purports to introduce Functionalism and demonstrate its application in engineering project translation. It consists of four parts. Chapter 1 briefly outlines the present situation and tendency of Sino-foreign cooperation in the area of engineering technology and management, and the importance of translation in EP. Meanwhile it points out the insufficiency of traditional theories, the applicability of Functionalism in EPT, the significance of this study and the author's intention as well; Chapter 2 goes with a historic overview of Functionalism and a detailed introduction to its two fundamental theories, i.e. the theory of translation action and Skopostheorie; Chapter 3, the key part of this thesis, deals with the application of Functionalism to EPT, beginning with explanations of the basic aspects of EP, translator's duty, characteristics of source texts, adoption of strategies and methods, ending with examples for practical operation in EPT; Chapter 4 makes conclusive comments on advantages and disadvantages of Functionalism and traditional theories in EPT and finally suggests the qualification for an EP translator.