A Report On English-Chinese Translation Of The Chromatec Analytic Software User Manual

Nowadays,the chromatograph is widely used in petrochemical,pharmaceutical,food processing,environmental protection and other industries,therefore,its importance is self-evident.Hence,being able to operate the device proficiently is one of the necessary skills for the relevant practitioners,which is inseparable from the guidance of the user manual.This paper takes the English-Chinese translation process of The Chromatec Analytic Software User Manual as an example,and analyzes the characteristics of source text,such as the extensive use of nominalization structure and of professional terms as well as other characteristics.However,due to the differences between English and Chinese,the author encounters some difficulties in the process of translating the source text.For instance,at the syntactic level,the components and forms of the subjects of the source text are lengthy and complex.At the textual level,the structure of the source text is relatively loose,and the connection of the text is not close enough.In this case,corresponding adjustments and changes should be made in the translation process.To solve the above problems,the author systematically classifies the difficulties mentioned above under the guidance of theme-rheme theory.At the syntactic level,the author deems that the characteristics of these difficulties are similar to those of the theme mentioned in theme-rheme theory.Therefore,with the help of this theory,the author divides the syntactic difficulties into “single theme” and “clausal theme”.At the same time,through the analysis of the source text,the author believes that for these two kinds of difficulties,the two translation techniques of “shifting” and“recasting” could be used respectively.At the discourse level,the author believes that the characteristics of such difficulties are similar to those of thematic progression pattern mentioned in theme-rheme theory.Therefore,under the guidance of this theory,the author divides the discourse difficulties into “simple linear progression pattern”,“constant theme progression pattern”,and “inductive progression pattern”.Meanwhile,through the analysis of the source text,the author believes that the translation techniques of “combination”,“ellipsis”,and “ellipsis or linear translation”could be used to solve these three problems.After the completion of the translation task,the client conducted a strict review of the translation,so as to ensure the quality of the translation.In addition,the author summarizes and reflects on the translation project in this report,hoping to provide some advice for those people who are engaged in or interested in this industry.