A Methodological Study Of Patent Document Translation Based On Commissioner's Requirements

In modern society,translation is not only a language activity,but also a social service.In translation services,the translator,as service provider,tries to accomplish the commissioned task by using corresponding principles and methods in line with the commissioner's requirements.In translation of patent documents,as one of such services,the commissioner may set clear and specific requirements.Taking the translation of An Automated Banking Machine as an example,this research summarizes three principles and explores the application of “literal translation first” and three translation norms based on literal translation by combining the commissioner's requirements with general features of patent document translation.To be specific,the commissioner of this translation project sets clear requirements in line with trade standards.This report,combining these requirements with general features of legal documents and technical texts,proposes three principles to be practiced,i.e.,faithfulness,consistence and normativeness.Accordingly,priority is given to literal translation,based on which three translation norms,that is,equivalent-sought translation,initiative translation and regular translation are proposed.Literal translation is the general principle in the translation of patent document;equivalent-seeking translation is applicable to terms whose corresponding translation can be found in the target language;initiative translation is suitable for terms of which corresponding words can't be found in the target language;and regular translation can be used for the translation of phrases and sentences which repeatedly appear in the patent document.Based on the requirements of the commissioner,this study explores the specific translation principles and methods of patent documents,which aims to provide guidance for translation research and practice of patent documents from the perspective of social services.