An Analysis Of Translation Errors In EST And Strategies For Improvement

Different from general English, EST has its own characteristics. In terms of translation, preciseness, clarity and brevity are three principles which can be acceptable. These three general principles for EST translation serve as both guidance and standards, which are applicable in the actual process of translation. There are some technical articles in College English and CET 4, 6 reading comprehension. Students make mistakes in understanding and translation due to lacking of knowledge on EST. So a new subject is emerged in College English teaching. The characteristics of EST are combined with the College English teaching in this thesis. Some constructive strategies are provided to improve the future College English teaching.In order to solve the problems on misunderstanding the technical papers, first the author gives a brief introduction on characteristics of EST including vocabulary, grammar and discourse and the criteria and skills of EST translation. Next, more than 40 freshmen and sophomores are chosen to do the translation exercises, then analyzing the mistakes in EST understanding and translation on the basis of linguistic theory, including the errors of vocabulary in the register field, the grammatical errors and mistakes in the organization by using discourse analysis, meanwhile, attributing the mistakes from the perspective of technical understanding, Chinese expression, thinking mode and ambiguity of sentence structure. On the basis of statistics the author provides improvement strategies from the student and teacher's point of view. Those constructive strategies are expected to be helpful in the future college English teaching, laying a good foundation for students in junior and senior major English learning.