A Report On C-E Translation Of Science Thesis Abstracts

As an indispensable part of science theses, English abstracts play an important rolein international scientific communication and collaboration. The quality of an Englishabstract not only affects its opportunity of being searched, quoted or included byinternational scholars as well as academic institutions, but also concerns thetransmission of China’s scientific achievements. Therefore, to explore C-E translation ofscience thesis abstracts is of high research value.The functionalist translation theory encourages translators to employ translationstrategies and methods flexibly according to the type and skopos of the translated text tomaximize its communicative functions. Chinese science thesis abstracts belong toinformative text, whose English translation, on one hand, provides the main content ofthe thesis accurately, concisely and normatively, and on the other hand, must accordwith the lexical, grammatical, syntactical and discourse characteristics of an Englishabstract, so as to increase its readability. Text typology theory and the three principles ofthe skopos theory, the opening and core of the functionalist translation theory, provide atheoretical foundation for the flexible choice of translation strategies when translatinginformative text, which, therefore, are particularly appropriate for science thesis abstractC-E translation.Based on the translation of58pieces of science thesis abstracts, this paper, fromthe aspects of vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure and discourse, explores theguiding significance of the text typology theory and skopos theory in science thesisabstract translation—for the purpose of maximizing the communicative functions ofEnglish translated abstract, the translator should flexibly employ appropriate translationmethods and strategies (such as omission, addition, conversion, division, cohesion, etc.)in accordance with the characteristics of English science thesis abstracts. This paperaims to provide reference for future C-E science thesis abstracts translation, improvingthe quality of the translated version accordingly.