A Study On English-Chinese Translation Strategies Of Engineering English Subjects

As a branch of Scientific English, Engineering English is a kind of English for specific purposes. With the development of science and technology, scientific exchanges between China and the west have been picking up speed, bringing higher requests for the technical translation. In this background, translation for Engineering English has been paid more and more attention. As we all know that subject is an important topic of language research and translation study, it is of great significance for translators, especially for the new learners, to understand the differences and translation strategies of subject between English and Chinese sentences. Accordingly, the treatment of subject also plays an important role in Engineering English translation, so it is an interesting question to summarize the transformation techniques of subject for improving the quality of Engineering English translation.In recent years, translation studies aiming at engineering texts are increasing all the time. There are a lot of translation studies for English and Chinese subject, but specific studies for English-Chinese translation of Engineering English subject are relatively few. Thus, this research topic is worthy of a further study. Under the guidance of previous research findings and relevant theories, this thesis summarizes the main differences of English and Chinese subjects from two aspects: impersonal v.s. personal subject as well as subject-prominent and topic-prominent. By a brief analysis for Engineering English subjects, its characteristics are summarized from two aspects: impersonal subject and nominalized subject. In addition, with the enumeration of typical examples, the author makes a classification of subject according to its components from single word, phrase to subordinate clause. Finally, the author concludes three English-Chinese strategies for Engineering English subject: literal translation, conversion and omission.Following the law of cognition—one should find problems from the practice and then analyze these problems on the theoretical altitude so as to guide our practice. This thesis uses the method of the combination of qualitative analysis with quantitative analysis, the author here made some analysis with statistic. It will help to understand the English-Chinese translation skills of subject in engineering texts. Under the background of rapid development of science and technology, this study is not only of some help for enriching the researches of Engineering English, especially English and Chinese subject, but also of great practical significance for improving the translation quality of Engineering English.