Translation Of Architectural English From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

With the deepening of the reform and opening up, China’s output value of construction industry has been expanding rapidly under the strong support and effective promotion of macro-economy during the last decade. However, behind these glorious construction achievements, such issues as imbalance of development, low level of overall management, high construction energy consumption and lack of advanced management philosophy in our industry are still an obvious gap compared to developed countries. In order to gain a foothold on the international stage, obtain a better grasp on and adapt to the international construction project management methods, China’s construction industry has to strengthen the study of foreign classic construction management philosophy. It also brings stronger demands and higher requirements for the translation techniques of Architectural English.Skopos Theory, which emphasizes on the purpose of overall translation action, requires translators to choose the most adequate strategies and methods of translation according to the purpose of translation. Integrated into the target language and culture, translation should make a positive effect in the way that target readers all expect.Based on Skopos Theory and combined with the characteristics of Architectural English, this thesis analyzes the translation process through the architectural terms, proper nouns, nominalization, methods of adding and omitting, word conversion, culturally-loaded words, passive sentences, difficult long sentences and compound sentences. In other words, by putting forward specific translation strategies and combing Skopos Theory with practice, this thesis accomplish a thorough and objective analysis of Architectural English translation. In brief, this thesis argues that Skopos Theory has an important guiding significance on Architectural English translation, which plays an irreplaceable role in practice to implement the technical operability, cultural adaptability and broad audience. The author sincerely hopes this exploration into translation practice could server as a certain reference and play a promoting part in the future Architectural English practice in China.