Use Of RST Tool In Translation Of Environmental Impact Assessment Guideline

The Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) is the text of science and technology category which features long and complicated logical structures, imposing difficulties in comprehension and translation. Therefore it’s important for translators to analyze the logical structures between clauses and identify that they are semantically and logically equivalent. In this thesis original document is the EIA Technical Review Guideline:Non-Metal and Metal Mining, which defines the requirements for EIA document preparation in mining industry, including EIA process, public participation, project and alternatives description, environment setting, potential impacts, monitoring measures and environmental management plan etc.. The text shares the typical characteristics of science and technology documents with complicated text organization, so the author attempted both the traditional translation strategies and the rhetorical structure theory and RST Tool in the translation process. The latter is particularly used to classify and analyze the typical relations and provide faithful translation.Logic is the essence of language which hides behind words and embedded in structures between clauses of different relations. Rhetorical structure theory is a major aspect of analyzing the connection and cohesion in texts and it is widely used for discourse generation and structure analysis. RST Tool is a graphical interface for marking up text structures developed on the base of rhetorical structure theory. Connected by the theory and marking up tool, this thesis proposes the general procedures for rhetorical structure analysis in sci-tech translation:(1) Reading the whole text thoroughly and identify logical structures between clauses. (2) Using the RST Tool to draw a diagram. (3) Translating the text. (4) Checking the original and translated version from both semantic and logical aspects.The measures are applied in the translation of EIA Technical Review Guideline:Non-Metal and Metal Mining and the result turned out satisfactory. In conclusion, it is of great significance to apply the theory and its analyzing tool in science and technology translation.