On Grammatical Metaphor In EWST And Its Translation

In early 2011, the No.1 Document issued by the Central Government emphasizes that great efforts should be made to strengthen water conservancy construction in China. Research on technical translation of English of Water Conservancy Science and Technology (hereinafter referred to as EWST) becomes very meaningful under this historical context. In this thesis, the phenomenon of grammatical metaphor (hereinafter referred to as GM) in EWST discourse is thoroughly analyzed and translation methods of GM are summarized. It is an active exploring of the effective approaches for the translation of English of Science and Technology (hereinafter referred to as EST) and a rewarding attempt on the study of translation of EWST.GM, a metaphorizing process occurring in grammar perspective, intensifies the density and information content through packing. The widespread use of GM in EWST discourses causes difficulties in comprehension. In this thesis, Halliday's theory of GM is applied as theoretical foundation and Maritime Structures as textual object which is one of the most representative foreign standards of water conservancy projects. Only through correct unpacking and translating of these grammatical metaphors, can the text be correctly understood. The thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter One presents a literature review of the theory of GM. And a diachronic description of GM is given, especially that of Halliday. The conceptions of"packing"and"down in rank"are put forward as the most important means to generate GM. Chapter Two presents the status of EWST and its translation of the past and the present. The research on translation of EWST is important but seriously insufficient. Moreover, mistakes in translation practice are listed. Chapter Three presents an investigation into the phenomenon of GM in Maritime Structures. Through sampling analysis, seven main types of GM in Maritime Structures are explored, including nominalization and adjectivization respectively sharing 67.6% and 24.3%. Nominalization and adjectivization have their own typical lexical expressions and syntax structures, and they function as promoting cognition, presenting interpersonal relationship and carrying information. Chapter Four tries to solve how the phenomena of GM in EWST discourses are translated. Translating process can be divided into two stages, namely understanding and reconstruction. Unpacking GM or grammatical demetaphorization is operated in the process of understanding. While in reconstruction, information unpacked and grammatically demetaphorized are reorganized into Chinese according to the principle of temporal clause order. Meanwhile, translating methods of GM, which have been discussed in Chapter Three, are summarized and analyzed.