A Translation Report Of Patent Specification On Flotation Equipment

Patent, as an intangible intellectual property, has represented the innovation level of anation by integrating technical, legal and economic information. As the core content of patent,patent specification discloses the invention information, protects the intellectual propertyrights of inventors, guides practical industrial operations as well as improves technical level.With the acceleration of globalization and frequent international communication betweenChina and other countries, a growing number of foreign patents are entering China, thus thetranslation of patent specification hold great responsibility.Based on the translation project of patent specification accomplished by the author andunder the guidance of Nida’s functional equivalency theory, this translation report exploresthe translation of U.S. patent specification on flotation equipment from lexical, syntactic andtextual levels. Great emphases are placed on the in-depth analysis of the characteristics andcontents of U.S. patent specification and necessary preparations done prior to actualtranslation. Chiefly, on lexical level, literal translation is put forward to deal with technicaland legal terminologies and other strategies, such as noting, transposition and diction arementioned. Particularly, easily ignored functional words (e.g. articles and conjunctions),plural forms of nouns and some frequent adverbs applied in patent specification are suggestedto adopt the methods of amplification and diction. Besides, a series of effective translationstrategies are provided on syntactic level, including the reference to parallel text for modelingtranslation and linear translation of commonly used sentence patterns and fixed phrases drawnfrom the patent specification; drawing-aided translation to deal with long sentences; syntacticrestructuring by means of inversion, explicitness change, conversion, division and combination to cope with compound-complex sentences. To achieve textual equivalence interms of cohesion and coherence, addition and repetition are proposed.The objective of this report is to summarize the translation project of U.S. patentspecification on flotation equipment and discuss effective translation strategies in patenttranslation from the aspects of functional equivalence and personal experience. The authoraims to improve the translation efficiency and further inspire translators.