A Study On C-E Translation Of Abstracts In Scientific Technology Thesis In Light Of Functionalist Translation Theory

Abstract, as one of the most important parts in academic papers, can not only help the readers quicklyknow the main content of the academic paper but also make the process of documentation retrieval much easier.Therefore, it plays an important role in academic communications. As the academic communication amongcountries is more frequent than before, a large number of academic papers and research reports are written andpublished. In order to make the English readers understand the content of the research, the academic paperswhich are written in Chinese should be equipped with English abstracts. Because the English proficiency ofresearchers is uneven, the quality of translated English abstracts in China fails to satisfy the need of the readers.For nearly30years, most of scholars have fixed their attention on abstract writing and translation from theperspective of linguistics, which plays a positive role in improving the quality of abstracts, but few scholarsstudied the C-E translation of abstracts from the perspective of translation systematically.This paper intends to explore the existing problems in translated abstracts of environmental master thesesthrough the application of German functionalist translation theory as its theoretical framework, it especially usestext typology theory of Reiss and skopos theory of Vermeer in discussing the principles of abstracts translationand improving the method of translation. According to text typology theory, the main purpose of abstract is toconvey information, so it belongs to informative text. According to skopos theory and its three principles, on thebasis of conveying the information of source text, the abstract translators have to consider readers’ acceptabilityand the accuracy of the information conveyed, rather than completely imitate Chinese abstracts to achieve rigidequivalence. The purpose of this research is to help translators master the principles of translation and improvethe quality of abstract translation of masters’ theses and promote academic communication.This study adopts the method of documentation; it summarizes and analyzes the domestic research statusof abstracts of environmental master theses and the problems existing during the process of abstract translationin CNKI from2001to2010. Meanwhile, it analyzes and discusses the guiding function of German functionalisttranslation theory in abstract translation. In addition, this paper also adopts descriptive method, case study,qualitative and quantitative researches. Some typical cases among thirty abstracts of environmental mastertheses will be selected randomly from CNKI; they will be analyzed and discussed according to the generalprinciples and criteria which should be observed during the process of abstract translation.This thesis consists of six chapters: chapter one introduces the research background and points out thesignificance of this study; the literature review of previous study on abstracts will be given in Chapter two; the third chapter is about the theoretical framework of functionalist translation theory; the research questions will beproposed in chapter four; chapter five will analyze and discuss the existing problems, which is regarded as themain part of the thesis. The final conclusion of this research will be given in the last chapter.Through analysis and discussion, the paper indicates that the abstract of environmental master thesisbelongs to the informative text and proposes the principles for abstract translation, that is: the objectivity, thestandardization, the readability and accuracy; also the paper proves that the German functionalist translationtheory can provide theory basis for this kind of abstract translation and guide translation of such abstracts.