A Report On Translation Of Agricultural Biotechnology Product Instructions

Based on the product instruction translated by the author during his free course project in Baixin Biotechnology Hebei Co.,Ltd.(Cangzhou),this report describes the process of the translator considering and selecting the appropriate words and sentences under the guidance of skopos theory.This translation task consists of 17 different product instructions with 11,911 Chinese characters,and the difficulties in translation are different.These product instructions not only feature usage explanations,but also function as advertisement for the manufacturer.The purpose of this report is to provide translation strategies for the translation of product instructions,especially for the translation of instructions which not only has the nature of scientific and technological style,but also plays the role of advertising.When doing this job,the translator first sorted the similar product instructions together.Then,through consultation and communication with the manager,the translator decided on the guiding ideology of "customer-oriented and text supplemented" in translation,and took Hans Vermeer’s skopos theory as the guiding theory of this translation task.This report firstly introduces the background of the task and points out that the products made in China have a promising market prospect overseas,so that there is great necessity and significance for the translation of product instructions.This report analyzes the stylistic characteristics of the instructions in this translation task and the purpose of translating them.These instructions refer to the product description printed on the product package surface,instead of the detailed manual folded in the packaging bag.The translated instructions should not only guide consumers,but also attract potential customers and gain more market share.Secondly,this report introduces the relevant background and main contents of skopos theory,especially the three rules of skopos theory:fidelity rule,coherence rule and skopos rule,among which coherence rule and fidelity rule should serve skopos rule.In addition,the author explains the reasons for the adoption of skopos theory as the guiding theory,and the way the translator completes the translation task under the guidance of it.Considering the particular feature of this translation task,the translator thinks that the translation of some special words in this translation task should be guided by the fidelity rule.The translation of some sentences,such as subjectless sentences and imperative sentences,which take a large proportion in this task,should be guided by the coherence rule.In the after-translation phase,the translator polishes the full text under the guidance of the skopos rule.The author explains how the Skopos Theory guides this translation task from these three aspects through case analysis.It is hoped that this report can provide some useful and practicable experiences for the same type of translation activities.