On The C-E Translation Of Environmental Science Terms:A Combined Strategy Of Back Translation

Environmental Science emerged in mid-1900s in the United States.Hosts of Environmental Science terms were generated in that period.Since a majority of Environmental Science terms have their origin in English,not a few Chinese terms were translated from English.This verifies the need to take into consideration the role back translation plays when we carry out Chinese-English(C-E)translation of Environmental Science terms.Back translation,as a backward process of translation,is strongly influenced by the forward translation activity.Back translation of terms has its peculiarities.Distinct from that of poems and proper names which aim at aesthetic consistency and formal equivalence respectively,term back translation is to achieve conceptual equivalence within contexts.The present thesis carries out an empirical research on 3000+ Environmental Science terms in the NUTERM Bank,which is expected to enrich the theory of back translation in term translation and to offer guidance for translation practice.Through a thorough exploration of the term bank,we attempt to discover the existing problems in the process of back translation by having an overview of the Environmental Science terminology in its entirety.Thereafter,we have a careful investigation of all the present problems to find out the factors that exert effects in back translation.With a clear understanding of the whole influencing factors,we posit a variety of suggestions for a combined strategy of back translation in accordance with different categories of terms.After a careful study of the term bank,we have drawn the following conclusions.1)Given that the overwhelming majority of Chinese terms have their source terms in English,great significance should be attached to back translation in terminology.The reality,however,is that in the process of back translation translators tend to render terms literally,neglectful of their source terms.However,not a few non-literal equivalents,along with polysemes,synonyms,hypernyms and hyponyms are present in the term bank.A combination of free translation with literal translation is thus required.2)Form,concept and context are three major factors that exert joint influence on back translation of terms.Conceptual equivalence being the ultimate goal,we should explore the utter meaning of a certain term before restoring to the form carrying the same concept in English.The influence of context is non-negligible due to the presence of plenty of synonyms and polysemes.3)Back translation strategies vary in terms of back translation of terms of different categories,namely,back-translating to monosemic English source terms,back-translating to polysemous English source terms,back-translating to synonymous English source terms and back-translating to hypemymous and hyponymous English source terms.Literal translation applies to literal equivalents whereas free translation to non-literal equivalents.For polysemes,synonyms,hypemyms and hyponyms,situation differs from one another.Aside from conceptual factors,formal and contextual factors play pivotal roles in a variety of settings.Hence,suggestions for back translation strategy vary according to specific cases under each category.The present study observes the translation process in a backward manner,showing great regard to the source term.This descriptive study,as a supplementation of the present theory of back translation in terminology,will,hopefully,be of some help to the detection of back translation problems existent in term translation and offer guidance on theoretical consideration to the back translation of terms in other related subjects.