EST Rhetorical Levels And Discourse Translation

EST (English for Science and Technology) is a specific style of English widely used in scientific and technical fields. Science and technology have drawn much attention of the whole country since the late 1970's, when China started its reform and opening-up. EST plays a significant role in the course of learning new science and advanced technology from other countries, and of introducing the situation in China to the outside world as well.However, at the early stage of the study of EST, people mainly focused on superficial language phenomena such as word formation, grammatical structure, tense, voice, etc. It is only a kind of static analysis of register, which does not get to the core of language communication. Correspondingly, traditional translation theories of EST only pay attention to the translation of words and sentences and concentrate on three aspects of vocabulary, grammar and professional knowledge. These theories certainly have their own values; however, since the object of translation is usually a discourse which is an organic entity, they are prone to one-sidedness and rigidness of translation. The advent of discourse analysis offers a new way to study EST.This paper tries to use Louis Trimble's theory to discuss discourse analysis of EST, and on the basis of this discussion, it further explores the application of the results of the study to discourse translation of EST. The thesis first introduces Louis Trimble's theory. According to the EST rhetorical process model proposed by Louis Trimble, EST rhetoric exists at four levels in a piece of discourse, so it is feasible to discuss discourse from the angle of rhetoric. Then in accordance with the features of EST, it offers an analysis model and makes a study of EST discourse in detail from four aspects: core statement, rhetoric function, rhetoric technique and cohesive device. This study provides guidance for the main part of the paper in theory and method. Firstly the main part discusses the significance of the method of discourse analysis in the stage of comprehension and expression. It suggests that to comprehend three key points: core statement, rhetoric technique and rhetoric function, will contribute to a good translation of EST discourse; secondly, the part carries out the application of cohesive devices in the stage of expression; finally, it discusses discourse analysis in the checking and development of EST translation. The summary of the paper emphasizes the author's point of view again and points out that discourse analysis is significant to discourse translation.