Translation Strategies And Methods Of Civil Engineering English From The Prospective Of Interpretive School Theory

With a rapid development in international economic exchanges, more and more technical documents, such as contracts and bidding documents, need to be translated. Chinese translation of civil engineering English plays an important role in global communication. Such documents are of a formal, rigid and objective style with a priority to practicability. The quality of the translation often influences the staff’s understanding of the project and its operation.Civil engineering English falls in the category of English for science and technology, and it constantly changes along with the development of modern science and technology. It plays an important role in spreading new science knowledge and offers readers objective, exact and authoritative information. We know as a cross-cultural activity, translation involves understanding of the original text and encoding of the target language text.This thesis is based on the English-Chinese translation of three civil engineering documents with about 15,000 Chinese characters which were finished in translation company during the author’s internship. By analyzing the translating process, the author has found that further insight into the scientific article in rigid style is needed to be free from the fetters of the form of the original text. English-Chinese civil engineering English aims to transmit messages from the source language and to make the target language text understood and accepted. All these are in line with Interpretive School’s theory of meaning equivalence:translation is a communicative activity with the purpose of conveying communicative meaning. Language is a carrier of thoughts and culture. For translators, after comprehending what the source language talks about, they should get rid of the shell of it and try to express the content of the text in target language. Therefore, the theory of Interpretive School can act as a theoretical guide which is beneficial for the studies on translation of civil engineering English.With the guidance of Interpretive Theory, this thesis, which is based on the case studies, combines with the characteristics of civil engineering English to discuss the corresponding translation strategies and methods. It includes of four chapters. Chapter One introduces the research background, research significance, research contents and thesis structure. Chapter Two concerns with literature review about the definition of civil engineering, characteristics of civil engineering English, and relevant perspectives on Interpretive Theory pertaining to civil engineering English translation. Chapter Three is the main part of the thesis. From the aspect of Interpretive Theory, this chapter discusses the translation skills applied in civil engineering English, such as transcription, zero translation, comprehensive translation, amplification, omission, shift of part of speech, adjusting word sequence, and so on. Chapter Four summarizes the study of thesis, puts forward suggestions on preparation before translation and supplementary tools, and points out the deficiencies and limitations of this thesis.During the translation of civil engineering English, translators should seek balance between accomplishment of translation purpose and requirement of client. In this translating process, the author holds that the goal of the translation task is to offer the target readers with exact, brief and standard scientific target text.