A Report On The English-Chinese Translation Of Abstract Nouns In Encyclopedia Of Ship Technology

The differences between English and Chinese thinking patterns and language expressions exist on multiple levels.On lexical level,abstract words are preferred to be employed in English expressions,while concrete words are inclined to be used in Chinese.Taking nouns as an example,during the English-Chinese translation,the abstract nouns should be concretized to ensure the adequacy of the translation and to conform with the Chinese expression patterns,which is considered to be one of the difficulties in English-Chihese translation.Categorized as an informative text,Encyclopedia of Ship Technology is characterized by the employment of a large number of abstract nouns.The difference in semantic structure causes difficulty during the translation of the abstract nouns,such as,the choice of the part of speech and the meaning selection and clarification of some 'homonymous or polysemous nouns.This thesis,based on Peter Newmark's semantic translation theory and communicative translation theory,conducts a case study of the Chinese translation of Encyclopedia of Ship Technology.The author of this thesis intends to explore the appropriate translation strategies to solve the difficulties in the translation of abstract nouns in Encyclopedia of Ship Technology.This thesis mainly classifies the abstract nouns that appear in the translated text into three categories,namely,adherent abstract nouns,abstract nouns of action and abstract nouns of quality.Under the guidance of the theory of semantic translation and communicative translation,this article summarizes the corresponding translation strategies,including literal translation,conversion,specification,etc.,which are applicable to inherent abstract nouns,abstract nouns of quality and some abstract nouns of action.The method proposed in this thesis basically solves the translation difficulties of most abstract nouns appearing in scientific and technological texts,and also proves that the theories of semantic translation and communicative translation have strong guiding significance for the translation of information texts.