A Report On E-C Biomedical Science And Technology Text From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

As the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe impact on global development,people are paying more attention to information on fighting viruses or diseases in the biomedical field.Therefore,biomedical science and technology texts from the Cloud 596 project are selected to meet the demand.Taking English-Chinese translation as an example,the author discusses the translational action of this kind of text under the guidance of adaptation theory.The linguistic adaptation theory proposed by Verschuere,holds that language is a choice made by speakers from various choices to meet the needs of communication.Language has three characteristics: variability,negotiability,and adaptability.The adaptation theory has four research directions: contextual correlates of adaptability,structural objects of adaptability,dynamics of adaptability and salience of the adaptation processes.The three features of the language permeate the four research directions,providing more possibilities for translation,a cross-cultural communication activity.This practice report is carried out from the four research directions.Although the style of biomedical texts is objective and concise,context constrains the meaning of words.It needs to extend the meaning of words under the strategy of literal translation or free translation during the translation process.The translator also needs to clarify the logic in discourse,recognize its referential relations,unify the deixis and ensure the cohesion of the text to meet the request of contextual adaptability.For the structural objects of adaptability,translators can adapt to language structures by techniques such as turning words into sentences,disassembling sentences,and active and passive conversion.Neologism often emerges in biomedical texts,causing semantic vacancy.The dynamics of adaptability could create equivalent semantic words based on the variability and negotiability,while remaining the rhetorical features.The salience of the adaptation processes displays in whether the translation is correct,and whether the expression is smooth.In other words,the cognition of the translator,no matter it is intentional or unintentional,will affect the translation text,which consequently affects the acceptability of target language readers.It is hoped that the solutions proposed in this report will provide reference and guidance for future translation of relevant texts.