John Fryer's Scientific Translation And His Contribution To The Standardization Of Scientific Terminology Translation

John Fryer is an English missionary who came to China in the nineteenth century and was employed by The Translation Department of Kiangnan Arsenal as a translator in the year of 1868.During the twenty-eight years on his job,Fryer not only translated more than one hundred Western works primarily related to modern science and technology,but also made a great contribution to the standardization of translating scientific terms in modern China.Thus this thesis focuses on Fryer's scientific translation and his contribution to the standardization of translating scientific terminology.Under the guidance of polysystem theory,it attempts to work out the relationship between Fryer's scientific translation with the social background and the canonized literature in the late Qing Dynasty,and then probes into Fryer's contribution to the standardization of translating scientific terminology.Besides “Introduction” and “Conclusion”,this thesis consists of four chapters.Chapter One is the literature review of John Fryer as well as the scientific translation in the late Qing Dynasty.Chapter Two is the theoretical foundation,giving an overview of the polysystem theory and its main viewpoints.Chapter Three discusses Fryer's views on translation and his scientific translation from the perspective of polysystem which includes an overview of Fryer's scientific translation as well as an analysis of the relationship between Fryer's scientific translation and social background as well as canonized literature in the late Qing Dynasty.Chapter Four mainly deals with Fryer's contribution to the standardization of translating scientific terminology on the basis of the magazine Ko-chih-hui-pien established by Fryer,the book Mirroring the Origins of Chemistry translated by Fryer,and lists of bilingual scientific and technical terms made by Fryer.Regarding to the relationship between Fryer's scientific translation and the social background in the late Qing Dynasty,this thesis analyzes the social background in terms of the social conditions,the government's reaction and the ideological changes of that time.And a macro analysis of Fryer's scientific translation features is made to probe into Fryer's translation motives,text-selection,and his relationship with publishing agencies.Based on these analyses,it is not hard to find out that Fryer's scientific translation and the social background in the late Qing Dynasty are closely related and have a mutual influence upon each other.As for the relationship between Fryer's scientific translation and the canonized literature in the late Qing Dynasty,a micro study of Fryer's scientific translation features is conducted,finding out that Fryer's scientific translation which can be taken as a newly-established system has the tendency to introduce new elements into the target repertoire.In the way of translating and writing style,Fryer chose to follow the old patterns which show the canonized literature's influence upon Fryer,while in the translation of chemical elements,Fryer tended to create new models to finish his translation work,introducing new elements into the target repertoire.In addition,Fryer's major contributions to the standardization of translating scientific terminology is presented in three aspects:(i)The magazine Ko-chih-hui-pien he established had helped greatly with the popularization of modern scientific knowledge;(ii)the book Mirroring the Origins of Chemistry he translated had paved the way for the term translation of modern chemical elements;(iii)various lists of bilingual technical terms he made,to a great degree,had standardized the translation of scientific terminology.