Translation Methods Of Attributive Clauses In Military Science And Technology Texts

The source text of this translation task is Hypersonic Weapons Background and Issues for Congress,published in July 2021,by the Congressional Research Service.This text can be classified as a text of military science and technology.The source text makes a detailed comparative analysis of hypersonic weapons research projects and infrastructure of the United States,China and Russia.Most importantly,it provides Congress with information of mission requirements,funding,management,development strategies,arms control and other aspects.The source text is standard in format,and clear and logical in meaning.There are many technical terms,organization names,and concrete data.And there are also many long sentences,complex sentences and clauses in the source text.According to the author’s analysis of statistics in the translation process,the text contains more than 30 attributive clauses which are indispensable to the English language and also of great significance to serious science and technology texts.The complexity of these attributive clause bright great difficulty to translation.The translation of this text is of significance in two aspects.First,in terms of translation practice,the source text has many attributive clauses and is highly specialized,and the structure of the clauses is complex.In the process of translation,machine translation software sometimes has problems such as the mistranslation of attributive clauses,disordered word order,inaccurate identification of antecedents,and inaccurate understanding of meaning of the sentences.Therefore,studying the translation methods of attributive clauses can make up for the deficiency of machine translation in attributive clauses,so that the translator can better understand the contents of the article.It is hoped that the summary of the translation methods generally applicable to attributive clauses in military science and technology texts could provide translation strategies and insights for future translators to improve their translation efficiency and accuracy.Second,in terms of the use of text,the translation of this text can help us to study the future weapon strategies and management thought of the United States,and also can help decision maker to accurately evaluate the current situation in relevant fields so as to put forward appropriate countermeasures,give suggestions or make strategic decisions.To better accomplish the task,the author made full pre-translation preparations.The author studied the translation methods of attributive clauses summarized by Ye Zinan,Zhang Peiji,Sun Zhili and some other famous scholars.Then the author analyzed the differences between Chinese and English from the perspectives of syntax and expression habits.And the author also studied the difference between English attributive clauses and their counterparts in Chinese from the perspective of sentence structure and function of modification and qualification.By comparing machine translation texts and manual translation texts,comprehensively considering the different situations of English restrictive attributive clauses and non-restrictive attributive clauses in terms of functions,clause position and structure,and taking into consideration the principle of faithfulness,readability,target readers’ reading feelings and other factors,the author summed up the practical translation methods of attributive clauses in the hope of providing some reference for similar types of text translation.The first method is combination: Translating the attributive clause and the main clause into one short sentence.Using the “…的” structure can retain the restrictive function of English attributives,and the translated texts should also conform to the idiomatic way of expression in Chinese.The second is division: Translating attributive clause into two sentences separated by commas.The reason for using this method is that some attributive clauses have no obvious restrictive effect on antecedents.Translating attributive clause into two sentences separated by commas will not destroy the completeness of the main clause,and can also improve sentence that is too long due to attributive preposition.The third is conversion.If attributive clauses play adverbial function,they can be translated into adverbials in Chinese that present logical relationships such as time,place,cause,result,purpose,concession,condition and hypothesis.